Preston Ward Condra Ranks All 101 Spyro 1-3 Levels

by Preston Ward Condra

A project I made when I was 15 years old, during my sophomore year in High School in September 2009. I critiqued and ranked every single level from Spyro the Dragon, Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage and Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon in, one consolidated project from worst to best. It doesn't matter if you agree with my opinion or not. All that matters, is that this ended up getting finished.

4. 99: Crawdad Farm

I found the four main bonus based Sparx levels from Spyro 3 to be decently enjoyable to play through for what they were for and were a nice break from the main gameplay focus from the rest of main full 3D levels from Spyro 3. I liked how the Sparx levels were taken down from a overhead prospective and controlled the main gameplay, 2D style and controlled by movement from the L1, L2, R1 and R2 buttons on the PS1 controller in which controlled very well along with the movement to move Sparx via by the Dualshock Thumb Sticks.

So while in fact that I found the Sparx bonus based levels to be very enjoyable to play through, why do I have Crawdad Farm ranked last out of the Sparx based levels and ranked in the bottom 3 full Spyro levels from Spyro 1, 2 and 3? Because of such compared to the rest of the Sparx levels and that goes for importantly on Bugbot Factory and Starfish Reef, I found Crawdad Farm to be overly simple and at times repetitive in terms of gameplay to play through. I understand that Crawdad Farm is the beginner based level of the Sparx levels but, it would have been nice like some of the early based levels in the beginning based sections in the main Spyro levels have a simple, somewhat hard and complex level design where Crawdad Farm had simple, easy and at times boring level design to play through compared to rest of the Sparx based levels from Spyro 3.

During most of the time I was playing through in Crawdad Farm, all I usually did was using the L and R triggers or Dualshock Thumb Sticks to move around Sparx in the area collecting the gems and whenever enemies can up to me, I used circle, circle and circle to no end until the enemy was down and moved away from the enemy targeting over me whenever I ran out of ammo and attack back when I received enough ammo to take out my enemies.

Compared to the rest of the Sparx based levels, where I had to think out of my movement and attacks on my enemies when I playing through Crawdad Farm, I really didn't have to bother playing through Crawdad Farm with much thought and get from Point A to Point B as the simplest way out of any level ever made from the Spyro PS1 Trilogy and if you think about it that way for levels as simple as Crawdad Farm, it's nothing more then a fairly forgettable level. Even the big bad lobster as a boss battle to face of in this level, was simple as cake and a disappointing end to a Spyro level from the three Spyro PS1 games.

Overall in such of what I think for Crawdad Farm, it's basically a very forgettable and too easy to remember by and definitely not the most entertaining level from the Spyro PS1 Games. The level was good for what it was worth such as getting us started into the Sparx based extra levels from Spyro 3 but other then that, not the most rewarding and enjoyable level to play through and is easily out shined by other main based levels from the Spyro PS1 Games and out shined even by the other Sparx based levels.