• Adventure platformer
  
• Collectathon
  
• Iconic soundtrack
  
• Colorful
  
• Shiny rocks to hoard...
  
• ...and lose to a stingy bastard.

So, if you are still here... Let's get down to it:

Originally posted by Spyro himself:

Destiny? Nah, I just wanna burn stuff up!

When they announced that there would be a Spyro trilogy remaster I was skeptical, being one of my most loved franchises of the first Playstation era, I knew how easy it would be to mess it up. Modified or even straight-up removed content is plaguing remasters left and right these days and I was not hopeful... But it seems like there are still people at Insomniac who know what makes these games stand out from the crowd.
Originally released between giants like Mario and Sonic during their 3D conversions, Spyro didn't try to reinvent the wheel, opting instead for a gameplay loop catering to older adventure games of prior generations, you have two basic attacks (running head bash and fire breath), you can also jump and glide but that is it. Later iterations give you additional moves like climbing and swimming but the objectives are the same, you use a hub world to travel to self-contained but different-themed worlds where you collect gems to hoard (because you are a dragon, duh) and items to unlock the traveling method to the next world. There are challenges like timed races and smaller secrets to collect but it never goes further than that, and this is its biggest strength: being engaging for a larger audience to be interested but not too complex to scare younger players who just want to see pretty characters running around.
As far as narrative goes, this trilogy is humble: You get acquainted with both Spyro and Sparks (his dragonfly companion who ingeniously serves as his health meter, talk about smart user interface...) while they try to reverse a petrifying curse on his elder dragon friends, which leads to a duel against two deranged and unprepared magic users... and at least one other magic user who definitely knows what they are doing. The story is light-hearted and full of funny pieces with a cast of creatures that help you along the way, the remaster does add some small cinematics that better portray the personality of some characters and it is a welcome addition.
In resume, this is a colorful if not a little bit easier way of experiencing this classic, the music still hits perfectly for the various visual themes, and boss fights aren't that hard so you can focus on exploring and finding every last dragon egg or shiny crystal to shove down Moneybag's throat, that dirty little b-
Anyway, I am glad that we still get games like this, it makes me hopeful for what others could be next.


TL-DR: I have wished for lots of remakes and remasters over the last decade but of all the good ones, Reignited Trilogy stands as a love letter to all players who grew up on PSX-era classics and still miss the feeling of just running and gliding around, breathing fire and collecting shiny stuff.