Spyro: Year of the Dragon

Spyro 3 box art

***Spyro: Year of the Dragon*** (also known as *Spyro 3*) is the third game in the *Spyro the Dragon* series. It was the last Spyro game to be released for the PlayStation, as well as the last Spyro game developed by Insomniac. This is the only Spyro game on the *PlayStation* library to not be released in Japan.

Spyro is assisted by many characters during the course of *Year of the Dragon*. Sparx functions as the player's health meter and assists the player in gathering gems; Sparx is a playable character in certain levels. Also aiding Spyro is Hunter, who teaches the player game mechanics and is a playable character at special racing levels. Four other playable characters are freed from Moneybags during the game; these include Sheila the Kangaroo, Sgt. James Byrd the Penguin, Bentley the Yeti, and Agent 9 the Monkey.

## Crash Bash Demo

There's a demo of Eurocom's *Crash Bash* hidden on the Title Screen of Spyro 3.

## Miscellaneous Codes

* Enter codes on the Pause Menu
* Re-input the code to reverse the effects *(Big Head, Flat Mode)*

## Color Changing Codes

* Enter codes on the Pause Menu
* Re-input the code to reverse the effects

## Main Game Difficulty Setting

This is one of the more interesting ones. *Spyro: Year of the Dragon* has a fairly complex system that can detect how well you’re playing the game, and will adjust the game's enemy placements and boss health according to your skill level. This is determined by values that raise and lower from a range of -40 to 30, which determines one of three difficulties. If you’re doing well collecting eggs, the difficulty goes up. If you’re having a hard time and failing constantly, the difficulty lowers. The following cheats force the game to set the difficulty to either Easy, Normal, or Hard:

What's unique about this one is that, originally, it was thought that the code for normal mode set it to easy mode, and that no code for normal mode existed. This was proven false by YouTuber **Hwd405** who released a video detailing this game's cheat codes, as well as correcting mistakes such as this one.

## Minigame Difficulty Setting

This is similar to the difficulty setting above, but only affects the minigames' difficulty. This is measured by a variable from -1 to 2. It has four difficulty settings instead of three. This was also documented by Hwd405.

 **Very Hard Difficulty (2)** | On the Pause Menu, press **Left, Right, Square, Circle Square, Right, Left, Square**.

## Dialogue Test

Using the cheat code below, you can access a hidden function that allows you to choose between different voice clips from the stage that you're in, including a few unused ones for certain levels.

## FMV Sequence Viewer

You can view any of the cutscenes in the game using this cheat. Once the code is input on the Pause Menu, it will automatically play the cutscene. Once it's finished, it will take you back to the level's starting location.

## Teleportation Cheats

Once you’ve beaten the game, you can use these cheats on the Pause Menu to teleport to any level instantly.

## Trivia

* Both *Crash Bash* and *Spyro: Year of the Dragon* share hidden demos of each others games on their title screens that require a code to access them.
	+ These were the last two games in both series to continue this tradition of sharing hidden demos in each others games, the previous ones being *Crash Bandicoot: Warped with Spyro the Dragon* and *Crash Team Racing* with *Spyro 2.*