Spyro the Dragon (Jul 11, 1998 prototype)
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| Download Spyro the Dragon (Jul 11, 1998 prototype) (info) |
A prototype of Spyro the Dragon for the Sony PlayStation, built about a month before the final build.
Notes
The Cutting Room Floor research
- This build has dongle protection, which causes a crash during start up if no dongle is detected. There are a couple ways to circumvent this:
- This dongle file, inserted into slot 2.
- Patching the iso with this xdelta patch before playing.
- Game starts up with a "temporary boot menu" instead of a title screen or any of the copyright screens.
- Attempting to delete files from a full memory card will bring up a file delete screen. Progressing into this screen will show the message "Delete Screen Is Not. Ready Yet. You Got The Shemp.".
- The soundtrack is in a completely different order compared to the final release, and only 10 tracks are present, instead of nearly every level getting an exclusive theme.
- These tracks are seemingly almost randomly assigned. The tracklist matches other builds from May through July.
- These tracks are all in stereo quality, whereas many of them were changed to mono in the final release.
- None of the secret bonus tracks are present, and the bonus track functionality isn't implemented yet.
- In the Beast Makers worlds the tracks are incorrectly given track lengths corresponding with the theme used in Stone Hill. This means that many of the tracks in these levels will loop at unusual times, for example before the track is finished.
- Many sound effects are missing throughout the game. Many of the sounds that are present are different, too.
- Many of the dragons have not yet received their final animations.
- Of those that have animations, a handful of them have unfinished audio - missing or changed background music, different lines, early dialogue takes, and a couple of them have incredibly slow, low pitched audio, indicating they were exported with an incorrect sample rate.
- For the first three worlds, the dragons without animations show a text screen with some dialogue instead (often differing from their cutscene dialogue), and from Beast Makers onwards, any dragon that is collected will instantly disappear. The dialogue screen is a feature entirely absent from the final game.
- Looping sounds will continue playing in the dialogue screen. For example, charging into a dragon can make the charging sound continue playing whilst the dialogue is on screen.
- There's a strange effect that happens when a cutscene dragon is collected after a non-cutscene dragon in the same level - if the counter has not been displayed on screen between the two, at the end of the cutscene it will appear to go up for each non-cutscene dragon collected as well as the cutscene one, due to the counter having not updated yet.
- This is usually not possible in other builds, but this build allows it due to there being levels that have a mix of both dragon types.
- Gem placement differs in quite a few places across the game.
- The extra life statues are gold instead of silver.
- The animation that plays upon collecting a dragon egg cannot be skipped. The same is true for key animations - locked chests and the doors in Gnasty Gnorc and Gnasty's Loot.
- The end of level vortex platform has no low-poly LOD model, so it will appear to pop into view when Spyro is a short distance away from it.
- Some level portals - such as the Toasty portal - seem to be slightly more difficult to enter, as Spyro gets caught on the collision instead of going straight through.
- The question mark doesn't appear to be in the 3D font yet, so any question marks (e.g. in the balloonists' "Are You Ready To Go?" dialogue) appear as an apostrophe instead.
- All balloonists look the same, sporting a blue outfit with a red scarf, rather than each being different as in the final.
- A number of levels have different names. Unless otherwise stated, levels in this article will be described by their final names.
- All boss levels are called "BOSS" instead of their respective names.
- All flight levels are called "FLYING" instead of their respective names.
- Alpine Ridge is called "ALPINE CLIFFS"
- Gnasty's World is called the "MACHINISTS WORLD".
- Gnorc Cove and Twilight Harbor have switched names in this version. Considering Gnorc Cove was given its final name in builds both earlier and later than this one, it seems more likely that this level being called Twilight Harbor here is a mistake rather than the original intent.
- The level "GNASTY GNORC" is called "GNASTY PLACE".
- Gnasty's Loot is called "BOSS", just as other levels with a level ID ending in 4 do in this build.
- When entering a boss level, the loading screen reads "ENTERING BOSS" instead of "CONFRONTING BOSS".
- The requirements to travel between worlds is different in a couple places:
- Going from Magic Crafters to Beast Makers requires 7 eggs instead of 5.
- Going from Beast Makers to Dream Weavers requires 42 dragons instead of 50.
- There are a few places where the number of dragons or gems in a level differs from the final.
- The second dragon in Gnorc Gnexus isn't present yet.
- There's an extra dragon in Gnorc Cove.
- Only 381 of the 400 gems in Twilight Harbour are present. As a result, Gnasty's Loot is inaccessible under normal means.
- The maximum dragon counts in the inventory also differ from the in-game dragon counts in a few places:
- Gnorc Gnexus has 2 in the inventory, matching the final's dragon count instead of this build's 1 dragon.
- Gnorc Cove has 4 in the inventory, instead of the 3 in-game.
- Twilight Harbor claims to have 0 dragons, instead of the level's 2.
- There's no option to quit the game in the pause menu.
- The smoke Spyro emits when the superflame powerup is active is absent in this build.
- There are no story cutscenes, nor any credits sequences.
- Some levels have major lighting differences.
- Flight levels often start with a different amount of time, and the collectables will often give different amounts of additional time to the final.
- Opening the Sunny Flight portal requires stepping on the stones in a specific order, rather than any order. This sequence has no sound effects, the stones always light up when stood on if done in the right order (in the final, they only light up after you've spoken to a certain dragon in Wizard Peak), and the stones are textured differently to the final, too. The wall opening sound during this sequence is absent.
- Both Dry Canyon and Dream Weavers Home include red spring chests, which are only present in Lofty Castle in the final game.
- In the Magic Crafters home, one of the opening rooms uses grey wall textures and blue lighting instead of red wall textures and yellow lighting.
- Alpine Ridge and Wizard Peak both have gems floating in their exit vortices, a feature cut from the final.
- In High Caves, there are a handful of flags placed around the level which don't appear in the final game.
- In Wizard Peak, Spyro does the wrong entrance animation and bonks against the wall in front of him instead of gracefully landing on the floor below.
- The room with the dragon in the middle of Blowhard is missing. Instead, the dragon is on the boardwalk outside the cave.
- In Tree Tops, some of the usually stone brick textured areas are textured with a tree stump design instead.
- Wild Flight uses a totally different and much brighter skybox. The level's texture work is very incomplete and its lighting is very dull and flat, contrasting with the final's much more vibrant lighting. All of the crystals are purple instead of some of them being green, and none of them glow.
- Dream Weaveers includes some extra geometry around one of the buildings that you can platform across to collect a few more gems. This leads to a gem that drops a gem spawner (thus spawning several more gems) upon collection - this is quite unusual, and there's nothing like it in any other known build of any of the original Spyro trilogy.
- There are some large holes in the geometry in Dark Passage and Haunted Towers.
- Icy Flight's texture work is very incomplete and its lighting is very dull and flat. The lighthouses have red and white stripes instead of a grey brick texture.
- Gnorc Gnexus has very flat lighting. The low LOD model appears to be almost totally grey, which makes the level look grey in the distance. The skybox is totally different.
- The opening area of Gnasty Gnorc has a reinforced crate, which is only destroyable using superflame. A superflame fairy appears in the opening to the second section of the level. Both of these are absent in the final. Spyro keeps his superflame for the rest of the level.
- In Gnasty Gnorc, after the slithering part of the path, Spyro can either take the usual route to the end of the level, or he can jump across some additional platforms unique to this version. Additionally, around this point, Gnasty’s path also diverts from the usual route through the level. He jumps across some platforms that are in the final level but aren't usually used by him or the player.
- Gnasty Gnorc spawns the shield enemies from Dark Hollow behind him in the final section of his level.
- There's a vortex at the end of Gnasty Gnorc, which isn't usually there. Entering the vortex crashes the game due to a missing whirlwind animation. The level must be exited via the pause menu.
- Gnasty's Loot is inaccessible under normal means, due to some missing gems in Twilight Harbor. You can still enter Gnasty's Loot by setting your gem total to 12000 using the GameShark code
8007184C 2EE0. - Gnasty's Loot has a lot of unfinished texture work, appearing to be partially using the textures from its block-out stage. There is no Gnasty Gnorc painting texture.
- In Gnasty's Loot, Spyro's maximum flight height depends on where you started flying, not how high you’ve been so far. This can make the level a pain to complete if you land anywhere lower than where you've just come from.
- Exiting Gnasty's Loot via the vortex will crash the game as Spyro enters the “returning home” sequence. Exiting via the pause menu works fine, though.
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