Proto:Spyro: Year of the Dragon/April 25th, 2000 build/Soundtrack Differences
This is a sub-page of Proto:Spyro: Year of the Dragon/April 25th, 2000 build.
This version of the game is early enough in development that that only a small handful of tracks has already been completed, and even then, a number of them would be changed to some degree in the final.
Oddly, the STR file for this build also includes a number of unused tracks totally unrelated to Spyro.
For clarity, all levels listed in this article use their final names, as do the tracks that play in those levels.
Levels
The vast majority of levels use Spooky Swamp's theme in this version (including the title screen!), and in fact, looking at the music ID array, all the levels that aren't normally accessible (or even present) in this version are also set to use the Spooky Swamp theme. That leaves just a small handful of levels using their intended themes.
| Level | Apr 25 Track |
|---|---|
| Title Screen | Spooky Swamp |
| Sunrise Spring | Spooky Swamp |
| Sunny Villa | Spooky Swamp |
| Cloud Spires | Spooky Swamp |
| Molten Crater | Spooky Swamp |
| Seashell Shore | Spooky Swamp |
| Mushroom Speedway | Spooky Swamp |
| Sheila's Alp | Sheila's Alp |
| Buzz's Dungeon | Spooky Swamp |
| Crawdad Farm | Spooky Swamp |
| Midday Gardens | Spooky Swamp |
| Icy Peak | Spooky Swamp |
| Enchanted Towers | Spooky Swamp |
| Spooky Swamp | Spooky Swamp |
| Bamboo Terrace | Bamboo Terrace |
| Country Speedway | Spooky Swamp |
| Sgt. Byrd's Base | Sgt. Byrd's Base |
| Spike's Arena | Spooky Swamp |
| Spider Town | Spooky Swamp |
| Evening Lake | Spooky Swamp |
| Frozen Altars | Frozen Altars |
| Lost Fleet | Lost Fleet |
| Fireworks Factory | Spooky Swamp |
| Charmed Ridge | Spooky Swamp |
| Honey Speedway | Spooky Swamp |
| Bentley's Outpost | Bentley's Outpost |
| Scorch's Pit | Spooky Swamp |
| Starfish Reef | Spooky Swamp |
| Midnight Mountain | Spooky Swamp |
| Crystal Islands | Spooky Swamp |
| Desert Ruins | Spooky Swamp |
| Haunted Tomb | Spooky Swamp |
| Dino Mines | Spooky Swamp |
| Harbor Speedway | Spooky Swamp |
| Agent 9's Lab | Spooky Swamp |
| Sorceress's Lair | Spooky Swamp |
| Bugbot Factory | Spooky Swamp |
| Super Bonus Round | Spooky Swamp |
More specifically, Spooky Swamp uses ID 04 in this version. Even as late as the final game, 04 seems to have been the designated "placeholder" value, though in the final game Sunrise Spring's theme occupies this ID slot.
Tracks
The tracks that are included seem to mostly be early variants of their respective themes, with one track being entirely different from its final theme.
Sheila's Alp seems to be roughly identical to the final theme with the exception of some audio levelling differences, and Spooky Swamp's differences from the final are somewhat subtle and mostly relate to missing instrumentation and changes to the audio levelling. Bamboo Terrace is missing some instrumentation but features some enhanced vocals, Sgt. Byrd's Base and Frozen Altars are at least in part the same as the final version but features some guitar riffs in place of the usual melody, and Bentley's Outpost almost sounds like a slowed-down alternate mix on top of missing some of its instrumentation (in fact, speeding this track up by about 20% seems to match the final tempo of the track).
Lost Fleet is somewhat unique in that, in the final game, it reuses the theme used in Super Bonus Round, whereas here it uses an entirely unique and previously unheard theme. The North American Revision 1 release of the final did give this level its own theme, but rather than using the unique theme heard here, it instead uses a remix of the Sheila's Alp theme for some reason.
The rest of the tracks are not present, including the tracks that only play under specific circumstances - the ice dancing theme, the bone dance theme and the belltower theme.
| Level | Apr 25 Track | Sep 04 Track | Sep 14 Revision 0 Track | Oct 31 Revision 1 Track |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sheila's Alp | ||||
| Spooky Swamp | ||||
| Bamboo Terrace | ||||
| Sgt. Byrd's Base | ||||
| Frozen Altars | ||||
| Lost Fleet | ||||
| Bentley's Outpost | ||||
Unused Tracks
Several tracks on the STR are completely unused in-game and are entirely unrelated to Spyro.
In this build, the music IDs corresponding to each of the levels is ordered consistently with the order of those level IDs. As such, there are a few unused IDs which would seem to correspond to levels that are yet to receive their own tracks. As an example, ID 05 corresponds to Bamboo Terrace and ID 07 corresponds to Sgt. Byrd's Base, so it's not a huge stretch to assume that ID 06 was not used by any level so as to save a space for which ID Country Speedway might have used later in development.
Bizarrely, these unused music IDs use tracks from entirely outside of the franchise as placeholders. These tracks are as follows:
- ID 0 - "56" by U-Ziq
- ID 1 - "Take California" by Propellerheads
- ID 3 - "Autumn Acid" by U-Ziq
- ID 6 - "Spybreak!" by Propellerheads
- ID 11 - "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" by Propellerheads
Interestingly, prior to the release of this prototype, former Cerny Games designer Michael "MJ" John explained in a tweet that the track "Take California" was played over a demo used in an early pitch for the first game of the series.
