Spyro: A Hero's Tail (Aug 3, 2004 prototype)

A prototype of Spyro: A Hero's Tail for the PlayStation 2.
==Notes==
* A preview build from around a month before the final game.
* Some debug text including a build date is present at the bottom of the screen on the title screen.
* The window around the "Press START button" text on the title screen is not present.
** Some of the menu text is also slightly unfinished, with incorrect capitalisation.
* The "Extras" menu would normally contain an unlockables menu and the ability to roll the credits. While the credits are in this version, the other options are "Memory card Unlocks" which essentially acts the same way as the unlockables menu from the final, and an option which says "Play Crash Bandicoot 'name of game' Trailer". As it turns out, this plays an early trailer for Crash Twinsanity, not matching the one present in the final game.
* The unlockables menu has some subtle tweaks to it. For some reason, the cursor can start on an option which should be locked, allowing the player to use some of the features early.
* The character select is an option which can be changed in the unlockables menu, rather than a menu of its own.
* The minigames menu displays a full list of minigames, rather than only one at a time.
* The credits is very incomplete and only shows a few names before replacing the rest of the names with the placeholders "Someone" and "English Person".
* Most of the menus and loading screens show incomplete and placeholder text strings.
* The localisation into other languages aside English is incomplete. Attempting to change the language via the options menu on the main menu can cause some bizarre visual glitches to appear in the menus, with random text entries disappearing and the menu box and cursor resizing.
* The load game screen displays an internal name next to the level name - for example, Dragon Village is called "Hub Realm1A".
* All loading screens take on the same appearance rather than there being multiple loading screens for different scenarios. This loading screen also differs slightly from the basic loading screen used in the final.
* The cutscenes are somewhat incomplete. In particular, there are a number of missing sound effects, the occasional rendering error and some missing animations. For later cutscenes, there are a number of instances where a character's mouth isn't animated yet when they speak.
* There are a number of missing sound effects.
* Light Gems and Dragon Eggs use distinct sound effects in this version, both differing from the final sound effect.
* The autosaving symbol differs from the final, and is placed on a different part of the screen.
* Collision is incomplete in a few places, with the collision on a few walls not quite matching the visual model. Decorative models in some areas are also missing their collision, and there's also a few instances of collision polygons being outright missing, allowing the player to fall through the floor or move straight through a wall.
* Some areas have received (mostly minor) structural changes, and many areas are missing detail elements.
* The locations and methods to obtain several of the collectables were tweaked. For example, one of the Light Gems in Crocovile Swamp is obtained by charging through a wall rather than into a button secretly embedded in a wall, and another gem nearby that is normally blocked off in one direction with a metal gate can actually be accessed both ways instead. The first light gem encountered in the game is also in a different room to where it is in the final game.
* The collectables that give Spyro the fire bomb ability look different, taking on a more basic and polygonal design than their design as seen in the final game and in the menus.
* Object placement elsewhere in the game is different in a number of places too.
* There's some spinning poles in Crocovile Swamp which hurt the player when touched that aren't there in the final.
* The plants in Crocovile Swamp are more varied in colour in the final.
* At least one small platforming section in Crocovile Swamp is not present in this version.
* The meter indicating the angle you're aiming at when using a cannon uses a slightly more detailed and intricate design in this version, as opposed to the slightly more bland one used later in development.
* Hitting a safe with a cannon will make its contents immediately gravitate towards Spyro. In the final, they will instead sit around where the safe used to be.
* The building in Crocovile Swamp which is destroyed using a cannon takes only a single shot in this version, rather than multiple.
* The Light Gem door in Dragonfly Falls seemingly says it requires 11 Light Gems, rather than 70.
* One section of Dragonfly Falls is missing multiple islands and has some sort of wooden platform in place of one of them.
* Sparx's aiming reticule is much more basic in appearance.
* There are a few areas where the skybox can be seen openly to be missing its lower half. In the final, locations like this would obscure this missing geometry - for example, by placing a body of water in the area the player can view.
* The Dragon Village map contains an extra room which isn't seen in gameplay. Presumably this is a leftover from an earlier design of the level which included the map.
* The map screen for Gnasty's Cave is just a crude drawing of the words "NO MAP" in purple and yellow.
* In the Dragon Village, there are a few locations in the first section where a fairy will begin to continually zap the player an apparently potentially limitless number of times. Evidently, this is not intentional, and it's also really really annoying.
* When Hunter disappears from the Dragon Village, his collision doesn't, meaning you can collide with an invisible Hunter.
* Teleporters and ball gadgets showing holograms of the Professor will occasionally show a corrupted graphic instead. When corrupted graphics aren't shown, awkward looking still images might display instead.
* Some corrupted graphics can be seen when switching between maps of different worlds.
* Moving between worlds can occasionally crash the game.
* Sometimes the game will fail to load a section of the game where it's supposed to - for example, loading the game when at the start of Crocovile Swamp won't load part of the cave map that joins it to Dragon Village.
* Miscellaneous Notes:
** Game is emulatable (in PCSX2): Yes (as of March 17, 2021).
** Game contains dongle protection: No.
==Screenshots==
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-Startup.png|Pre-title loading screen
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-Title-1.png|Title screen
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-Title-2.png|Title screen
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-Title-3.png|Extras
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-Options.png|Options
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-Credits.png|Credits
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-Title-4.png|Load game
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-Title-5.png|Saving
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-Loading.png|Loading screen
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-Pause.png|Pause screen
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-DragonVillage-1.png|Dragon Village
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-DragonVillage-2.png|Dragon Village
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-DragonVillage-3.png|Dragon Village
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-DragonVillage-4.png|Dragon Village
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-DragonVillage-5.png|Dragon Village
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-DragonVillage-6.png|Dragon Village
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-DragonVillage-7.png|Dragon Village
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-DragonVillage-8.png|Dragon Village
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-CrocovileSwamp-1.png|Crocovile Swamp
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-CrocovileSwamp-2.png|Crocovile Swamp
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-CrocovileSwamp-3.png|Crocovile Swamp
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-CrocovileSwamp-4.png|Crocovile Swamp
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-CrocovileSwamp-5.png|Crocovile Swamp
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-CrocovileSwamp-6.png|Crocovile Swamp
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-CrocovileSwamp-7.png|Crocovile Swamp
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-DragonflyFalls-1.png|Dragonfly Falls
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-DragonflyFalls-2.png|Dragonfly Falls
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-DragonflyFalls-3.png|Dragonfly Falls
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-DragonflyFalls-4.png|Dragonfly Falls
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-DragonflyFalls-5.png|Dragonfly Falls
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-CoastalRemains-1.png|Coastal Remains
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-CoastalRemains-2.png|Coastal Remains
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-DragonVillage-Map.png|Removed room present in the Dragon Village map
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-MissingMap.png|Placeholder map used in Gnasty's Cave
SpyroAHT-Aug03Preview-Glitches.png|Menu glitches caused by switching languages
==Videos==
<youtube heights="320" widths="224">-Zc1gOQ88kc</youtube>
<youtube heights="320" widths="224">PiFeaU_808w</youtube>
<youtube heights="320" widths="224">zRc5QGWhi1w</youtube>
==Origin==
PS2 - Spyro A Hero's Tale Preview Build.jpeg|Disc front.
==Files==
==Acknowledgments==
A huge thanks to Hwd45 for doing the initial research on this prototype! And a huge thanks to the anonymous donor that allowed for this release to happen!
==See also==
* Project Deluge: PlayStation 2 (Initial Announcement Article) (March 20, 2021)
* Cutting Room Floor (TCRF)
* Internet Archive (IA)