Spyro: Year of the Dragon

Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon is the third game in the Spyro series. It was the last Spyro game to be released for the PlayStation, as well as the last Spyro game developed by Insomniac Games. The game was released in North America on October 11, 2000, in the United Kingdom on October 25, in the rest Europe on November 10. The name is a reference to the Chinese calendar, and the year 2000 being the year of the dragon.

Plot
The game opens with a celebration in the Dragon Realms, where they are celebrating the "Year of the Dragon", an event every twelve years where new dragon eggs are brought to the realm. During the celebration, however, a cloaked anthropomorphic rabbit girl, Bianca, invades the Dragon Realms with an army of Rhynocs and steals all of the Dragon eggs. Spyro, along with Sparx and Hunter, are sent down a hole to find the thieves and recover the Dragon eggs.

Pursuing the thief, Spyro discovers a realm once inhabited by the dragons, but long abandoned and forgotten, now known only as the "Forgotten Realms", ruled by a queen called the "Sorceress", and under firm control of the Rhynocs' army. There are a few "patriots", "protestants" or "protestors" here and there. The first one is a kangaroo named Sheila. She's locked within a cage, but is released after you pay a "small fee" to a bear named Moneybags. Sheila kicks him in the stomach and knocks Moneybags out.

As Spyro travels through each realm, acquiring aid from local inhabitants, and bartering with Moneybags for passage to new areas, Bianca abducts and imprisons Hunter. It is later revealed that the Sorceress is seeking not the baby dragons themselves, but merely their wings to concoct a spell that can grant her immortality. Once Bianca finds this out she feels sorry for the baby dragons, and defects to side with Spyro, Hunter, and the Protesters.

Celebrations resume after the Sorceress' defeat, although Spyro is unable to locate Hunter. Searching throughout the realm, Spyro's friends are reluctant to say anything of Hunter's whereabouts; Spyro ultimately locates Hunter out on a date with Bianca, and laments about another hero "falling" for love.

However, it later turns out that the Sorceress survived her previous battle with Spyro, and is found in a secret world, waiting for Spyro on her UFO. Spyro and the Sorceress battle again, on two UFOs above some deadly magic liquid. Eventually, Spyro manages to shoot the Sorceress down, and she falls into the liquid below, (presumably) killing her and it turns out the final dragon egg has 2 dragons in it.

The baby dragons then return to the Dragon Kingdom.

Setting
Unlike the previous two games, Year of the Dragon is set in 'The Forgotten Worlds'. There are four Homeworlds in the game, each named after a time of day. As the game progresses, the Homeworlds become more dangerous; although there are never any enemies in Homeworlds, you can be harmed by environmental obstacles.
 * Sunrise Springs: The starting Homeworld, this world is set during the morning with lush green hillsides, small woods and lakes.
 * Midday Gardens: The second Homeworld, Midday Garden is set during the day with a blue sky overlooking wide gardens and large towering castles.
 * Evening Lake: The third Homeworld is set during the evening inside a large lake containing parts of a submerged Tudor style castle. All portals to other worlds are underwater, and it is possible to be harmed by flamethrowers.
 * Midnight Mountain: The final Homeworld, set at night on top of a high mountain. Unlike the other Homeworlds, Midnight Mountain has a sinister feel and features many gaping abysses for Spyro to fall into, as well as lava.

Each World has...
 * 4 normal realms
 * 1 protester world, where the player takes control of another 'freed' character, i.e. Bentley the Yeti or Sheila the Kangaroo
 * 1 Speedway
 * 1 Sparx world

Gameplay
The gameplay is somewhat similar to its two predecessors- there are four 'Homeworlds' which contain several other realms. In order to proceed to the next, Spyro must defeat the boss in between each Homeworld. However, to travel to these boss arenas and thus proceed further into the game, Spyro must make his way to the 4 normal realms and the 1 protester realm to fetch one person to help build his transportation.

These realms are free to explore and wander in all directions without any time limit. The realms are littered with enemies which attack Spyro. Upon defeating these enemies, Spyro, as a reward may receive gems. Gems also lay all over the levels on the ground and inside crates. These gems are used later in the game to pay off Moneybags, as well as counting towards your overall percentage.

Levels may also be littered with non-playable protesters, who provide information about the realm or set tasks for Spyro to complete.

Entry to normal realms requires certain amounts of eggs. However, entry to protester worlds ignore the amount of eggs collected and instead require a sacrifice of gems to Moneybags.

Eggs can be found by simply locating them or as a reward for completing one of the minigames inside the realm. These eggs can be said as the equivalent of stars in Super Mario 64. There are many different minigames which reward you with these eggs, i.e. sliding down a slide, racing, piloting a submarine or fighting bosses. Each normal world has roughly six eggs, while protester worlds have three. Spyro can also run into 'Powerup Gates', which give him special abilities for a limited period (time left can be seen on a bar on the right of the screen). These abilities could be a stronger flame, a flying ability or invincibility. Similar to the last two games, there are some areas where you can "super-charge". This means that when you charge while upon a certain track, you can accerlerate and move faster, as well as break heavy crates or catch fast thieves.

Including Spyro, there are 7 playable characters which all have there own abilities. All of these characters (excluding Hunter) have their own realm where you can only play as that character. All of these characters (excluding Sparx) have minigames inside other realms.

Once you have defeated the Sorceress, there is an option of getting 100% (which requires collecting all 150 eggs as well as all 15000 gems), Once you have achieved 100%, a secret world will open. This world is called "Super Bonus World", and features much harder versions of minigames already faced in previous realms, as well as absurd amounts of gems.

Worlds and levels
Sunrise Spring


 * Level I: Sunny Villa
 * Level II: Cloud Spires
 * Level III: Molten Crater
 * Level IV: Seashell Shore
 * Level V (Speedway): Mushroom Speedway
 * Level VI (Protestor): Sheila's Alp
 * Level VII (Boss): Buzz's Dungeon
 * Level VIII (Sparx world): Crawdad Farm

Midday Gardens


 * Level I: Icy Peak
 * Level II: Enchanted Towers
 * Level III: Spooky Swamp
 * Level IV: Bamboo Terrace
 * Level V (Speedway): Country Speedway
 * Level VI (Protestor): Sgt. Byrd's Base
 * Level VII (Boss): Spike's Arena
 * Level VIII (Sparx world): Spider Town

Evening Lake


 * Level I: Frozen Altars
 * Level II: Lost Fleet
 * Level III: Fireworks Factory
 * Level IV: Charmed Ridge
 * Level V (Speedway): Honey Speedway
 * Level VI (Protestor): Bentley's Outpost
 * Level VII (Boss): Scorch's Pit
 * Level VIII (Sparx world): Starfish Reef

Midnight Mountain


 * Level I: Crystal Islands
 * Level II: Desert Ruins
 * Level III: Haunted Tomb
 * Level IV: Dino Mines
 * Level V (Speedway): Harbor Speedway
 * Level VI (Protestor): Agent 9's Lab
 * Level VII (Boss): Sorceress's Lair
 * Level VIII (Sparx world): BugBot Factory

The last world is Super Bonus World, but can only be opened by acquiring 100%.

Spyro
"Spyro is the mischievous hero of this tale. He may be the smallest hero in the Dragon Family, but even the Elder Dragons admit he's got gumption! Just ask Gnasty Gnorc - he won't mess with Spyro again! Spyro's always rarin' to go, especially when he can headbash some sheep or flame some frogs. He's so full of energy, he keeps me on the move! Spyro is extremely curious and hardly ever cautious, which sometimes gets him into trouble! That's why I stick around, to make sure nothing too serious happens to him!" -Sparx

Spyro is the main character and thus the most commonly used. He has two main attacks, but retains the special abilities taught in the second game.
 * Charge: allows Spyro to run faster as well as ram enemies with his horn. Spyro will bounce off walls if he charges into them, and large enemies aren't affected by charging.
 * Flame: Spyro unleashes a fire burst from his mouth to singe enemies. Enemies wearing metal armour or shields are immune to his flame (they aren't immune to the fireball generated by the Superflame Powerup, however).

Sparx
Sparx does quite a bit more than in previous titles. He return as Spyro's health bar (changing from gold to blue to green then fully disappearing once spyro takes a hit) and is "in charge" of all the speedway levels, asking Spyro through his kazoo voice what Spyro wants to do in these levels.

He also has 4 playable levels of his own which are bird's-eye—view scroll-shooters. In these levels, Sparx must shoot a number of enemies and collect the gems they leave, eat butterfiles which increase his health or give him special powers, collect keys to open gates and defeat the boss at the end of the levels to receive an egg.

After completing these levels, Sparx will unlock permanent special abilities for himself which can be used in normal play such as being able to collect gems further away or having an extra hit point.

Other characters
As well as Spyro and Sparx, numerous other characters appear in this game. Numerous new characters also appear as playable characters.
 * Hunter: who first appeared in Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!, appears in this game, aiding Spyro on his quest to defeat the Sorceress, as well as being playable in a few minigames in the speedway levels.
 * Sheila: Found in Sunrise Springs, She is an Australian kangaroo with an exceptional jumping ability. She can also kick with her feet. When freed, she kicks Moneybags in the stomach.
 * Sgt. Byrd: Found in Midday Gardens, he is a penguin and military soldier with a slow waddle. He can fly as well as shoot homing missiles and launch bombs. When freed, he is questioned by Spyro why he didn't shoot his way out of the cage. He responds that he had 'limited ammo' and promptly shoots Moneybags off the platform.
 * Bentley: Found in Evening Lake, he is a smart and strong yeti with a gentle demeanor who wields a club made of ice. He can hit things with this club or rebound snowballs. When freed, he demonstrates his verbose nature by calling Moneybags a stream of wordy insults and hitting him over the head with his club.
 * Agent 9: Found in Midnight Mountain, he is a space monkey who carries a laser gun and is obsessed with killing Rynocs. He assists the same Professor from Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!, who can only be seen in Agent 9's level and in one of the final cutscenes. In an odd exploit of the game, paying Moneybags to free him isn't actually required- because accessing the last boss only requires eggs and not the participation of someone from every realm, Spyro can just ignore his level and he will mysteriously show up to help him anyway in the last fight.

Moneybags returns, hired by the Sorceress to "keep charge" of certain things in the Forgotten Realms. Like in Spyro 2, Spyro must pay Moneybags to get through some levels. As said above, you must also pay Moneybags to release protesters who are blocking their own levels. At the end of the game, he appears in Midnight Mountain. You can then humorously chase him down and butt him repeatedly, getting all your gems back and getting an egg as well. If you complete the six eggs in Midnight Mountain and get Moneybags' egg as well, your atlas will show Midnight Mountain as having '6/5' eggs.

Elora returns, but is only seen in one of the cutscenes after you beat the sorceress.

Just like in Spyro 2, in each realm there are certain characters who are not playable but give you useful information in general and about the level, such as Billy Goats, French Hummingbirds and Canadian Penguins. All residents of a realm are the same species, but a different species to any other realm.

Bosses

 * Buzz resembles a giant toad, with a pair of strong legs. When pushed into lava, Sheila stomps on him to deal damage.
 * Spike is a tall, muscle-bound monster who uses a laser-like weapon to shoot at Spyro. His main attacks are trying to crush Spyro under his fist or shooting plasma balls at him. Later on in the fight he can pick up the ammo Sgt. Byrd drops and briefly power up.
 * Scorch is a giant winged beast that can produce a forcefield to protect himself. He is defeated via the powerups Bentley throws.
 * The Sorceress is the final boss. She can conjure up some powerful magic when necessary. There are two times she must be defeated: the first time is reached by collecting one hundred dragon eggs to gain entry into her lair and the second time is a saucer battle for the last dragon egg. In the first fight, Agent 9 helps you out even if you didn't pay Moneybags for his release.

Reviews

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