It was fun while it lasted, but sadly our Seasonal Vacation must come to an end. With the aid of our superflame, we make short work of our adversaries and tie up all of our pending loose ends.
And once all pending tasks have been cleared, we’ll be free to relax and soak up a few rays at Dragon Shores. Spyro’s been dying to go their since the start of the trip, and it’s about time we indulged our little dragon pal.
As I said on stream, I had been thinking about Ripto as a villain for this game, and specifically what he’s done. Obviously he’s a bad person and a massive jerk, but when I took a moment to look at the actual list of misdeeds to his name, I had to pause.
Because, at the end of the day, Ripto didn’t actually do a whole lot that warranted the response from Elora, Hunter, and the Professor that he got. His list of “crimes” include:
- Squatting in three occupied castles
- Stealing the power crystal
- Retaliating after Elora and co, and Spyro, attacked him
Unlike the other two Spyro games, none of the local problems are caused by Ripto or his forces. He’s not even shown interacting much with the denizens of Avalar one way or the other. In other words, they are local problems that would have existed whether or not he came to Avalar in the first place.
I’m not saying this in some silly attempt to claim he’s not a villain. However, I will say that the game could have done a better job selling his villainy and what exactly he was doing to cause damage/trouble. This is even weirder when one considers that he’s become the “rival” villain for Spyro, with the most returning appearances with Enter the Dragonfly and the Crash Purple/Spyro Orange crossover games. Gnasty Gnorc probably deserves that distinction, and yet Ripto is the one people think about.
But I suppose that has more to do with the games than the characters. And on the subject of games, we’ll keep on the old PS1 platformer nostalgia train next week with Crash 2: Cortex Strikes Back.
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