Spyro: Year of the Dragon (Apr 25, 2000 prototype): Difference between revisions

From Hidden Palace
Jump to navigation Jump to search
No edit summary
Line 37: Line 37:
** Crawdad Farm, Spike's Arena and the main areas of Sunny Villa and Molten Crater are accessible with the use of cheat codes.
** Crawdad Farm, Spike's Arena and the main areas of Sunny Villa and Molten Crater are accessible with the use of cheat codes.
** One sublevel of Sunny Villa and one sublevel of Molten Crater are not accessible without the use of memory editing, as sublevel portals in that level are disabled.
** One sublevel of Sunny Villa and one sublevel of Molten Crater are not accessible without the use of memory editing, as sublevel portals in that level are disabled.
** Sunrise Spring appears to only be accessible with memory editing, as using cheat codes to enter the level results in a crash.
** Sunrise Spring appears to '''only''' be accessible with memory editing, as using cheat codes to enter the level results in a crash. In order to enter the level, the player must fix one of the level ID variables at (dec) 10 '''on the title screen''' and start the game - access via any other level will not work.
** Seashell Shore appears to not be easily accessible with memory editing, possibly due to errors in the data corresponding to that level. The game will instead crash upon attempting to enter the level. Specifically, the crash is on load stage 6, which corresponds with the loading of the mobys - model ripping tools have shown that at least one of the mobys seems to misbehave in its animations, so it's possible that loading this particular moby is causing the crash.
** Seashell Shore appears to not be easily accessible with memory editing, possibly due to errors in the data corresponding to that level. The game will instead crash upon attempting to enter the level. Specifically, the crash is on load stage 6, which corresponds with the loading of the mobys - model ripping tools have shown that at least one of the mobys seems to misbehave in its animations, so it's possible that loading this particular moby is causing the crash.
** One sublevel of both Seashell Shore and Lost Fleet are still not present at this point.
** One sublevel of both Seashell Shore and Lost Fleet are still not present at this point.
Line 84: Line 84:
** Game contains debugging symbols: No
** Game contains debugging symbols: No
** Dump was originally scrambled: No
** Dump was originally scrambled: No
==Screenshots==
==Screenshots==
<center><gallery heights="256" widths="224">
<center><gallery heights="256" widths="224">

Revision as of 15:59, April 18, 2021


Title Screen
Spyro: Year of the Dragon (Apr 25, 2000 prototype)
Build date Apr 25, 2000 00:00:00
Build name Previewable
Dump status Released, redump needed
Released by Hidden Palace
File release date April 17, 2021
Origin CD-R
Lot Project Deluge
Labels Spyro Year of the Dragon Previewable
Dump method PLEXTOR DVDR PX-716UF 1.11 03/23/07 15:10 (CloneCD)
Game Spyro: Year of the Dragon
System PlayStation
Genre Platformer
Final build JP N/A
EU Sep 29, 2000
US Sep 14, 2000
Release date JP N/A
EU Nov 10, 2000
US Oct 24, 2000
Download Spyro: Year of the Dragon (Apr 25, 2000 prototype) (info)
Error: The download file provided does not exist, please upload it or fix the file name if it's incorrect.
Download Spyro: Year of the Dragon (Apr 25, 2000 prototype) from external mirror

A prototype of Spyro: Year of the Dragon for the PlayStation.

Notes

The Cutting Room Floor research

An early prototype of Spyro: Year of the Dragon for the Sony PlayStation. This build seems to match the one used at E3 2000, as well as the one used in a number of previews and gameplay B-roll footage. The build is an NTSC-U preview build. The disc's primary volume creation date lists the prototype as being built on 5th April 2000 as opposed to the final's 14th September 2000, but no modification date is included. Its original disc was labelled with "4.25 E", which likely represents a burn date of April 25th. Oftentimes, the modification dates on the files of Spyro builds (and PSX titles generally) do not match their true modification dates. This, in combination with the fact that no primary volume modification date is listed, and the fact that "4.25 E" so closely resembles some of the build date and version strings used in other Spyro 3 builds (5.25.a, 7.27.a and 9.4) suggests a possible date of April 25th instead, which may be more likely to be accurate due to its use as a versioning number.

  • There are a number of Spyro 2 leftovers, notably including the game's title screen.
  • Starting the game from the title screen immediately puts the player into Bamboo Terrace (which is called "Rice Paddies" in this version). There are no save files.
  • The pause menu is replaced with a level and minigame warp menu, allowing the user to move from place to place more easily.
  • Only 13 of the game's 37 levels are playable by normal means, with only one sublevel playable in each of Sunny Villa and Molten Crater.
    • Data corresponding to another four levels - Sunrise Spring, Seashell Shore, Crawdad Farm and Spike's Arena - is present, as is the rest of Sunny Villa and Molten Crater.
    • Crawdad Farm, Spike's Arena and the main areas of Sunny Villa and Molten Crater are accessible with the use of cheat codes.
    • One sublevel of Sunny Villa and one sublevel of Molten Crater are not accessible without the use of memory editing, as sublevel portals in that level are disabled.
    • Sunrise Spring appears to only be accessible with memory editing, as using cheat codes to enter the level results in a crash. In order to enter the level, the player must fix one of the level ID variables at (dec) 10 on the title screen and start the game - access via any other level will not work.
    • Seashell Shore appears to not be easily accessible with memory editing, possibly due to errors in the data corresponding to that level. The game will instead crash upon attempting to enter the level. Specifically, the crash is on load stage 6, which corresponds with the loading of the mobys - model ripping tools have shown that at least one of the mobys seems to misbehave in its animations, so it's possible that loading this particular moby is causing the crash.
    • One sublevel of both Seashell Shore and Lost Fleet are still not present at this point.
  • The pause menu displays names for each of the levels, many of which differ wildly from their final names.
    • The level names used on portals and loading screens are entirely generic at this point, with all levels given the name "Level x" where x is replaced with the level ID.
  • The Atlas is not yet accessible, though some very limited functionality corresponding to the Atlas is present, though at this point it functions as not much more than a page-turning simulator.
    • The Atlas is also still referred to as the "Guidebook" (a term used in Spyro 2) by the pause menu at this point, despite its graphics saying "Atlas". The pause menu option for this menu does nothing when selected.
  • The player also has the option to restart the level from the pause menu.
  • A number of HUD elements across several levels are missing or differ from the final.
    • This includes the egg icon and counter in the HUD.
  • Only 7 of the game's music tracks are present, with the majority of them being vastly different to how they sound in the final game. In particular, Lost Fleet has an entirely unique theme, rather than re-using another level's theme as it would in the final game.
    • In the NTSC-U Rev 1 release of Spyro: Year of the Dragon, a number of levels were given their own themes rather than reusing tracks. Lost Fleet still did not get an entirely unique theme once again, instead using a remix of the Sheila's Alp theme, for some reason.
    • All levels which don't yet have their own theme in this version use Spooky Swamp's theme instead.
    • There are several unused tracks which are entirely unrelated to Spyro - all of these tracks are by either U-Ziq or Propellerheads.
  • There is no audio dialogue present whatsoever, and a large amount of the text dialogue is in a very incomplete state.
    • Many lines of dialogue are also clearly placeholder strings presenting developer humour.
  • The dialogue font and text colour matches the one used in Spyro 2.
  • Eggs have a completely different appearance to their final look, and come in multiple different varieties, mostly corresponding to the type of dragon they hatch.
  • Gem placement is almost universally different, as are the gem totals for each level.
  • Many of the levels have significant structural changes.
  • There are a number of cut enemies - most notably, tigers in Bamboo Terrace, Rhynoc Thieves in Molten Crater and a caterpillar boss in Crawdad Farm.
  • Several of the alternate characters control and behave slightly differently from their final design.
    • Sgt. Byrd is also quite noticeably different in appearance. Bentley also differs from his final design, but only in subtle texture tweaks.
    • Oddly enough, the characters capable of shooting can do so even when an NPC is speaking to them or a cutscene is in the middle of taking place.
  • Due to incomplete programming, the player cannot leave the level via the portal at the beginning of each of the critter levels. Instead, the player will return to the level regardless of whether they select "Yes" or "No" when asked if they want to leave the level. In three of the four critter levels, the player is amusingly greeted with a text string proclaiming "At some point, I'll need to program that." if they attempt to leave.
  • There are no skill points present at this stage of development.
  • The gem values Moneybags requests differs in a couple of locations and he's entirely missing from some areas he'd normally be, too. In a couple of places he appears, there are a number of gems deliberately placed next to him specifically to give the player exactly as many gems as they need to proceed.
    • Even though using the pause menu to warp between levels resets most of the player's data, which instances of Moneybags have been paid is carried over, so he does not need to be paid more than once at the same location.
  • Warping between levels using the pause menu resets all of the data corresponding to the items the player has collected. However, the player can circumvent this by using the cheat codes to warp between levels. Most (but not all) levels do not yet exhibit alternate behaviours (such as NPCs being missing) when re-entering a level after completion.
  • This version of the game unsurprisingly has a number of glitches not present in the final, including what appears to be a glitch that will occasionally cause a few specific gems to vanish from the map.
  • Like the final release, a number of cheats are present in this version, but they differ dramatically from the final game and generally exhibit more debug / QA-like features. All of these can be enabled by inputting the following codes in pause menu.
    • O, O, O, O, X - Permanent invincibility
    • Square, Square, Square, Square, O - Sets all level gem counts to 400, the total collected gems to 10,000 and the total eggs collected to 64
    • Square, O, Square, O, Square, O, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right - Credits cheat, does not work in this version due to the credits being missing
    • R1, R2, L1, L2, R1, R2, L1, L2, O - Permanent superflame, causes crashing in levels where the superflame is not present
    • Up, Down, Up, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Square, ?, ? - Level warp, the last two buttons determine the level ID
    • Up, Up, Up, Up, R1, R1, R1, R1, O - Big head mode
    • Left, Right, Left, Right, L2, R2, L2, R2, Square - Flat mode
    • Up, Right, Down, Left, Up, Square, R1, R2, L1, L2, Up, Left, Down, Right, Up, ? - Colour change, the last button determines the colour
    • Square, Up, Square, Down, Square, Left, Square, Right, O - Extra hit point
  • Dongle protection is present in this build, which can stop the game from running on real hardware and certain emulators. The game will reach the Universal logo screen before halting.
    • The dongle protection can be bypassed with the included patch, or by setting the int at address 0x80071610 to zero.
  • Miscellaneous Notes:
    • Game is emulatable: Yes (as of April 17, 2021).
    • Game contains dongle protection: Patched.
    • Game contains debugging symbols: No
    • Dump was originally scrambled: No

Screenshots

Origin

Videos

Files

File Type Date Size SHA-1
PSX_-_Spyro_Year_of_the_Dragon_Previewable.xdelta File 2020-12-16 17:22:33 1.9 KB 2832f3d6e8224f767caff2d7cf55b7137e7eb4a8
PSX - Spyro Year of the Dragon Previewable.img File 2020-12-15 23:29:12 395.68 MB 2355b5d4718b03fb6d5fb37fd0d9546e8e2ac939
PSX - Spyro Year of the Dragon Previewable.cue File 2020-12-15 23:16:55 106 bytes 642cac84ca2a19a2c0cb7facbafb4780fbde7eaf
PSX - Spyro Year of the Dragon Previewable.ccd File 2020-12-15 23:16:55 772 bytes b172038fec69d00972dfb28e710e24a1706aa62f
PSX - Spyro Year of the Dragon Previewable.sub File 2020-12-15 23:30:24 16.15 MB 1a02fa75e39e48c1bd226233d9000c28a0bf2535
PSX - Spyro Year of the Dragon Previewable.jpeg File 2021-03-14 12:13:24 1.41 MB c198aac2b422c0d19265cd45ff53a3eb9b301fce

Acknowledgments

A huge thanks to Hwd45 for researching this prototype!

See also