Spyro: Year of the Dragon
Spyro: Year of the Dragon is a 2000 platform game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation. Year of the Dragon is the third game in the Spyro series. The game follows the adventures of the purple dragon Spyro. After an evil sorceress steals magical dragon eggs from the land of the dragons, Spyro travels to the "Forgotten Realms" to retrieve them. Players travel across thirty different worlds gathering gems and eggs, defeating enemies, and playing minigames. Year of the Dragon introduced new characters and minigames to the series, as well as offering improved graphics and music.

Year of the Dragon received positive reviews from critics, who noted the game successfully built on the formula of its predecessors. The game sold more than 3 million copies worldwide. Year of the Dragon was the last Spyro title released for the first PlayStation, and the last developed by Insomniac Games; their next game would be Ratchet & Clank. Year of the Dragon was followed by the multiplatform title Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, and was later remade as part of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy in 2018.

Gameplay

Year of the Dragon is a platforming video game primarily played from a third person perspective. The main objective is to recover stolen dragon eggs which are scattered across 37 levels. These eggs are hidden, or are given as rewards for completing certain tasks and levels. The worlds of Spyro are linked together by "homeworlds" or "hubs", large worlds which contain gateways to many other levels. To proceed to the next hub, the character must complete five worlds, gather a certain number of eggs, and defeat a boss. Players do not need to gather every egg to complete the main portion of the game or gain access to new levels; in fact, certain eggs can only be found by returning to the world at a later time. Gems are scattered across the worlds, hidden in crates and jars. These gems are used to bribe a bear named Moneybags to release captured characters and activate things which help Spyro progress through levels. Gems, along with the number of eggs collected, count to the total completion percentage of the game.

The player controls the dragon Spyro for much of the game. Spyro's health is measured by his companion Sparx, a dragonfly who changes color and then disappears after taking progressively more damage. If the player does not have Sparx, then the next hit would cause the player to lose a life and restart at the last saved checkpoint. Consuming small wildlife known as "fodder" regenerates Sparx. Spyro has several abilities, including breathing fire, swimming and diving, gliding, and headbutting, which he can use to explore and combat a variety of enemies, most of which are rhinoceros-like creatures called Rhynocs. Some foes are only vulnerable to certain moves. Spyro can run through "Powerup Gates", which give him special abilities for a limited period.

Year of the Dragon introduces new playable characters other than Spyro, known as critters, which are unlocked by paying off Moneybags as the player proceeds through the game. Subsequently, the player plays as the critter in specially marked sections of levels. Each critter has their own special moves and abilities. Sheila the Kangaroo, for example, can double jump, while Sgt. Byrd is armed with rocket launchers and can fly indefinitely.

Besides the primary quest to find dragon eggs, Year of the Dragon features an extensive set of minigames, which are split off from the levels into smaller zones. Some of the minigames were featured in Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and were subsequently expanded for Year of the Dragon, while others are entirely new to the series. These minigames are played by Spyro or the other playable characters.

Plot
The game opens in the land of the dragons, where Spyro and his kin are celebrating the "Year of the Dragon", an event that occurs every twelve years when new dragon eggs are brought to the realm. During the celebration, the Sorceress' apprentice, Bianca, invades the Dragon Realms with an army of rhino-based creatures called Rhynocs, stealing all of the Dragon eggs. The Sorceress spreads the eggs throughout several worlds, split up into four home realms: Sunrise Spring, Midday Garden, Evening Lake, and Midnight Mountain. Spyro, Sparx, and Spyro's friend Hunter are sent down a hole to find the thieves and recover the dragon eggs.

Spyro emerges in the Forgotten Realms (lands once inhabited by the dragons), where magic has gradually been disappearing. These worlds are under the iron-fisted reign of the Sorceress and her Rhynoc army. Spyro meets with Sheila the Kangaroo, Sergeant Byrd the Penguin, Bentley the Yeti, and Agent 9 the Monkey, all who help him on his quest. Spyro travels through each world, acquiring aid from the local inhabitants and rescuing the dragon eggs. It is revealed that the Sorceress banished the dragons, not realizing they were the source of magic, and wants to use the baby dragons' wings to concoct a spell that can grant her immortality. Once Bianca learns this, she turns against the Sorceress and helps Spyro defeat her. After the credits, the player can continue to find dragon eggs and gems to unlock the true ending, defeating the Sorceress once more for the final dragon egg. Spyro returns all of the baby dragons to the Dragon Realms. Along the journey to help Spyro recover the eggs, Hunter forms a crush on Bianca, and they begin a relationship, with Spyro and Sparx looking on in dismay.

Development
Development of Spyro: Year of the Dragon spanned about ten and a half months, from November 1999 to September 2000; the development team was influenced by a host of other games, including Doom and Crash Bandicoot. Among the new features touted before the game's release was "Auto Challenge Tuning", which Insomniac CEO Ted Price described as "invented to even out the gameplay difficulty curve for players of different abilities". The levels were made much larger than those in Spyro 2, so that more areas for minigames could be added; to prevent player confusion on where to go next, these areas were designed to load separately from the main hubs. Price stated that the addition of critters was a way to make the game more enjoyable and varied, instead of just adding more moves for Spyro. The game was named Year of the Dragon because it released during the year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac.

In previews, publications such as IGN and GameSpot noted that the graphics had been improved, and that there were many new characters and locations. The new minigames were previewed, and IGN pointed out that they offered enough complexity to back up the simple gameplay. In an interview with GameSpot, Ted Price stated that the emphasis for the title was on the new critters, but that Spyro would not be left behind in the story.

Music

The music for Year of the Dragon was composed by Stewart Copeland, former drummer for the rock band The Police, alongside Ryan Beveridge, who helped produce the score. During the band's hiatus, Copeland composed several movie soundtracks, and composed the scores for the previous Spyro titles; Price stated that Copeland's offering for the third installment was his best work to date. In an interview, Copeland stated that his creative process for writing the music for the Spyro series always began by playing through the levels, trying to get a feel for each world's "atmosphere". Copeland noted the challenge of writing for games was to create music that would both be interesting to listen to and complemented the gameplay; his approach was to incorporate more complicated harmonies and basslines so that the music could seem fresh for players, even after repeated listening. He complimented the compact disc format of the PlayStation and its support for high quality audio; there were no technical constraints that stopped him from producing the sound he wanted. Copeland recorded entire orchestral scores for extra flourish when the visuals called for an expansive sound, but used more percussive and beat-driven melodies for "high-energy" moments in the game.

Release
Year of the Dragon released in the United States on October 10, 2000. While the upcoming PlayStation 2 was being aggressively promoted, Sony continued to support its three marquee PlayStation 1 games, including Year of the Dragon, with a $10 million advertising campaign. In an effort to reduce software piracy, Year of the Dragon implemented crack protection in addition to the copy protection previous games had contained. This helped prevent hackers from cracking the game until two months after release, rather than the week it had taken for Spyro 2. Since as much as half of a game's lifetime sales occurred during the early release window, Insomniac considered their effort a success.

The game sold more than two million units in the United States. It received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 300,000 units in the UK. By June 2007, the game sold more than 3.2 million units worldwide.

Reception

Year of the Dragon received "universal acclaim" according to review aggregator Metacritic. Critics including NextGen, AllGame, and PSXExtreme called it the best entry in the series thus far, with AllGames Ben Simpson considering it one of the PlayStation's best platformers. GameSpots Brad Shoemaker and IGNs David Smith noted that the game only brought minor refinements to the series, but that if players liked the previous games, they would enjoy Year of the Dragon as much or more.

Andrew Reiner, writing for Game Informer, said the gameplay managed to be accessible for audiences of all ages, while still offering a challenge. Some reviewers critiqued that the camera could be annoying at times, particularly when it was unable to keep up with Spyro.

GameSpot noted that while Year of the Dragon made no significant changes to the formula of its predecessors, the combination of new playable characters, more detailed graphics, and the wide variety of minigames made the game worth buying. IGN praised the game's appeal to all ages and the polished levels, as well as the successful multi-character focus. GamePro noted that the ability of the game to automatically drop the difficulty if players get stuck was an excellent feature. NextGens Kevin Rice provided one of the most positive reviews in which he stated the top-notch level design, intuitive controls and excellent graphics made the title the best Spyro game to date, and arguably the best PlayStation game overall.

Publications like PSXExtreme thought the music helped bring atmosphere to the varied worlds, and AllGame enthused that "Insomniac should be commended for realizing the importance of music in games; it seems to enhance the whole experience." Other points of praise were the voice acting and character development. Joseph Parazen of GameRevolution found the sound to be well done but nothing extraordinary, arguing that the background music and sound effects were both fairly generic, while the voice acting was better than usual. He also called the game's premise its only real flaw, as it was too unoriginal, but added that "the story that unfolds as you actually play the game is flawlessly interwoven and quite entertaining". Other publications cautioned that elements of the game might feel too much like those of its predecessors.

During the 4th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Spyro: Year of the Dragon for the "Art Direction", "Console Action/Adventure", "Console Game of the Year" and "Game of the Year" awards, all of which ultimately went to Final Fantasy IX, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, SSX and Diablo II, respectively.

Year of the Dragon was developer Insomniac Games' last Spyro title. In an interview, Ted Price said that the company stopped producing the games because they could not do anything new with the character, and that after five years of development on a single series, the team wanted to do something different. They began prototyping what would become their next title, Ratchet & Clank, in the first half of 2000, while Year of the Dragon was still in production. The next entry in the series, Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, would be released in 2002. Year of the Dragon was later packaged along with the first two Spyro games in the Spyro Reignited Trilogy.

References

External links

2000 video games
3D platform games
Insomniac Games games
PlayStation (console) games
PlayStation Network games
Single-player video games
Sony Interactive Entertainment games
Universal Interactive games
Spyro the Dragon video games
Video game sequels
Video games developed in the United States
Fantasy video games
Video games scored by Stewart Copeland