It's time for an over analyzed quote thingy!
Anything Spyro is frustrating. You never really get any power-ups throughout each game. Except in the latest installment, you get Lightning, Ice, Fire, and Earth Breath. Sure, they all do the same amount of damage, have the same shapes, and move the same way, but come on, different colors!
I'll agree that the new games are bad for a variety of reasons, and not go to far into them. Those games weren't made by the same company as the first three, and it showed. Powerups, on the other hand, have never been part of a traditional platformers. It forced limitations on you, rather than giving you 15 billion options to do the same thing (JaRPGs, WoW, fighting games, etc.).
Let's not forget that the monsters are all the same. In Spyro III for PS1, I can count the variety. You had the ones immune to fire, the ones immune to bashing, and the ones that you could kill in one hit of anything. Just different shapes and/or colors through each level which had basically the same theme, only a different theme.
The Spyro trilogy was, and always will be, a platforming game. The first was far more strict, and a good deal harder then the other two. The same level design exists is all games. As a rule, Monsters end up as a flavouring for the level rather than a focus. Both the game engine and your mastery of it come further into play.
You know, instead of being a cave full of lava, you would have a cave full of ice (which acted like lava). Or a pit of poison, or a pit of spikes, or a bottomless pit, or a piranha-infested river...and let's not forget castles. You have ruined castles, frozen-over castles, burning castles, dark creepy castles...and occasionally a castle in the clouds.
While I agree that the levels shared functional similarity, they were graphically very different. Different colours, different art styles, and plots were all overlay for the basic design of the level. As for creativity, its nice as long as the game remains playable and straightforward enough. Could you imagine a platformer without a fire or ice level? It's become a very traditional part of any game, other than the odd ones.
I can play through the first two levels of any of the games, then not even the plot or voice stylings of Elijah Wood and David Spade can keep me interested for much longer.
If that's the way you think, then my arguing wont be change your mind. The game is simplistic and repetitive, but not out of line with modern games. I enjoyed the plot(s) of the first three games for a ten to twelve year old, which was the target audience at the time, Though I don't know when you played it, I'd hope that you weren't too cynical of a kid. If you did, then here's the best I can do:
The Spyro series is a lot like the Mario series. Sure, you had the same enemies, a limited skill set, incredibly repetitive levels with a light coat of paint on them at best (Mario 3 here), a good many castles, and was graphically simple. The fact is, it still considered to be one the best games made ... of it's time. That's what Spyro was and is: a series that was well made at the time, and stays as such.
If you really want a good modern platformer, play Psychonauts. It's funny, it's highly creative, and the dangerous surface type thing? Its not fire, poison, electricity or spikes... its water. As in, the main character has a fear of water. And the levels take place in people's
minds.
As a parting thought (RPing as Yahtzee here):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yon2YuXssvo&NR=1
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