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"Okay, no problem! I'll collect a few Talismans, give Ripto the old hotfoot, and be in Dragon Shores by lunchtime!"
Spyro the Dragon

Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! (Spyro 2: Gateway to Glimmer in European languages) is the second Spyro the Dragon game, released on the PlayStation in 1999.

Spyro and Sparx, weary of an ongoing storm in Artisan World and eager for sunshine, head through a portal to Dragon Shores for a relaxing vacation. Meanwhile, in the world of Avalar, the Professor, Elora the Faun, and Hunter the Cheetah tinker with their own portal, seeking a fearsome dragon to oppose Ripto, an evil sorcerer with a grudge against dragons determined to take over Avalar. Unwittingly pulled into this new world, and eager to resume his sunny getaway, Spyro sets out to rid Avalar of Ripto and his minions.

This game, along with the first game and Year of the Dragon, were remastered on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch with updated graphics as a part of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, with the latter two ports coinciding with the franchise's 20th anniversary.

Not to be confused with Spyro 2: Season of Flame.


Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! contains examples of:

  • 100% Completion: Collecting all 10000 gems and all 64 orbs awards a permanent Superflame power-up in Dragon Shores. It can even be used in a New Game Plus.
  • 11th-Hour Superpower: The final battle has Spyro and Ripto make use of super charged orbs to use new abilities, and the final one gives Spyro an infinite fly/fireball ability.
  • Ability Required to Proceed: In stark contrast to its predecessor, where Spyro has all his abilities from the start, this time he needs to learn three abilities to proceed across certain points (diving, climbing, and headbashing).
  • Accidental Murder: In the outro of the Magma Cone level, the fauns are having a party and one of them tries to give a high five to the faun next to him but accidentally pushes him into lava. After realising what he did, he gently pushes the dead faun's party hat into lava to avoid suspicion.
  • Action Bomb: The Metropolis level has pigs with rockets on their backs, who try to explode into Spyro.
  • All Animals Are Dogs: Crystal Glacier features a mission in which you must help feed a snow leopard fishes, after which it will follow you back to its owner. If you stop moving at this point, the leopard will sit down like a dog and begin to purr.
  • All There in the Manual: The beta version of the game featured unique narration for each of the level intros, with Elora explaining to Spyro that the antagonists of each world were hired or manipulated by Ripto to help him take over.
  • All the Worlds Are a Stage: Dragon Shores features characters from several previous levels.
  • All Flyers Are Birds: There are "pterodactyls" that look like birds, grasp like birds, and make hawk-like noises.
  • Alliterative Title: The subtitle, "Ripto's Rage".
  • All-Natural Gem Polish: The Glimmer level features giant polished gems sticking out of the ground.
  • All Trolls Are Different:
    • The Electrolls of Hurricos look vaguely rodent-like. Also, they don't have eyes.
    • The Cloud Temples trolls are waddling heads.
  • Ambiguously Human: Handel and Greta, the two kids in Scorch- they look human, but in the cutscene after you leave, their eyes glow red...
  • American Kirby Is Hardcore: The American version is subtitled Ripto's Rage!, and its cover-art features Spyro standing in action pose with a smirk on his face in front of a wall of flames. The PAL release, however, has the more otherworldly subtitle Gateway to Glimmer, and sees a somewhat less-smugly smiling Spyro running towards the camera with an enemy behind him and a sunlit yellow mountainous background. This extends to the back of the game case, where the American version is branded with the tagline "Mess with this Dragon and Feel the Burn!", and a bulletpoint list informing the buyer of the action-packed gameplay features, while the PAL version gives a short synopsis of the game's plot.
  • Animal Jingoism:
    • The Breezebuilders and the Land Blubbers, which are based off of birds and grubs respectively, are at war. Spyro helps both sides to get their respectives talismans.
    • The elephant/snail enemies of Mystic Marsh will gladly trample their rhino-type counterparts before going after Spyro.
  • Animal Mecha: The metal sharks from Aquaria Towers, and the mechanical bugs from Robotica Farms.
  • Antagonist Title: Played straight for the American version where the title is Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage and the Big Bad is named Ripto. Averted in the European version where the game is called Spyro 2: Gateway to Glimmer.
  • Anti-Frustration Features:
    • Using Triangle to end a glide will now cause Spyro to hover, giving him a small height boost before falling. This provides you far more leeway when gliding between platforms.
    • In Zephyr, the flight curve of at least two Cowleks is scripted when Spyro shoots them across a cliff, so they will always pass the cliff and never fall down.
  • Arbitrary Mission Restriction: In Fracture Hills, one of the orbs is obtained by freeing Christa the Faun from a locked building by destroying the front door with the Super Charge ability, where the game wants you to race around the whole map before you can bump into the door. In theory, you could turn around and use a shortcut instead... if the game didn't restrict Spyro's jumping ability to a minimum just in this very specific area. Though it's still possible with a bit of luck and patience.
  • Arms Dealer: Moneybags mentions that he sells munitions to the Breezebuilders and the Land Blubbers who are at war against each other.
  • Bait-and-Switch Boss: The Colossus Yeti. Right when you enter the temple where he is and it looks you're about to fight him, a pillar falls on him and kills him instantly. Though you do get to knock him into a dunk tank as a minigame later on in Dragon Shores.
  • Bee Afraid: Robotica Farms faces invasion from giant robot bugs which includes robot bees.
  • Belly Flop Crushing: Gulp's first form of attack is trying to jump on Spyro to crush him under his weight.
  • BFG: Gulp has a big double energy cannon on his back.
  • Big Creepy-Crawlies: The draclets of Crystal Glacier are big enough to eat a snow leopard. Or the warriors sent to exterminate them. Surprisingly mellow around Spyro, though.
  • Big Eater:
    • One of Gulp's characteristic is that he eats a lot.
    • The hippos in Shady Oasis eat a lot of fruits. In the level's outro a hippo has somehow eaten all the fruit of a large tree.
  • Big "NO!": Ripto lets out one when his bodyguard Crush is defeated and when you ram him in his boss battle.
  • Big "WHAT?!": Ripto lets out one after you collect three orbs to super charge yourself in his boss battle. Cue the beatdown.
  • Black Comedy: The intro and outro level cutscenes can be hilariously dark, sometimes including people dying in comedic deaths. Magma Cone's outro in particular outright has an Accidental Murder among the level's friendly NPCs.
  • Blatant Lies: In the game's ending, Elora tells Spyro that Moneybags has "something to give you," which Moneybags immediately denies. She then orders Hunter to tackle him, with Spyro witnessing all of this, and Elora then states that Moneybags is "very sorry" for making the journey more painful by forcing him to fork over gems, despite how obvious it is they're forcing him to hand over the gems against his own will.
  • Boss Arena Urgency: During the final phase of Ripto boss fight, he uses robotic pterodactyl, destroying the arena floor and converting into a huge lava pool.
  • Boss Arena Recovery: Justified, as Elora is doing all she can to help Spyro.
  • Bragging Rights Reward: The infinite superpowered flame powerup... or so it seems at first. Getting all the orbs and gems in the game awards Spyro with a more powerful flame ability, but after completing everything, the only real use to this is making some of the completely optional Skill Points easier to get. Turns out the ability can be carried over to a new game, effectively making a New Game Plus.
  • Busman's Holiday: Spyro just wanted a nice, relaxing vacation at the seaside. But no, he gets roped into saving the world AGAIN...
  • But Thou Must!: Lampshaded in the beginning.
    Elora: Spyro's going to help us collect the talismans.
    Spyro: I am?
    Hunter: He is?
  • Call-Back: This game, very quite different, has a few call-backs to the first game:
    • The story begins with Spyro and Sparx on their home Artisans. Spyro mentions defeating Gnasty Gnorc.
    • The Breeze Harbor level's music is similar to the one in Beast Makers.
    • Dragon Shores appears to be heavily based on the first game, due to the fact it is hosted by Gnorcs, there are statues of both an Artisans Dragon and a Magic Crafters Dragon, its architecture is similar to Dream Weavers and has the exact same skyline as Dream Weavers as well.
  • Chain of Deals: In Mystic Marsh, the Professor gives you an egg and asks you to find his pencil. When you bring the egg to a bird's nest, the bird gives you a seed. Place the seed in a pot, and a plant will sprout and spit out a rubber duck. Bring the rubber duck to the ducks at the end of the river, and you will receive a turnip. Place the turnip in a cooking pot, and it gives you a coin. Finally, bring the coin to the fountain and you will be presented with the pencil.
  • Characterization Marches On: In this game, Hunter is rather cowardly and unwilling to challenge Ripto and the other bad guys, doing mostly background work. By even the following game, Hunter is rather overeager to help Spyro and starts taking on Badass Normal qualities.
  • Cheat Code:
    • At the title screen, hold L1+R2 and then press Square to play a demo of Crash Team Racing.
    • To change Spyro's colors, pause the game and enter Up, Right, Down, Left, Up, Square, R1, R2, L1, L2, Up, Left, Down, Right and Up. Then press a button that coincides with a specific color: Down (Black), X (Blue), Triangle (Green), Square (Pink), Circle (Red), Up (Yellow) and Left (Purple/Normal).
    • Enter Up, Up, Up, Up, Right, Right, Right, Right and Circle in the pause menus to enter Big Head Mode.
    • Enter Left, Right, Left, Right, L2, R2, L2, R2 and Square in the pause menus tented Flat Mode.
    • Enter Square, Up, Square, Down, Square, Left, Square, Right and Circle in the pause menus for an extra hit point.
    • Enter Square, Circle, Square, Circle, Square, Circle, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left and Right in the pause menu to view the end credits early.
    • Enter Circle, Circle, Circle, Circle and Square in the pause menu to unlock all of Spyro's abilities early.
  • Chromatic Arrangement: The three kind of orbs Spyro and Ripto can use during the final battle are green, red and blue. After the robotic Gulp is defeated, yellow orbs appear and Spyro and Ripto both use one.
  • Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: All but one of the bosses in the first game were Dirty Cowards and the one that wasn't still ran away from you. The bosses this time around are significantly bolder. Downplayed though as Spyro still calls Ripto a wuss and still has to chase after him, even if it is to a lesser extent. Also, while Gnasty Gnorc was in some way responsible for everything that went wrong in the first game, there were a lot of conflicts going on in Avalar before Ripto showed up, and his menace is mostly confined to the home worlds. Though the story in the game's manual stated Ripto had some part in them, if indirectly, and the cut level narrations by Elora went into more detail into how he stirred up trouble, triggering the war between the Breezebuilders and the Landblubbers for example.
  • Contrasting Sequel Setting: While the first game took place in the world of dragons, this game takes place in a world where no-one has seen a dragon before.
  • Crystal Landscape: Glimmer is a gem-mine worked upon by anthropomorphic kangaroo rats. The whole place has giant, perfectly-shaped gems jutting from the ground, with freshly harvested gems littering the ground (typical for a Spyro the Dragon game) with gem-based lighting for their Baseball games.
  • Damage Discrimination:
    • Lava toads can walk on lava and even ride on the steam the flows of it create, but they will still be damaged by Spyro's flames.
    • Creatures hostile to Spyro are also immune to the spells of the Cloud Temples warlocks, though since they home in on Spyro, you can still use an enemy as a living shield.
  • Damsel in Distress: Lampshaded in Fracture Hills when you free Sheila the Faun.
    "Oh hi, dragon-boy. You're probably expecting me to say 'you're my hero, thanks for saving poor helpless little me, Blah, Blah, Blah.' Sorry, short-stuff... I was only in here because I liked the peace and quiet."
  • The Dead Can Dance: The skeleton in Skelos Badlands starts dancing to disco once you collect all of his bones.
  • Dem Bones: One side-quest is actually named "Dem bones". It involves repairing a living skeleton by collecting its bones.
  • Developer's Foresight:
    • In Glimmer, if you try to access the flight power up inside the cave by using the other flight power up located outside, the power up duration will run out faster than intended, which is to make sure you can't access the power up inside the cave before learning to climb ladders. It's still possible with enough precision, however.
    • In Hurricos, one side-quest requires putting thunder stones into machines. The level contains bottomless pits and it's possible to drop a stone into a pit. This does not soft-lock the player from finishing the side-quest, because the stone gets thrown back at Spyro by an invisible force.
    • A minor case in Aquaria Towers—if you Sequence Break straight to the end of the level from the beginning, you will not receive the talisman, nor will the portal back to Avalar open.
    • In Metropolis, the superflame/ superfly combination power-up only needs one spirit particle to activate, and there are kamikaze enemies in the level, so it's nearly impossible to get to it without activating it, but if you manage to do it using an obscure trick (the Kamikaze pigs won't attack if the camera doesn't face them), you will get unique dialogue telling you to kill more enemies.
  • Diabolus ex Nihilo: The plot of Idol Springs involves the various tiki idols the colossi there built inexplicably come to life and start attacking people left and right, stealing their food, locking them out of their homes and other forms of mischief. An explanation is never given as to why this happens, the closest thing to an explanation being that Ripto is responsible for it somehow. Considering Ripto is technically a wizard, this is likely the case.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: Gulp. Ripto seemingly falls to his death after Gulp is defeated. Naturally he turns up alive later.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: The purple creatures in Cloud Temples can produce rocks that usually are only found by lava pools.
  • Disney Villain Death: Zig Zagged with Ripto. After Gulp is defeated, he lands with a thud on the ground, causing Ripto to fall off his throne into an abyss...only to come back to take over the castle in Winter Tundra. Then, during the final confrontation, Ripto runs out of hit points, but that’s only the first stage. He then creates a mechanical Gulp with his new magic scepter; when that explodes, he burns but doesn’t die. Finally, he creates a mechanical pterodactyl and it’s all flying from there as the ground breaks, leaving only lava underneath. Once Ripto is blasted off his pterodactyl, he sinks deep... deeper...
  • Dissimile: One of the turtles in Sunny Beach claims that dragons are very much like turtles, if they had no wings, no fire breath, were a lot slower, and had a shell on their backs.
  • Double Agent: Spyro. He fights against the forces of Zephyr when he travels to Breeze Harbor. Guess what he does when he travels to Zephyr.
  • Easy Levels, Hard Bosses: You're more likely to see your lives drain against the bosses than the levels, in stark contrast to the previous game.
  • Eat Dirt, Cheap: Some of the lizards in Glimmer don't just steal gems, but eat them.
  • Escort Mission: The horribly frustrating alchemist in Fracture Hills, who goes out of his way to run into enemies and specifically tries to lose you to go run into an enemy near the end of the run. Subverted in Shady Oasis: while you gain a companion you must help getting through the level, all the enemies completely ignore him in order to tear you apart.
  • Everything's Louder with Bagpipes: Fracture Hills has Spyro freeing satyrs from stone, who then blast away a rock wall surrounding the end of the level with bagpipe music.
  • Evil Sorcerer: Aside from Ripto, Cloud Temples has the Warlock enemies.
  • Expy: The gem thief lizards of Glimmer to the gnorc thieves of Artisan's home. The Shady Oasis lamp thieves to the dragon egg thieves, even having the same "na-na-na-na-na" (but not the chuckles).
  • Fauns and Satyrs: This game features both. In addition to primary character Elora, there are humanoid-looking fauns and satyrs in the Fracture Hills, where the term is gender-specific (satyrs for the males, fauns for the female), and more monster-y looking and androgynous fauns in the Magma Cone. Exactly what differentiates them is not entirely clear. It's also worth noting that the Fracture Hills fauns, and to a lesser extent Elora, aren't all that humanoid to begin with. The ones in Fracture Hills in particular look more like anthropomorphic wolves with goat legs.
  • Feet of Clay: Throughout the game, Ripto acts tough, pushes people around and gives threats when Crush and Gulp are with him. During the final fight, if he collects three orbs before Spyro and gets a power-up, he laughs gloatingly before attacking, but if Spyro gets the power-up, Ripto's first response is to run away.
  • Fireballs: Besides Spyro's super flame, Crush can shoot these while inside of his dungeon. There are also small flying enemies in Skelos Badlands that apparently are not dragons but shoot fireballs nonetheless. The badlands also have enemies with fireballs for heads. The Cloud Temples wizards are friendly fireball users.
  • Flat Scare: Money Bags gets treated to this after all-but-saying that if he ever met Ripto face-to-face he'd give him a what-for.
  • Floating in a Bubble: Sparx does this to survive underwater.
  • Flying Saucer: Flown by sheep invading Metropolis.
  • Forced Transformation: In the outro of the Cloud Temple level, an evil warlock is turned into a ram by a wizard. Then, an acutal ram falls in love with the transformed wizard.
  • Forest of Perpetual Autumn: Autumn Plains is a castle area surrounded by colorful autumn trees.
  • Franchise Codifier: This game introduced a structure where each stage had a primary objective (i.e. getting to the end) and a couple of side-objectives, unlike the open-ended stages of the original. It also introduced Funny Animals to the franchise, especially Hunter, who would go on to appear in almost every game since; and it gave each kind of gem a different shape.
  • Frozen Foe Platform: The Cloud Temple area has a puzzle in which Spyro must use an ice breath power-up to freeze trolls into ice cubes, then use the ice cubes as platforms to traverse a series of bell towers.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: If Spyro tries to get past one of Moneybags' Cash Gates without sufficient gems, he may suggest that Spyro has been wasting his gems on the fauns in Fracture Hills... basically insinuating that they're prostitutes.
  • Godzilla Threshold: It's how the story got started. Dragons are described by Hunter as terrifyingly monstrous creatures. That said, with Ripto being around, their only option is to Summon Bigger Fish.
  • Gotta Catch Them All: Gems, talismans and orbs.
  • Green Hill Zone: Glimmer and Summer Forest are the typical first area, with meadows and lush forests.
  • Grimy Water: Unlike in the first game, Spyro can learn how to swim, at least in clear water. There are still several instances of this trope, where he receives damage upon contact instead.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • The second orb in the Autumn Plains requires you not only to find one, but two hidden pathways behind breakable walls.
    • The Chain of Deals in Mystic Marsh requires the player to go all over the map to interact with a series of small features they may not have even noticed whilst they were distracted with torching enemies and collecting gems — the worst offenders being the bird's nest, which is high in a tree near Snoozles ,and the cauldron, which is in the tunnel in the high cliff area behind the starting zone, traits that make them both easy to forget. Not helping is the Moon Logic Puzzle aspect; when players get the egg from the Professor to start the quest, their first impulse will probably be to give it to the sad-looking mother duck at the river's end, one of the more noticeable links in the chain. Nope: the player has to spit it into a bird's nest near the level's exit. The mother duck has to be given the rubber duck that the Man-Eating Plant spits out after you plant the seed that the bird gives you.
    • Skill Points in general. You don't even know they exist until you've completed the game, and while you may have stumbled upon one or two during the course of the game by accident, there's no telling what or even where the remaining Skill Points are, since your Guidebook only lists the ones you've completed. The remake appears to be averting this by listing the names and locations (but not necessarily how to complete them) on the pause menu, similar to the Ratchet & Clank series.
  • Harmless Freezing: The Icebuilders don't seem to be harmed from being frozen in blocks of ice.
  • He Knows About Timed Hits: Hunter is the character who will teach you the basics of the gameplay, and he tells you which button on the controller to use for what.
  • Heel–Face Turn: The idols in Idol Springs in the closing cinematic make peace with the sculptures and start sharing meals together.
  • Herding Mission: The "Zephyr" stage features an NPC Land Blubber named "Bo Peep", whose "Cowleks" (small cow-like creatures) have gone missing. She asks Spyro to find them and return them to their pen and will reward Spyro with two orbs once he is finished.
  • High-Speed Train Reroute: Occurs several times during the trolley mission in Breeze Harbor, where you have to also collect 50 gears while avoiding blocks, gaps, and TNT.
  • Holding Out for a Hero: The team in Avalar is completely convinced that only a dragon can stop Ripto and is reduced to giving tutorials to Spyro or providing the odd minor backup. Elora tries doing so to Hunter as well, but he's far worse at it.
  • Iconic Sequel Character: A large helping of Avalar residents in this game would end up joining Spyro in later instalments. Hunter, Zoe and the Professor are among Spyro's most prominent supporting cast, with Ripto being his most recurrent Big Bad. Even Elora, though reappearing less frequently, is identifable by most fans of the series, enough to be playable representation for the series in Crash Team Rumble.
  • Infernal Retaliation: The Cloud Temples trolls were hit by fire much more powerful than Spyro's, but it proved unable to kill them and unable to be put out, leading to perpetually flaming trolls running around said temples.
  • Infinity +1 Sword: Getting 100% Completion unlocks a permanent Superflame power-up, which can be used in a New Game Plus. Having it completely wrecks any challenge for most of the game as it gives Spyro a long range attack instantly destroys anything that isn't a boss, and it trivializes bosses since he doesn't need to get close to them either. Gulp and Ripto can easily be defeated simply by standing still and shooting them, with the only challenge for the former coming from the final phase of the fight. Because the temporary invulnerability he gets during attacks negates such cheese tactics, this ironically makes Crush the hardest boss of the three!
  • Instakill Mook: The Robosharks in Aquaria Towers will devour Spyro in a single bite if he comes too close, instantly costing you a life regardless of whether Sparx is there. There's no escaping them either once they take notice - they will even pursue Spyro outside of the water if need be necessary.
  • Irony: Robotic farmers love biological bees (ironic enough on its own), but a fourth of the Robotica Farms pests are bee based.
  • It Amused Me: The Water Workers who invade Aquaria will sometimes attack other creatures hostile to Spyro even when Spyro is within their range, just for giggles.
  • Just Eat Him: The dragon-eating bushes in Fracture Hills and the Robotic Sharks in Aquaria Towers. The latter One-Hit Kill Spyro.
  • The Key Is Behind the Lock: In Fracture Hills, the satyrs' bagpipe music can break the rock covering their temple. They are initially unable to do so due to being encased in rock themselves.
  • Kidnapped by the Call: In the beginning of this game, Spyro wanted to go on vacation to Dragon Shores to escape the Rain in his home world, but while he is traveling between portals he is kidnapped by Elora, the Professor, and Hunter who need a Dragon to fight Ripto for them, as soon as Spyro is in the World of Avalar, Ripto shows up and destroys the portal that leads back to Spyro's home, now Spyro cannot go back home to either his home World or on a vacation to Dragon Shores until he defeats Ripto for all of Avalar.
  • Kill Enemies to Open: On each level you need to defeat a certain number of enemies before special pedestals with powerups become active.
  • Kung Fu-Proof Mook:
    • The large Earthshapers are resistant to Spyro's attacks and have to be pushed into certain areas to be defeated.
    • The Robotic Sharks in Aquaria Towers. They can't be flamed since they are underwater and Spyro's charge doesn't effect them, on top of having a One-Hit Kill attack.
  • Larynx Dissonance: Juliet is a graceful looking female bird, but has a foppish male voice.
  • Ledge Bats: The party horns of the Magma Cone lava monsters do no damage but will likely knock Spyro into lava, which does.
  • Lethal Lava Land: Magma Cone and Canyon Speedway are both set in video-game volcano-themed levels. Magma Cone consists of a faun village built around a volcano, with Spyro's quest being to reach a device that will seal up the caldera and stop it from erupting. Canyon Speedway sees Spyro flying around a twisting canyon whose floor is lined with still-molten magma.
  • Levitating Lotus Position: The elder turtle royals of Sunny Beach float with this pose.
  • Manchild: Agent Zero is a grown man with the personality and apparent intelligence of a small child. His single quest is basically a game of "secret agent", and he ironically comes off as less mature than Handel and Greta, the actual child secret agents that Spyro met in Scorch.
  • Mecha-Mooks: The Gear Grinders employ rolling robots.
  • Metropolis Level: One of the last levels is actually named "Metropolis" and takes place in a futuristic city inhabited by robots in business suits.
  • Minecart Madness:
    • One of the orb challenges in Breeze Harbor requires you to ride along a track collecting gears, whilst avoiding various pitfalls.
    • In Dragon Shores you can ride a roller coaster, destroying things along the way.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: Most enemies in the Mystic Marsh level are a mix of existing animals: there are elephant-snails, rhino-snails, platypy that can swollen like pufferfishes and kangaroos with flying squirell gliding membranes.
  • Mundane Utility: Earthshapers from Fracture Hills may sometimes use their pickaxes to scratch their backs.
  • The Napoleon: Ripto is an extremely short but immensely arrogant being with dreams of World Domination, and is even referred to as having a Napoleon complex in his manual bio.
  • Never Say "Die": Averted. Ripto says the word "kill" at least twice in the game's cutscenes. Then there's the guy in Colossus who says kill but has torch written in the subtitle box.
  • New Game Plus: If you get the Superflame Powerup in Dragon Shores, then it carries over to a new game. It allows for some Sequence Breaking in certain levels (mainly those that need a certain skill to complete, like Glimmer).
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Hunter messing around with the superportal caused Ripto to invade in the first place.
  • Nigh-Invulnerability: The shield power up lets Spyro walk across toxic slime or molten lava.
  • Not Quite Dead: Ripto, after seemingly falling to his death at the end of the second home world, comes back not long after to stop the superportal's completion and take over the last home world. His ultimate defeat has him falling into lava and burning as he sinks under it, but then the epilogue shows he's still alive.
  • Oddball in the Series: Because this game's new ideas were walked back a little by the third game bringing back more elements of the first one, Ripto's Rage can come across this way for the classic trilogy. Of the three games, it's the only one with intro and outro cutscenes for each level, the only one without air vehicles for inter-world travel, the only one whose gameplay starts in a level instead of a hub world, the only one with powerups in each level unlocked by defeating enemies (who don't drop gems here), and the only one with no game-spanning goal of rescuing dragons or dragon egg collectibles.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • Greta has a moment when Handel gets distracted by a lollypop and captured by the guards in Scorch's intro.
    • Whenever Spyro manages to collect three coloured orbs during the final battle with Ripto, Ripto's eyes bug out for a moment before he lets out a Big "WHAT?!" and attempts to escape.
  • Orcus on His Throne: Aside from challenging Spyro to boss fights and kicking Moneybags out of his various mansions, Ripto doesn't really do much direct evil in the game; most of Avalar's problems seem to be things that would have happened with or without his presence. Zigzagged in that the original version of the game would have featured Elora narrating the intro and outro cutscenes, which would have established Ripto as directly behind a number of the problems facing the Avalar worlds, though we don't see that in the final game.
  • The Overworld: Summer Forest, Autumn Plains and Winter Tundra serve as hub worlds.
  • Painful Pointy Pufferfish: In the "Mystic Marsh" level, there are all sorts of strange fusions of animals. One of them is a cross between a platypus and a pufferfish. When they're in their platypus form, they can be defeated without an issue, but trying to attack them while they're puffed up will hurt Spyro.
  • Palmtree Panic: Sunny Beach resembles a European beach town with turtles, and the enemies wear snorkles and swim rings.
  • Percussive Maintenance: The elevators of Metropolis require a bashing to get started, due to budget cuts in the wake of insurrection and invasion.
  • Perpetual Frowner: Spyro himself during gameplay. Cutscenes avert this.
  • Pickup Hierarchy:
    • Primary: Talismans for the first two worlds; Orbs later move into this role.
    • Secondary: Orbs, which eventually also become primary pickups; Gems (again tertiary. Need those to get past Moneybags).
    • Tertiary: Fodder, not technically collectible, but killing a certain amount releases a 1-up.
  • Playing Both Sides: The levels Zephyr and Breeze Harbor throw Spyro into the middle of a war between the Land Blubbers and Breezebuilders. In Zephyr, the Land Blubbers are allies and the Breezebuilders are enemies, and vice-versa for Breeze Harbor.
  • Plot Hole: In the first level, the Gemcutters and Zoe the fairy know Spyro's name, even though Spyro doesn't introduce himself to anyone until after you exit the level.
  • Powerful Pick: Earthshapers from Fracture Hills use pickaxes as weapons.
  • Prehistoria: Skelos Badlands is inhabited by primitive cavemen and monsters that look like dinosaurs.
  • Production Foreshadowing: The robots in Metropolis have designs that look suspiciously similar to Clank's.
  • Racing Minigame: Vs Hunter in Ocean Speedway. You don't have to actually beat him, simply keeping up suffices.
  • Red Herring: One of the orbs in Autumn Plains is stuck on a small platform far away from the rest of the level. Next to this platform is a smaller one that is lower down and reachable from the outer wall of the castle. This smaller platform may lead players to believe that you're supposed to glide to it and then somehow jump up to reach the orb. This is not correct. The actual way to get the orb involves finding a secret room within the castle that takes you to a high tower, from which you can glide to the real platform.
  • Replay Mode: Earning all 10 tokens in Dragon Shores grants Spyro access to the movie theater, where he can rewatch the game's story cutscenes.
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Moneybags sells Ripto some bombs to take over Winter Tundra. Ripto's first act after stepping into the castle is to kick him out.
  • Rhino Rampage: The snail-rhinos from Mystic Marsh.
  • Rib Cage Ridge: The bones of giant creatures are scattered throughout Crystal Glacier and Skelos Badlands.
  • Robot War: In Metropolis there is a rebellion against the robots, and it's the robots you're helping to put it down.
  • Scary Stinging Swarm: The trees of Fracture Hills shake the beehives built on them so that the bees will attack Spyro.
  • Schizo Tech: The Bonebuilders of Skelos Badlands live like cavemen but have a video camera.
  • Scotireland: In Fracture Hills, the satyrs have bagpipes and speak in a stereotypical Scottish accent, but do Irish step dances. Meanwhile, the fawns in the same area are stereotypically Irish.
  • Sequence Breaking:
    • There's a small bit of sequence breaking in the first level. One of the three orbs is only accessible from the top of a high ledge that can be climbed. The player is supposed to reach the second world and buy the climb ability from Moneybags, but some careful gliding and skilled use of the superfly powerup placed in the last area of the level give you just enough distance to reach the ledge early.
    • There are several instances where you can use the extra height you get from charging and jumping at the same time to sequence break. In Colossus, for instance, it is possible to skip the last two gates and still get 100% on the level by using this trick to get on top of a pillar.
  • Shifting Sand Land: Scorch strongly resembles an oriental desert city with sand dunes, palms, onion towers, scattered carpets and an enemy that's riding a floating carpet.
  • Shout-Out: Upon rewarding Spyro with an orb in Cloud Temples, Bartle advises him to stare into it and recite "klaatu, barada, nikto," except he stumbles and gives up partway through "nikto."
  • Shovel Strike: The penguins of Sunny Beach try to flatten Spyro with shovels.
  • Sizeshifter: The Hippos of Shady Oasis can temporarily increase their size by eating magic berries.
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Colossus, Crystal Glacier, Icy Speedway and Winter Tundra Home are all set in a snowy, ice-filled world. When Spyro slides on the ice in these levels, he cannot jump.
  • Snow Ball Fight: The Ice Wizards of Crystal Glacier throw snowballs at each other if left alone.
  • Space Station: Metropolis features speaking robots, gravity-defying platforms, floating models of planets, Plasma Cows, Laser Cows, and sheep riding flying saucers.
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: Private Romeo and Juliet on opposite sides of the Land Blubber-Breezebuilder conflict of Zephyr. Doubles as Interspecies Romance, given one's a grub and the other is a bird.
  • Stealth-Based Mission: Chasing Agent Zero in Cloud Temples. You need to hide behind trees and walls whenever he turns around so you can chase him to his "secret base".
  • Steampunk: The machinery of Breeze Harbor is powered by steam, which means the Land Blubbers only need water buckets and hoses to make it useless.
  • Stepping-Stone Sword: The Icebuilders use their spears to help Spyro progress through Crystal Glacier.
  • Stock Femur Bone: The talisman from Skelos Badlands looks like a classic cartoon bone.
  • Summon Bigger Fish: The Professor, Elora, and Hunter try to summon a mighty dragon at the beginning of the game to take down Ripto, but end up getting the title character who's smaller than they hoped for.
  • Super Not-Drowning Skills:
    • Spyro no longer takes damage from touching most pools of water, as he can now swim and breathe underwater indefinitely. If you find a pool of opaque water (which tend to be some flavour of acid, sludge or tar) like the ones in the last game, Spyro will still be unable to swim in it and take damage.
    • Hunter's swimsuit doesn't come with a breathing apparatus of any sort.
  • Super Spit: Spyro can spit rocks farther than Gem Cutters can throw them. The Breezebuilder chicks also spit ammunition at him.
  • Taken for Granite: The Earthshapers have trapped the satyrs of Fracture Hills in stone by throwing rocks at them.
  • Threatening Shark: The mechanical sharks found in an underwater level. They can only be defeated with the Superflame power-up and can swallow Spyro whole for an instant kill, and you don't even need to run directly into them for it to happen. If you're even in their general vicinity, they will kill you and you have no chance to get away.
  • Throw Down the Bomblet: Ripto before stealing the power crystal and an ox in Metropolis, though it butts them rather than throws.
  • Token Heroic Orc: Dragon Shores refreshingly features a bunch of friendly Gnorcs as quest givers, after the previous game had you defeat many serving Gnasty. They incidentally reward you with tokens for taking the various rides.
  • Tomorrowland: Robotica Farms, Metro Speedway, and especially Metropolis. Although there are many modern elements in the other games of the original trilogy (the industrial sites of Gnasty's World come to immediate mind), these areas are much more in-your-face about their advanced technologies compared to nearby areas. Two of them are even populated entirely by robots having trouble with the local wildlife.
  • Top-Heavy Guy: Agent Zero can jump pretty far with his tiny legs.
  • Translation Nod: Ripto got his name from the way Spyro's name is written in stylized katakana (スパイロ) in the Japanese logo.
  • Tunnel of Love: One of the minigames in Dragon Shores is a Tunnel of Love ride that Spyro can go on. It will show NPCs randomly paired together as they pass by in boats, and when Spyro emerges from the tunnel he is also paired with a random NPC.
  • Umbrellas Are Lightning Rods: One of the sidequests in Idol Springs is to help free several NPCs who do a rain dance and invoke this on an umbrella-carrying idol.
  • Underground Monkey: We see three kinds of fauns in this game, and they all look quite different. Elora has a human-like upper body, while her lower body looks like it belongs to a white and brown anthropomorphic hooved animal, with a fox tail. She also has no horns, unlike other fauns. The satyrs from Fracture Hills look like anthro goats with blue-ish grey bodies, whilst the fauns look fairly close to Elora, but they have blue-gray colors and cow-like horns which Elora lacks. The fauns from Magma Cone also look like anthro goats, but they have more cartoon-ish proportions, with a blue-ish grey upper body and a brown lower body. The Reignited Trilogy faithfully updates the satyrs and the Magma Cone fauns, but changes Elora and the Fracture Hills fauns: Elora loses her fox-like tail and now looks more like an anthropomorphic deer, whilst the Fracture Hills fauns look like blue-grey humanoid girls with cow horns, hooves and tails.
  • Unexplained Recovery: Following Gulp's defeat, Ripto falls out of his throne, presumably to his death. In the following cutscene, he is alive and well, and effortlessly takes over the castle at Winter Tundra. All three bosses also turn out fine even after Ripto's supposed defeat (which had him fall into lava), appearing in the epilogue and returning in several later games.
  • Unique Enemy: In Aquaria Towers, one single crab is walking upside down at the ceiling in a narrow hallway. There is nothing remarkable about this enemy otherwise.
  • Valley Girl: The fauns in Fracture Hills speak slightly like this, and are all often seen playing with a yo-yo. In the Reignited Version, they are all given Celtic accents like the satyrs.
  • Windmill Scenery: Robotica Farm features a few windmills that Spyro needs to traverse. Their blades go all the way down to the ground and push Spyro on contact.
  • Wings Do Nothing: Crush and the Lava Lizards have wings but they don't seem to serve any purpose. The latter are dropped from eggs carried by flying creatures, so they might be juveniles. Also, the hippos of Shady Oasis have them, for some reason.
  • Wrench Whack: The most common Gear Grinder will squash Spyro with a wrench, if given the chance.
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle!:
    • After you defeat Gulp (the second boss) you see Big Bad Ripto fall off a ledge and into an abyss. Elora congratulates Spyro for freeing the various worlds and collecting all 14 Talismans, the game's standard reward for completing the worlds. Then, just when it looks like Spyro might finally return home, Ripto comes back and there's a whole new home world with five new, Talisman-free levels.
    • A lesser case happens in Metropolis. The main objective is to reach the Inventor Droid near the exit portal, seems simple enough. However, she has a combo Powerup for you to torch sheep saucers with, one extra orb reward doesn't hurt. But then it turns out that reinforcements were called. Once those are torched, then you can finally leave.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Spyro 2, Spyro 2 Gateway To Glimmer

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Skelos Badlands

Skelos Badlands is a large desert-like world in Autumn Plains, a realm in Avalar, dominated by friendly cavemen (known as Bone Builders in the epilogue). It appeared in Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Shadow Legacy. The world also has numerous lava pits and, like any self-respecting desert, cacti. Watch out for the flying Catbats and the Fire Wizards. This stage is the sister stage to Crystal Glacier, as evidenced by their similar inhabitants and prehistoric settings.

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