Spyro 2: Season of Flame

Spyro 2: Season of Flame is a platform game released for the Game Boy Advance in 2002, and is the sequel to Spyro: Season of Ice.
==Story==
Spyro, Sparx, Hunter and Bianca return from their vacation on Dragon Shores after having helped the Fairy Realm. When they arrive, they are informed by an elder dragon that an army of Rhynocs, led by Ripto, have attacked the Dragon Realms once again and have stolen the fireflies. Without firefly magic, dragons can't breathe fire, replacing the fire for ice, thus making the realm colder. After retrieving all 100 fireflies around the Sunny Plains, Celestial Plains and Starry Plains (learning how to breathe lightning there) and other worlds with the help of Hunter and Bianca, helping Agent 9, Sheila and Moneybags and defeating Crush and Gulp, Spyro and Sparx finally arrive at Ripto's Volcano defeating him and return fire breath to all the dragons.
==Realms==
Spyro is playable in most worlds. In certain worlds, either Sheila or Agent 9 will be playable instead.
===Sunny Plains===
*Country Farms
*Shamrock Isle
*Temple of Dune
*Tiki Tropics
*Minty Mines
*Canyon Hop
*Alpine Adobe
*Crush (Boss level)
===Celestial Plains===
*Candy Lane
*Haunted Hills
*Winter Mesa
*Watertopia
*Rumble Jungle
*Lunar Ledges
*Arctic Outback
*Gulp (Boss)
===Starry Plains===
*Moon Fondue
*Gypsy Road
*Dreamy Castle
*Volcano Vaults
*Ripto's Mondo Volcano
*Ripto's Volcano (Boss)
==Dragon Draughts==
After beating the story, a new option is available to the player: Dragon Draughts. This game mode is essentially a game of Checkers with a dragon Elder. Spyro and Sparx will play against the Elder. Each of the Elder's pieces look like the Elder's head, while all of Spyro's look like his head. The opponent will mimic the player's moves for a couple of rounds, and will then make its own decisions. The game is over when either you, or the opponent, can't move any pieces, or when all of the pieces on one side are gone. When the game is over, you are offered a chance to play again. Choosing "no" will result in bringing the player back to the main menu.
==Development==
Digital Eclipse scoured the message boards for user feedback on Spyro: Season of Ice, and this resulted in a sizable list of changes and improvements to be added in Season of Flame. In addition, the development team had come up with their own improvements. Season of Flame was originally planned to be something more like an RPG, but time constraints (with a month less than they had for Season of Ice and the team having fewer programmers) gave Digital Eclipse no choice but to stick with a formula similar to Season of Ice.
Despite the imposing time constraints, the team was expected to reuse the isometric engine in the sequel. However, the engine was a complete mess, in that it was almost entirely hard-coded for Season of Ice. Reusing the engine was risky, since the original programmers who wrote it were no longer on the team. The current team made the hard decision to throw it all away, redesign it, and rewrite it from scratch, prompting them to work harder on the project. This turned out to be the correct decision, and despite months and months of long, hard hours of work, Digital Eclipse managed to finish Season of Flame on schedule.Games I've Worked On - USA: Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs (GBA).
==Reception==
Spyro 2: Season of Flame received generally favorable reviews from critics. Sam Steinberg of GameSpy praised the game's "challenging and varied gameplay" and "colorful graphics."GameSpy.com - Review. (Date Posted - Oct. 15, 2002). GameSpy. Anise Hollingshead of GameZone, while criticizing the game's short length and the "sameness" of the minigames, said that it is "a great game for everyone in the family".Spyro2: Season of Flame Review - Game Boy Advance. (Date Posted - Oct. 10, 2002). GameZone. Craig Harris of IGN and Frank Provo of GameSpot have declared that the game was superior to its predecessor in a number of areas.Spyro 2: Season of Flame Review. (Date Posted - Oct. 10, 2002). GameSpot.Spyro 2: Season of Flame Review. (Date Posted - Oct. 10, 2002). IGN.
Four-Eyed Dragon of GamePro cited the "tricky controls" as the only negative point of the game, saying that "the digital directional pad doesn’t allow for smooth diagonal movement, which Spyro does a lot in each world."'Spyro 2: Season of Flame Review. (Date Posted - Oct. 11, 2002). Gamepro. Ben Kosmina of Nintendo World Report also found fault in the controls, stating that they have not improved from Spyro: Season of Ice and that it is "still incredibly awkward trying to control him while gliding, as he'll go zooming off all over the place with the slightest touch."Nintendo World Report - GBA Review: Spyro 2: Season of Flame. (Date Posted - Apr. 6, 2003). Gamepro.
Game Informer, while concluding that exploring the worlds was enjoyable, said that "the jumping portions of the game are still a little iffy, and I killed myself quite a lot from misreading the view". Scott Alan Marriott of Allgame ("All Game Guide" at the time) cited that the graphics, humor and puzzles were "engaging enough to warrant a purchase for devotees of the purple dragon", but added that the game would benefit from better controls and more varied objectives.Spyro 2: Season of Flame - Review. allgame. Nintendo Power noted that the game was presented in the same style and shown from the same isometric perspective as Spyro: Season of Ice. Martin Taylor of EuroGamer cited "boredom" as the game's major flaw, saying that nothing in the game "really makes you want to carry on the story through to its end because none of it is particularly fun."Spyro 2: Season Of Flame. (Date Posted - Nov. 27, 2002). Eurogamer.
==See also==
*Spyro 2: Season of Flame/Cheats
==Trivia==
*Unusually, the music for the credits in this game is the music for Haunted Hills in the Celestial Plains Realm. In other Spyro games, the credits have their own music.
* The title of this game is opposite to that of Spyro: Season of Ice.
==References==
Category:Games
Category:Spinoffs