3/5 ★ – ReverieVagabond's review of Spyro 2: Season of Flame.

Building upon the foundation laid by Season of Ice, Season of Flame introduces some new elements such as stages featuring Sheila and Agent 9. However, I feel like the game plays worse than the first one did. The way Spyro's collision works feels off, making it easy to fall off the stage while rounding a corner too close to the edge. This isn't helped by the layer system being a bit buggy, with gems getting stuck and falling off moving platforms when they're seemingly parked at a platform. These problems, unfortunately, extend to the new stage types. For the most part, they work fine. Agent 9 takes on a side-scrolling shoot 'em up playstyle that works decently until you try to 100% the stage. In that case, the issue of screen crunch that both Season of Ice and Flame have is amplified immensely. It's very easy to overlook a branching pathway in one of his stages. My complaints aren't helped by the fact that his final stage caused the game to crash multiple times, although I'm not certain if it was truly the game's fault or the emulator's. Sheila's stages take on a more grid-based approach. You move around from tile-to-tile typically finding something you're supposed to stomp on to advance the stage. The problem with this? The game seems to be unsure of how to treat the controls. See, since Spyro isn't locked to a grid, he moves exactly how you expect despite the isometric perspective. Up moves you up, left moves you left, right moves you right, you get the deal. Sheila doesn't really have a proper up; just up-right, up-left, down-right, and down-left. Typically with these perspectives, the solution is that you have to imagine the d-pad is rotated slightly. Unfortunately, it seems like the devs tried a different approach and it seems like the d-pad attempts to adapt to your last movement. So unless you're using a joystick, there's a pretty decent chance that you have to fight the game to get you to where you want to go. Despite all my nitpicks, the game is fine overall. I still hold the same opinion I did with Season of Ice where it's a pretty forgettable experience, but I'm sure I would've been all over this as a kid. If you're wanting to play through all of the Spyro games: give this a try. The limitations of the GBA may have affected this game heavily, but I wouldn't say it's outright bad. If you're not wanting to play through all of the Spyro games and are on the fence: just skip it.