As the winter chill sets in, and snow starts to fall on the ground, what better time to continue our Seasonal Vacation in the realm of Avalar with our good buddies Spyro the Dragon and Sparx the Dragonfly.
With the permanent superflame, we're sure to have a significantly easier time helping the various citizens we encounter along the way.
As you may remember from the last stream, we were contemplating whether or not we should continue with the superflame power up I earned through getting 100% on my own time, or if I should reset the game, redo the progress from the previous stream, and proceed with a normal playthrough. Ultimately, I decided to keep the current run and continue to use my "New Game+" benefit. I could say that it's because we couldn't completely recreate the save since we abused superflame a few times, but truth is I just want to have fun with it.
But even discounting our little bonus, there's still plenty to soak in when playing through Spyro 2. Having reached Autumn Plains, I can finally talk about just how much I love that home world. Out of all the hub worlds from the original trilogy, Autumn Plains was always my favorite. Most people would choose to spend time off at a tropical beach or resort town, but I've always had a natural inclination to the mild temperatures and warm colors of Autumn. I'd glad choose to spend time resting in a place of perpetual Fall.
The background music for Spyro 2's home worlds adds to that feeling. When combined with the lack of enemies or obstacles and the overall atmosphere, this level always makes me feel at peace when I'm navigating in. The palace section also feels like the kind of place one could take a tour of or display a gallery of artwork or historical artifacts, which only furthers that sense of tone. Hearing the rustling of the wind at the top of the tower, overlooking the whole map and drinking it all in is the image that comes to mind the instant I think of this game, so it was a treat seeing it redone in HD.
Which brings us to the fun fact that was discussed in this episode. It's obvious that all 3 home worlds in this game are themed after seasons: Summer Forest, Autumn Plains, and Winter Tundra. For this reason, it was always assumed that there was a fourth planned home world that never made it into the game. The other "supporting evidence" for this theory was that there were 4 speedways, Autumn Plains getting two of them, with the assumption being that one of them was to be used for this "cut" 4th hub. In a twitch stream of Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon, it was confirmed by the dev team that this "cut world" never existed in the first place. The plan was always to be 3.
This hasn't stopped fans for continue to spread the rumor, of course. Last I heard, there was even a fan project to create this "Spring Savannah", but the most recent video I could find on this subject was from March 2018, so I don't know what happened to it: Whether it released or the team had to discontinue the project for some reason.
And lastly, as promised, here's a clip of the original Turtle Soup challenge from the original PlayStation version of the game. As you can see, the top down perspective can make it difficult to line up the charge so the turtles move away from the pot. The new perspective, combined with our permanent superflame ability, makes this challenge significantly easier in the Reignited Trilogy, something I'll be silently thankful for.
But I'm also grateful for all of you, who read these posts and watch my videos and streams, because you decided to spend your time with me instead all of the other distractions competing for your attention. Thank you so much, and I hope to see you as we continue our adventures with the original PlayStation's unofficial mascots.
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