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.

83. 20: Dark Passage

I said it numerous times in for multiple previous write-ups for other Spyro levels I already ranked in for the countdown and I will say it again. In such this is the Spyro PS1 franchise we are talking about, I LOVE to play through levels in this series that are creative, unique, original, challenging, balanced and most importantly fun and this so can be said for Dark Passage from Spyro 1. In thanks to how much I personally found to be enjoyable from this level as much so out of the last few levels there are left from this great series to rank on, easily ranks Dark Passage somewhere in the Top 20 levels of such in my countdown.

The biggest main gameplay element that follows in of Dark Passage that I found and why I find it to be such an amazing level overall and one of the best levels out there from Spyro 1 is of the player has to master on a mixture of patience and skill to complete the level from start to finish.

For most of the main level design of Dark Passage, you have to flame down on the fool like elf enemies of the level that you have seen in earlier levels out there of Spyro 1 and have to cause them to turn into lights in order to take down the yellow dog and black turtle like enemies in baby form as when the lights burn out whenever the elf feels like it, the dog and turtle enemies turn big and attack on Spyro whenever one glare is got on them to the player and cause the player easily to die on. I felt this main gameplay gimmick in of Dark Passage was creative and fun within the main design of the level and challenging in fun ways as there isn't much out there of the like from the Spyro series overall in. The level gimmick of Dark Passage was a nice mix out there and it earns more style unique points out there as there is no other level out there from this series.

Another main level design of note that I loved from Dark Passage being one of my overall favorite levels out there is how there was a nice amount of variety to follow and explore in of the level such as taking down multiple paths of glides in this level leading the players to more unique enemies to face off with and this includes the weird but entertaining evil cupid fairies to take down in of the level. In for it's main level design that make it a very fun level, it also makes up for being a unique level in general for the types of enemies you come in contact in for Dark Passage which isn't said overall out there for most levels out there from the entire Spyro PS1 Trilogy.

So with so much original style sticking out of the main level design of such out there for Dark Passage, easily earns it a high ranking of honor out there in the countdown and enough so to rank in the Top 20 of such Spyro levels out there from all three Spyro PS1 games.