I played a bunch of post-PS1 Spyro games just to see what I missed a few years ago, having grown up on the originals. Anons aren't exaggerating. They really are the best ones and after PS1 and Insomniac, they collectively dropped in quality and never get close.
>Enter the Dragonfly
Sonic 06 for Spyro. It's barely functional, having been developed in about 6-12 months by a literally who studio after Insomniac let their contract with Universal expire. Watch someone play for glitches, then never pick it up again.
>Hero's Tail
More of a real game, but loses out on the classic Spyro structure and is a lot blander than the originals. Maybe if you're desperate, you can find something in it, but it's not quite Spyro, really. They also made the main villain of 1 from a dangerous retard to just a retard.
>Legend of Spyro series
Fanfiction. They hired a bunch of voice actors like Elijah Wood and Billy West, so they didn't have money to make the games actually good. This was during the major push of cinematic games.
>A New Beginning
The first is a linear slog beat-em-up and really short (5 levels, but it feels long for how much you're just killing HP sponge enemies). You also don't have to try because there's literally no consequence to dying, which ultimately is a good thing for how boring combat is.
>Eternal Night
The same as the first, but with a time slow mechanic that doesn't matter save for some platforming, and you do have setbacks to checkpoints if you die. It made everything super tedious.
>Dawn of the Dragon
This is a weird one for LoS because it was made by a different studio than the other two. I'll go on record and say it's the best non-Insomniac Spyro, but for all the wrong reasons. You have to play it with an unfortunate friend for the best experience, as you get to fly around as two characters on one screen through levels that advertise flying freely, but actually shove invisible walls and height limits everywhere. The story becomes peak Deviantart and is very silly.
>Skylanders
Stop.
>Reignited
I haven't played it yet and will probably just pirate it on PC when it comes out then. Spyro looks good and once in a while a character looks faithfully upgraded (Bianca comes to mind) but for the most part, everything looks worse. The colors are muddled together and a lot of characters go from abstract low poly creatures to Dreamworks-looking abominations.
There are GBA exclusive games, too. You're not missing much though. At the time, they were neat for putting a Spyro 2/3 type game on a portable console, but they're pretty clunky and depth perception is awful due to being an isometric 2D platformer.