Charmy: Macho's Rage!

Charmy: Macho's Rage! (Charmy: Gateway to Glimmer) is the fifth game of the Charmy the Speedy Fawn series. It was developed by Traveller's Tales for the PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Dreamcast.

Plot
The protagonist of the series, Charmy, decides to take a vacation to Deer Paradise with his friend Jacky the Jackrabbit a few years after the events of the previous game. The portal he enters accidentally takes him to the land of Avalar because Zazu, Timon, and Johnny are trying to bring a deer to Avalar. A sorcerer, known as Macho, has invaded the world of Avalar and is wreaking havoc on its citizens with his magic. Idols come to life and attack their creators, Eskimos are encased in ice cubes, and a civilization of seahorses has had its water confiscated. Spyro must travel through the land of Avalar, undoing the damage done by Ripto and ultimately defeating him.

Setting
Macho's Rage! is set in Avalar, rather than the Forest Islands, where the previous installments were set. The world of Avalar is split up into three homeworlds, all of them named after a season of the year: Summer Forest, Autumn Plains, and Winter Tundra. All three homeworlds feature a certain number of realms, one or two speedways, and a Boss Realm. Avalar's name may have been derived from the legendary island Avalon.

Characters
The Dragons of the previous installment have been replaced with an entirely new cast of characters, including fauns, satyrs, anthropomorphic animals, and robotic businessmen.

Playable Characters

 * Charmy - voiced by Tom Kenny

Non-Playable Characters

 * Sparx the Dragonfly - voiced by André Sogliuzzo
 * The Professor - voiced by Tom Kenny
 * Hunter the Cheetah - voiced by Gregg Berger
 * Elora the Faun - voiced by Melissa Disney
 * Zoe the Fairy - voiced by Mary Linda Phillips
 * Moneybags the Bear - voiced by Richard Barnes
 * Crush, one of Ripto's henchmen - voiced by Gregg Berger
 * Gulp, one of Ripto's henchmen - voiced by Gregg Berger
 * Ripto the Riptoc - voiced by Gregg Berger

Story
In the land of Avalar, residents Elora, Hunter, and the Professor have been working on their latest and largest portal. During a test, Hunter persuades the Professor to enter his birthdate, 22475 (22nd April, 1975) as the portal's target coordinates, inadvertently activating it and allowing a small sorcerer named Ripto into the realm, along with his two dinosaurs, Crush and Gulp. Sensing that the world he has landed in is free of Dragons, Ripto declares that he is going to "move in" and take over. He instructs Crush to go back and pack his things. However, Elora is able to deactivate the portal by instructing fairies to remove the orbs powering the portal and scatter them throughout the realms of Avalar. As Ripto begins to terrorize Avalar, Elora and the Professor plan to "catch" a Dragon in order to drive Ripto off.

Meanwhile, the Forest Isalnd have been experiencing rainy weather for some time, and Charmy declares that he needs a vacation. He locates the portal to the realm of Deer Paradise and enters it. However, he finds himself instead landing in the realm of Avalar, intercepted by a portal built by the Professor. Ripto immediately enters the scene and destroys the portal, objecting to the Professor's success in bringing a Dragon to Avalar. Ripto is, however, forced to retreat when Gulp accidentally swallows Ripto's magical scepter. Elora asks Spyro to help save the realm of Avalar by defeating Ripto.

Each of Avalar's homeworlds is captured by Ripto immediately after Spyro enters it, and either Ripto or one of his main minions await Spyro in a dungeon area at the end of each. Spyro must gain access these dungeons by collecting all of the Talismans in the homeworld, and in the case of the final confrontation, collecting 40 orbs total also. The Talismans are being held by the leaders of each realm. Somehow, perhaps using his magic, Ripto has succeeded in turning the citizens of the realms against each other, causing outbreaks of war between realms and races within realms. However, it's possible that Ripto did not terroise these realms, since Zephyr and Breeze Harbor have been in a war for some time, Mystic Marsh's trouble was only caused by a sleeping Water Wizard, and nobody ever mentioned Ripto at all.

In the end, Spyro is able to bring peace to each of the realms that have been corrupted by Ripto's machinations. After defeating both Crush and Gulp, Spyro is hurtled into Winter Tundra, where he finds out that Ripto has taken over the homeworld and holed himself up in the castle. The Professor instructs Spyro to gather up forty orbs, which will enable him to storm the castle Ripto has claimed and retake Avalar for the peaceful natives to whom it belongs.

Spyro successfully gathers the forty orbs and enters the castle. With the assistance of Hunter, Spyro fights Ripto to the bitter end. As Ripto spawns a mechanical Gulp, and later a mechanical pterodactyl (who could be one of Ripto's deceased henchman that died before the events of the game), Hunter dons his wings, flies over the arena, and drops orbs supercharged by the Professor to give Spyro enhanced abilities for a short amount of time. Spyro ultimately devastates Ripto, sending him sinking into the lava below.

After Spyro beats Ripto, he is congratulated by Hunter, Elora, the Professor, and Moneybags. The Professor opens a portal to Dragon Shores with the remaining orbs, and Hunter attacks Moneybags in order to retrieve the gems he took from Spyro throughout the events of the game.

Features
These features were introduced in this game:
 * The Map: This was the first game where Spyro could call upon a map to find out where he was. The map feature was similar to The Legend of Zelda's map feature, except that it could only be viewed in the bottom left corner of the screen. Spyro's location appeared as a beam of light on the map, with the exact position of Spyro being the smallest point, and the largest point being where Spyro was looking. The map feature did not carry over into Spyro: Year of the Dragon, but was used in other Spyro games as an alternative pause screen.
 * A Bigger Story: More cutscenes were used in this game than the previous installment, however some could argue that each dragon-release, as well as the 3-second scenes after flaming Gnasty Gnorc, counts for cutscenes. There were also shorter cutscenes that played when entering and leaving the various levels (which eliminated the animations of Spyro flying directly into the next level and doing an aerial backflip. Instead, after the cutscene plays, there is a blackout, and when the lights come back up, Spyro is waiting to move in the level). Ripto's Arena also had two mini-cutscenes between each battle-section. There was a more personal feeling to Spyro 2 than Spyro 1. Cutscenes continue to be a part of the Spyro franchise.
 * The Dialogue Box: When speaking to characters in-game, dialogue boxes appear. In Spyro the Dragon, all of the dialogue (whether in-game, or cutscene) was spoken without a dialogue box, except for the balloonists, which was followed by a choosing option. Spyro does not talk to anyone in game in Spyro 1 (except when Gnasty is beaten (unless the scene is counted as a cutscene)), only in the cutscenes.
 * Recurring Characters: The Dragons in the first game were cool and all, but once you freed them they disappeared into some sort of limbo, leaving every level sort of empty. And they always had the same dialogue with Spyro if he ever called upon their wisdom again, except for Argus (depending on whether you've completed a level or not (however, still counts only as one dragon)). Spyro 2 introduced friendly characters that inhabited the levels Spyro visited and followed Spyro throughout the game.
 * Safe Homeworlds: Enemies were removed from the homeworlds, giving Spyro safe places to recuperate and explore uninhibited.
 * Mandatory Boss Battles: In Spyro the Dragon, you could skip the boss and go to the next level. Also, the boss resided in worlds that were similar to the normal realms, with enemies and gems and Dragons. The boss battles in Spyro 2 were required to progress through the game, and you fought in an arena, with no collectibles or regular enemies whatsoever.
 * New Types of Death: Spyro now can die more realistically. There is actual lava in this game (whereas in Spyro 1, every level that had some kind of liquid was a different version of a drowning pool, even if it looked like lava) and when Spyro lands in the lava, he is sent into the air with a scorched posterior. If he dies on the lava, he ends up burnt to a black, smoking crisp, where he will stand straight up and fall onto his back. Other deaths include getting spun by means of getting slapped or having something swung at you where spyro will spin to face the camera, balancing on his right leg, only to fall forward shortly after, and getting eaten by a robot shark where Spyro will just disappear as the shark does a chewing animation. Also, the water in this game does not always kill Spyro. The developers took advantage of the Dragons-cannot-drown concept and applied it to this game.
 * Ending Objective: Instead of finding all of the required items in a level, Spyro is given a one-of-a-kind item at the end of the first 14 levels. After that, he has to go after the less rare orbs.
 * Gem Radar: Starting with this game, Sparx can help Spyro find any gems nearby by pressing the shoulder buttons. This is very helpful if Spyro is trying to find gems that are in clever hiding spots.
 * Hover: This game introduces an extra action for the triangle button: a hover at the end of Charmy's glide. It gives Charmy a little extra boost so he can reach hard to reach platforms.

Reception
GameSpot gave the game a 8.6/10, saying that it "injected a dose of soul and variety into a game that was already pretty fun to play", whilst a user score of 8.9 was given on the same site. IGN gave it a 8.8/10, stating that it is a fun, and excellent platformer.