Spyro: Year of the Dragon

About Spyro: Year of the Dragon

Spyro: Year of the Dragon (2000) is Insomniac's acclaimed third Spyro game, in which the purple dragon chases a sorceress who has stolen the dragons' eggs into the Forgotten Realms.

Spyro: Year of the Dragon in Depth

An evil sorceress steals magical dragon eggs from the land of the dragons, and Spyro follows her to the "Forgotten Realms" to recover them. The eggs are spread across 37 levels, hidden or awarded for completing tasks, and the worlds are linked by hub "homeworlds" with gateways to other levels; moving on to the next hub requires finishing five worlds, collecting enough eggs and beating a boss. Not every egg is needed, and some can only be reached by returning later. Gems hidden in crates and jars are used to bribe the bear Moneybags into freeing captured characters and switching on things that help Spyro progress, and both count towards a completion percentage tracked in an atlas.

Spyro breathes fire, swims and dives, glides and headbutts his way past enemies, many of them creatures called Rhynocs. His health is shown by his dragonfly companion Sparx, who changes colour and then vanishes as he takes damage; without Sparx, the next hit costs a life and a return to the last checkpoint, and eating small creatures called fodder restores him. The game added new characters and minigames to the series, with improved graphics and music. Critics including NextGen and AllGame called it the best Spyro yet, and reviewers highlighted its high polish.

Making Spyro: Year of the Dragon

Insomniac Games developed it and Sony Computer Entertainment published it for the PlayStation in 2000 as the third Spyro game and the last for the original PlayStation. It received "universal acclaim" according to Metacritic and sold more than 3 million copies worldwide, though GameSpot and IGN noted it brought only minor refinements. Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly followed in 2002.