It’s that time of year where we start associating any games vaguely cold with the holiday season, so starved are we of any true Christmas games. With few games to point to as beacons of the Christmas spirit in the way movies or music can, we start looking to secondary symbols of Christmas like snow or ice, and that in turn makes me point at Spyro the Dragon.
TheGamer podcast, Your Favorite Game, recently looked at our favourite games with snow in fact, and the lack of Christmas connection is clear in our choices. I opted for Red Dead Redemption 2, and will defend the snow to the ends of the earth. My two co-hosts George Foster and Eric Switzer went for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and It Takes Two – no Santy Clauses among us.
The episode also featured a drive-by from Eric on Spyro the Dragon 2, the second time in the past few weeks after Your Favorite Game… With Dragons. This will not stand.
Colossus’ Unpopularity In Spyro Is News To Me
For my whole life, I’ve always held it true that Crash 3 and Spyro 2 are my two favourite platformers, and two of my favourite games full stop. Astro Bot is one of the few games to challenge that duopoly, but even that probably doesn’t overcome the nostalgia factor involved in loving that pair – a factor that counts for a lot in something as subjective as ‘favourite’.
There are good and bad parts to Spyro 2. Despite my favouritism, I know this. But I’ve always held the ice hockey challenge in Colossus to be one of the good parts, despite Eric’s protestations. After looking it up online, I see that I’m in the minority.
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Colossus is one of the earliest levels in Spyro 2, which helps embed it deeper in my mind as I’ve played the early ones most of all. In the past I have decided on a replay then drifted away, or started games with friends we never intended to finish, meaning I’ve seen the early stuff a lot more. The ice hockey is one of the few challenges you face in this early period that can stump you, which is why I’ve always remembered the test of mettle fondly. It’s also why others hate it.
Hockey With Polar Bears – What’s Not To Love?
The task at hand is to score five goals against a goalie inside five minutes. Do this, and another hockey player appears (plus you get a goalie of your own) for a one on one match. What I always liked about this was how much they felt like actual sports games. Arcade titles were in the ascendancy in the late ’90s when Spyro arrived, not like the hyper-realism we see dominating today. So playing ice hockey as a little dragon against some polar bears didn’t seem too unusual – although they look more like vague shapeless animals in the original.
It was tough, I’ll give you that. Because the first challenge was all about speed, you rushed shots you should have lined up. Since the goalie only needed to worry about saving shots (as opposed to in a match with attacks to start, player positioning to consider, and tactical set-ups), they felt like a brick wall. The trick was to drag them into one corner then quickly fire the puck into the other. With the time limit and no one around to tackle or impede you, it didn’t matter if you missed two or three, you’d still recover the puck quick enough to send five home with some clever angles.
This was also the best way to score in the one on one, but that was a much taller order. The opposition player was stronger and faster than you. If you missed and the puck broke away, they were going to get there first. I was never sure whether my goalie was cheating or just bad, but if the other team broke, they scored. Balancing the scales for cheating, Spyro could use his flame breath on the polar bear to stop him in his tracks. That has a limited reach though, so you did it fast, or you didn’t do it at all.
You also have to go 5-0 to get a bonus Skill Point.
I grant you, it’s one of the more frustrating challenges in Spyro 2, especially coming so early. But that’s not because of any design quirks or intended road bumps, it’s just hard. On purpose. Sometimes things are. And it’s memorable because of this. It’s the same reason when I think of Crash 3 levels, Area 51? comes to mind. It’s also why Splashing Sprint will live long in the memory for Astro Bot – platformers need levels like this sometimes.
If it’s icy outside where you are this Christmas, just think – would my life be better or worse if I was a dragon on that ice playing hockey with polar bears? I know what my answer is. I salute you, Spyro 2’s ice hockey level, no matter what Eric or the internet says.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy
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OpenCritic
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Top Critic Rating:
81/100
- Released
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November 13, 2018