Spyro: Year of the Dragon

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Spyro: Year of the Dragon
Developer: Insomniac Games Publisher: Sony Platform: PlayStation Released in US: November 1, 2000 Released in EU: November 10, 2000 This game has unused areas. This game has revisional differences. This game has anti-piracy features. This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article

Spyro: Year of the Dragon is the third game of the Spyro series and the last for PlayStation. It was also the last Spyro game developed by Insomniac Games.

Anti-Piracy Message

This game is unique in that it has a LOT of anti-crack "booby traps", checking for alterations to the game alongside the existing copy-protection. One wrong bit and the trap is triggered. This deliberately made cracking the game a real pain!

Once the trap has been triggered, all sorts of weird things will happen. Zoe will politely inform you that your game is hacked early on in the game. Random eggs and gems in levels other than the one you're in are removed to render the game unwinnable. The game deliberately crashes in odd and confusing ways. The language in the European version changes randomly... all sorts of "fun" things to make pirates pull their hair out!

Here's an article by one of the developers, explaining the whole process.

File:Spyro3-zoenarc.jpg

Thanks, narc.

Unused Areas

Spyro: Year of the Dragon has several unused areas in the game. It is likely that these areas were meant to be accessible, but never made it into the game for unknown reasons.

Fireworks Factory Cave

In the level 'Fireworks Factory', there's a hidden cave with a life inside, and can only be reached through hacking or glitching. The cave is located near the start of the level, and acts as though it was supposed to have a wall that could be busted when rammed into, but doesn't.

Midnight Mountain Island

'Midnight Mountain Home' has a small island that is far out of reach to the player during normal game play that has three lives on it. This island was originally intended to house the Super Bonus Round portal before it was moved. In the words of senior artist Craig Stitt:

A long time ago the portal to the Super Bonus Round was on that island.
The only way to get to that island was beat the Sorceress in the final
battle. Once you had done that a VERY VERY tall whirl wind would appear
in the room just outside the entrance to the final boss round. This
whirlwind would take you up high enough that you could glide ALL the way
out to that island. If I remember right it was like a 20 or 30 second
glide. It was very cool. I was actually the artist who modeled the level.

Unfortunately, the way vacations that year worked out, I needed to take
mine right before we shipped the game. When I came back I discovered
that the Super Bonus Portal had been moved MUCH closer and that the
super-whirl-wind had been removed (for unknown reasons). Unfortunately,
the artist who made all the changes (as per the programmer's and
designer's request) failed to remove the old island way off in the
distance. Same with the programmer who overlook removing the goodies
that had been placed there.

By the time I was back from vacation the game was done and out the door.

The very tall whirlwind object still exists in the game and can be restored. (Ignore the egg on the island at the end, it was added by the hacker.)

(Source: Neoseeker)

Dino Mines Arena

There's a completely different area in 'Dino Mines' that may be accessed using a swim-in-the-air glitch. Once executed, the player must swim to a wall past a red building and go behind it, and there will be a portal that is hidden and regularly inaccessible. Once through the portal, the player will be in an empty arena with a platform in the middle. It was likely going to be used for a boss battle to obtain an egg, much like in Spooky Swamp. To return to the normal level, there is an invisible portal in the middle of the platform. However, simply exiting the level may prove better, seeing as Spyro has nothing to stand upon exiting, and will fall continuously until game over. (occasionally the player may end up on the opposite side of the wall standing on the ground however, indicating where the portal once was located.)

Revisional Differences

The game had some noticable changes between the original NTSC release and the Greatest Hits version. Partly because the game had to be rushed[needs verification]. Because of this, some music tracks are repeated, since all the tracks weren't completed at the time. Here is a brief list of the differences. Keep in mind that this list may still be incomplete:

• In the original version, the cutscene "Spike is Born" goes unused. (It can still be accessed via the cutscene cheat once the game is completed along with the others) This was fixed in the Greatest Hits version where it plays directly before the Spike's Arena boss fight.
• A serious bug present in the speedways was removed in the Greatest Hits version. If one were to quit the level before obtaining the level's egg then that egg would become completely unobtainable.
• The music for Lost Fleet was changed from the music used for "Super Bonus Round" to a remix of Sheila's theme.
• The music for Evening Lake was changed to its intended track. In the original, it erroneously plays the theme of Sunrise Spring.
• The music for the skateboarding levels was changed to its own unique track.
• All of the speedways except the Harbor Speedway use different music tracks in the Greatest Hits version.
• In the original release, the Sorceress's boss theme goes unused, since it erroneously plays the Sunrise Spring track. This was fixed in the Greatest Hits. (similar case like Evening Lake)
• Dino Mines plays Molten Crater's theme in the original version.
• Enchanted Towers' two subgame areas for Spyro (The Lost Wolf and the Stunt Skateboarding areas.) play the music track for Desert Ruins instead. In the Greatest Hits version, they use a different theme not heard anywhere else in the game. The main area of Enchanted Towers however still plays Sgt. Byrd's theme however, probably because Sgt. Byrd can be used in the main part of the level.
• Haunted Tomb plays Cloud Spires in the original version rather than its own unique theme that it gets in the Greatest Hits version.
• Crystal Islands plays Seashell Shore's theme in the original version but gets its own theme in the Greatest Hits version.

None of these changes are present in the 'Platinum' release, the European equivalent of Greatest Hits, except for the 'Spike is Born' cutscene being present and the speedway bug being fixed.

To do: Confirm that the statement about the Platinum (Europe) release is entirely correct, find more changes if possible.

Early Demos

At least two playable demos of the game were released, one a late in development version of the game that appears to only differ from the full game in terms of the music, and an earlier version with the same music and levels but many differences from both the retail version of the game and the other demo.

Both demos include three levels (Sunny Villa Skateboarding, Molten Crater and Seashell Shore). This could suggest that at the time of the first demo's release, Sunny Villa was not a fully playable level, despite being the first level that many players go to. In both the skateboarding and Seashell Shore levels, the music that is used is the skateboarding music, and Molten Crater uses Fireworks Factory's music. In both the Seashell Shore and Molten Crater levels, the Sgt. Byrd and Sheila sections of the level do not change in music as they would in the retail version of the game.

Some of the differences of the earliest demo from the retail version that have been spotted so far include:

• The music is sometimes different (as explained above).
• The small rotating egg in the egg counter display is green with a single white patch. It's unknown whether this was intended to be the final graphic for the display or whether it was just to easily tell whether the eggs was rotating correctly or not (hence the white patch). The eggs themselves, however, use the same texture as their final texture.
• The name text that appears when an egg is found has no black window behind it.
• The egg hatching sound and animation is different.
• Some of the dragon names are different (confirm which?).
• Many gems are placed in different locations, and some enemies give out different gems.
• In the skateboarding level, Hunter's shorts are red, as opposed to purple in the retail version.
• There is no time trial in the skateboarding level, and so there is no skill point.
  • There is no skill point in either of the other two levels either, as the 'funky chicken' is not present in seashell shore, and the bottle in Molten Crater is replaced with the game safe that is normally in a different location. It could have been moved because supercharging the safe in that position would be particularly difficult, or perhaps it was moved only for the demo. The crack on the wall where this is hidden appears to not be present. It's unknown at this time if the skill point in the Sgt. Byrd section is present, but due to the other two being missing it is unlikely.
• There is no display that tells you that you've collected all the gems and eggs in the skateboarding level, but there is in the other two levels. This is almost certainly due to the fact that the skateboarding level is not a full level.
• The cracked wall hiding an egg in the Sgt. Byrd section uses a different (less visible) crack texture, and is for some reason significantly more difficult to break.