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.

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:

It is actually very cool to me that someone finally made it out to that
little island. Of course is also makes me kind of sad. Here's the
story of why that island is there and why there is stuff on it.

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.

Revisional Differences

The game had some noticable changes between the original release and the Greatest Hits version. Most notably, some music was changed. 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.
• The music for Lost Fleet was changed from the music used for "Super Bonus Round" to Sheila's theme.
• The Music for Evening Lake was changed to an entirely different track. In the original it plays the theme of one of the other previous homeworlds. However, this was changed to give it its own unique track.
• All of the speedways except the Harbor Speedway use different music tracks in the Greatest Hits Version.