Spyro the Dragon

Spyro the Dragon is a platform game developed by Insomniac Games for the PlayStation. It stars the title character, a young purple dragon named Spyro and is the first in the series of Spyro the Dragon video games. The first game was massively popular at its initial release and would later become one of the most recognisable, popular and respected gaming icons for the PlayStation gaming console.

Story
In a land known as the Dragon Realms, the elder dragons are preparing for a video documentary of sorts about their realm. Meanwhile, the antagonist Gnasty Gnorc, who had been banished from the realms, becomes upset over comments the dragons make of him. Enraged, Gnasty Gnorc bombards the Dragon Realms with a magical spell, freezing the resident dragons into crystalline statues, and sends an army of Gnorcs in to steal the dragons' treasure.

However, Gnasty somehow missed imprisoning the youngest dragon in the realm, Spyro (who was seen chasing sheep in the background during the dragons' documentary shoot). Realizing who is responsible for the disaster, Spyro, who sets out to free the realm's dragons, recover their treasure hoard from the invading Gnorcs, and then confront and defeat Gnasty Gnorc himself.

Music by Stewart Copeland
Stewart Copeland, the drummer of the band The Police, is credited with composing the soundtracks for the first four Spyro The Dragon games. The score for Spyro the Dragon was given high praise for its originality, portraying oriental/fantasy-like themes for the Dragon Worlds. All music was composed and performed on a keyboard inputted to a computer with software managing the recordings and compositions.

Copeland made a music track for each level in the game (except for Toasty and Gnorc Gnexus, which share the same music track), giving each level their own feel according to the natural surroundings, architecture and inhabitants of the place. For example, in the Artisans world of shepherds, sheep, medieval towers and endless green hills, the music is layered with an oriental-sounding mixture of bells and native percussion whereas the Beast Makers' midnight swamp has a solid rhythm layered with the melancholy calls of owls.

None of the tracks on this game were given clear audible vocals, however, the track to Wild Flight contains obscured vocal-sounding voices layered on top of the guitar, organ and drums. Some of the tracks varied where the game was bought. In the American versions of the game, the music track to High Caves is a slower version similar to the music for the Tree Tops level. In European releases of the game, High Caves is played with a much more upbeat track similar to that of one of the games general tracks (sometimes referred to as Beast Makers Alternative or Beast Makers (Reprise)).

Sounds that gave Copeland's tracks clear uniqueness were the high pitched twinkling sounds similar to those of a glockenspiel or a harpsichord. Also, the use of a vibrating rock organ in nearly all tracks make the tracks quite unique when combined with the twinkling sounds.

The music has been compared to that of Mutato Muzika's score of the original Naughty Dog Crash Bandicoot games. The music has never been released on CD.

Download
The game is now available for sale on the PlayStation 3's PlayStation Store. This allows you to play it on a PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable.