A little purple dragon gliding over Avalar, and a wave of nostalgia rising all at once.

No gut pick in the data, so let us look at the detail. And there, one strength snaps: attachment places Spyro 2 ahead of nearly nine games out of ten, on few votes but it is high. Fun follows, above the average. Desert island and rediscovery hover around the middle. Then the drop: art direction falls to the very bottom, behind almost every other title, and the soundtrack stays low too. That is the real tension of the game: it is loved deeply, you are viscerally attached, but the period visuals do not win over a present-day eye.

Against modern 3D platformers, the gap is expected. Spyro 2 comes from the first PlayStation, its look has aged where the affection has not budged. What the visual criterion measures is not what carved this game into memory.

So who is it for? For you if you grew up with this dragon, if attachment matters more than textures. Much less if you judge first on visual shine and nostalgia does not speak to you.