Looking for the best games like Spyro after exhausting all the greatest Spyro games? You’ve definitely come to the right place!
What titles spring to mind when we think about Spyro’s adventures? Which games compare to storming around Artisans or Dream Weavers, head butting sheep or chasing that weird ninja-looking dude with the egg?
If you’re looking for platforming goodness and want to push the shooting and sports titles to one side, then we’ve listed 10 amazing games that can fill that dragon-shaped hole in your soul.
Apart from one moustachioed entry (no prizes for guessing who that is), all the titles below feature other innocent-looking animals that, when backed into a corner, aren’t afraid to kick some serious butt.
Let’s meet them all, shall we?
Table of Contents
10. Ty The Tasmanian Tiger (2002)
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger looks and feels so much like a Spyro title that you could probably swap our favourite Dragon into the mix and not know the difference.
As the name and the front cover might suggest, players take a board-short wearing, boomerang-wielding Tiger on adventures through the outback.
His arch enemy; a Cassowary bird called Cass, which as enemy names go, is pretty lame. Collect talismans and stop them from dropping into enemy hands.
Or talons, in this case.
While Ty’s first adventure feels a lot like Spyro, it also has elements of Crash Bandicoot to it as well. Ride around on a pig and bite bad guys; what’s not to love?
Collect boomerang powerups as you progress through the levels too, a little like Spyro’s breath attacks in the later titles!
9. Croc: Legend Of The Gobbos (1999)
Next up in our list of the best games like Spyro is another PS1 classic – Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, one of THE best croc games of all time.
For some reason, this game received a bit of a trouncing back in the day. I still can’t understand why; it’s basically a Spyro clone with a crocodile instead of a dragon!
Croc was Sony’s attempt to bring more cutesy Nintendo-esque characters to the console, just like they did with Spyro. Things looked great for Croc in the beginning, but he just didn’t have the same appeal as Mario or Yoshi.
The Gobbos saved and raised Croc, but now Baron Dante has kidnapped them. Looks like its time to head out on a rescue mission.
Legend of the Gobbos remains the best of the best Croc games of all time. It’s also the first one to be released, which kind of means it went downhill from there!
8. Yooka-Laylee (2017)
How much could one game be like Banjo Kazooie? That could be a whole article in itself, but the whole premise of Yooka-Laylee is to bring platforming games like Banjo-Kazooie back to the forefront of gaming.
The clue is in the name, the fact that the main characters work together in the same way, and that they learn new moves from another character, this time a snake instead of a mole.
The speech style and noises the characters make are pretty much the same too. Whats more, the levels have a very Spyro-esque feel, especially from the Re-ignited Trilogy.
Explore, converse with NPCs, find items, collect powers, and complete challenges. And because this is one of the best games like Spyro, the way you kill enemies is child friendly too!
7. New Super Lucky Tales (2019)
Lucky is another cutesy character vying for a slice of Spyro’s fame. In many ways, the gameplay has a lot in common with Yooka-Laylee. Both games require you to retrieve missing pages, and both games are dripping with Year of the Dragon goodness.
Which is a sentence I never thought I would write ever.
Take Lucky on an adventure through beautifully crafted worlds as you battle the evil Jinx and his cat, Kitty Litter.
If these names don’t make for a Spyro-esque vibe, then I don’t know what will.
And come on; that little fox face looks so much like Spyro that they could be brothers… though their parentage could be pretty confusing.
6. Kirby And The Forgotten Land (2022)
Kirby’s brand new adventure on the Nintendo Switch takes the 6th spot in our best games like Spyro compendium!
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the best Kirby games of all time, and it’s only just come out! It’s one of the best games featuring the Pink Wonder to have dropped in decades and feels very much like Super Mario Odyssey.
The explorative elements feel a lot more like The Legend of Spyro games, with a modern next-gen console vibe and stunning worlds to run and jump through.
Like Spyro, Kirby is so inoffensive and cute to look at. The guy literally inhales enemies whole and we still think he’s harmless.
Save the Waddle Dees by transforming into items and vehicles along the way, just like Spyro saves his dragon friends!
5. Ōkami (2006)
Ōkami could well be one of the best looking games I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing. Imagine jumping into a water colour painting inspired by Sume-e ink artwork with Legend of Zelda vibes, and you’ll get the general vibe.
Ok, so this is one of the best games like Spyro for gameplay feel, but the look is definitely different. It feels more like an artistic render of WindWaker than anything else, but the developer did state Zelda as being one of his main muses.
So what’s the score here?
Well, players take the Sun Goddess Amaterasu on a journey to bring colour back to the world. She takes the form of a white wolf named Shiranui, and using the celestial brush, must give the world of Nippon a new lease of life.
Ōkami certainly didn’t sell as many copies as Spyro, but it will forever be one of the best PS2 games and now one of the best retro games on Nintendo Switch in HD!
Just look at that artwork! It’s certainly strange to see graphics like this in a computer game; it’s like an artistic render of the cell-shaded graphics we saw in Wind Waker, but it makes for a stunning and immersive adventure like no other.
4. Banjo-Kazooie (1998)
We’ve had Yooka-Laylee, now let’s get to the main duo!
In many ways (or in all ways), Spyro was the PS1’s answer to Banjo-Kazooie. People went crazy for this game back in the day, with the bird and bear team still holding the accolade of being the 10th best selling N64 game of all time.
If you owned multiple consoles as a kid, then the chances are this won’t be the first time Banjo and Spyro have been mentioned together. Instead of collecting gems, players collect notes. Instead of saving dragons, they save Jinjos and collect Jiggys.
Gnasty Gnorc and Gruntilda would have probably got on really well, to be honest.
Visit Mumbo Jumbo to transform in to new creatures, learn new moved from Bottles the Mole, and chat to memorable NPCs all the way through.
I wonder if the Balloonist can shed any light on that Ice Key?
3. Super Mario Odyssey (2017)
Mario’s latest adventure and 6th best selling Switch game to date takes the 3rd spot in our best games like Spyro list!
You know, I reckon if Yoshi ever fancied a break from action, Spyro could step into the Mushroom Kingdom without any problems whatsoever.
Instead of Sparx following Spyro around, Mario’s sidekick is Cappy…. his hat!
Use Cappy to defeat enemies, reach new areas, and pilot the Odyssey to new planets. You can even take-over a T-Rex, goombas, bullet bills, and tonnes of other enemies.
If you’re after cutesy levels with a non-threatening feel and that classic Spyro-platformer vibe, then this is definitely one of the best Switch titles out there, especially when kicking back on the sofa after a long day of work!
While we’re talking about plumbers, check out our list of the best games like Luigi’s Mansion 3!
2. Crash Bandicoot: N-Sane Trilogy (2017)
If we’re talking about the best games like Spyro, then we can’t discount the guy that shared the spotlight with him back in the PS1 days.
The N-Sane Trilogy remasters the three classic Crash games for the PS1, enhancing the graphics, the levels, the characters, and the overall game experience.
Play through the original Crash Bandicoot, Cortex Strikes Back, and Warped on PS4, Xbox One, and Switch. Jump, spin, collect animals, and collect Aku Aku masks for that extra shield as you adventure!
Like the later Spyro titles where extra characters such as Hunter the Cheetah drop onto the scene, other characters are available to play as in Warped.
The N-Sane Trilogy and the Re-ignited Trilogy go hand in hand, recharging PS1 classics for nostalgic gamers and whole new audience at the same time.
1. Jak And Daxter: Precursor Legacy (2001)
And finally, one of the best games like Spyro for look, feel, story, and overall gameplay is the PS2 classic, Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy.
This is the first time we ever saw pointer-eared Jak and Ottsel-faced Daxter in action. The game has the same humorous stylings of the Spyro games and the duo dynamic of Banjo-Kazooie, with Daxter making the Kazooie quips and Jak being the serious, level-headed one.
Discover if a dark sage can turn Daxter back into a human after he falls into Dark Eco (spoiler alert, he can’t), but I guess there wouldn’t be any other games if he could
The levels are bright and inviting, with each area brimming with surprises to collect. It’s also fast-paced like Spyro too, and like the purple-powerhouse’s first outing, critics went absolutely crazy for it!
Yes, the Precursor Legacy is an incredibly fitting title to top our best games like Spyro list; two PlayStation greats with maximum firepower that pack a real punch!
