An Any% Analysis of Spyro the Dragon.

As a child I enjoyed the collecting/exploring aspect that the Spyro games heavily encourage, but I used to find it just as captivating to gain access to more real estate (levels/worlds) as soon as possible so that I had more choice of area to play with. For me, not having a memory card at the very start of the Playstation lifespan likely lent itself to this initial play style. Time was of the essence before my parents said I played enough for the day (I was 8 years old when Spyro the Dragon released) so there was an arcade aspect to my playthroughs like putting quarters in the machine for a limited time use. Also having to learn the game’s hidden locations as a kid from scratch meant I didn’t always 100% every level before moving on regardless. Current me knows the game much more intuitively through muscle memory and I’ve grown to become an obsessive completionist with any video game I play so Spyro the Dragon’s inclination to prevent the player from progressing to each homeworld has been virtually lost on me. I simply know the game inside and out when it comes to a 100% playthrough and if you’re like me, you won’t even acknowledge the balloonist’s toll fees because you already have more than enough collectibles by the time you’re ready to proceed to the next homeworld.

This playthrough and write-up is to examine the game’s intentions to challenge first time players who may just want to breeze through the game by experiencing the least amount of levels before beating the mainline game. In other words, how many licks (levels) does it take to get to the Gnasty Gnorc center of a Gnasty Pop? What are the minimal levels needed to defeat Gnasty and what’s the most gems, dragons, and percentage you can end up with? The world has never known… until now. This article will break down the beat by beat process of the brick walls you may or may not hit and what choices you might be faced with. To kick things off, it’s best to test how much stress we can place on the game’s progression. My rule of discipline will be to see how far playing the entirety of a homeworld’s home level and two extra levels of my choosing within that homeworld will get me. This will serve as the control premise and hopefully help recapture the feeling of just scraping by and the prospect of carefully strategizing my next move. If we need to adjust our rule set going forward, we will. Lets see what we can learn.

THE JOURNEY FROM ARTISANS TO PEACEKEEPERS:

• The reason I settled for the rule set of only collecting from the homeworld’s home level and two extra levels from that homeworld is because Marco, the Artisans’ ballonist, requires 10 rescued dragons to allow you access to Peace Keepers. In order to progress to Peace Keepers, you are required to follow this rule set (at least for this homeworld). We’ll test to see how consistent the amount of levels required to proceed holds up with each balloonist.

• After completing the Artisans home, I realized it’s obligatory to complete Stone Hill and Town Square because it offers you the best bang for your buck on all fronts. It offers the most gems (200 each), the most dragons (4 each), and are the only Artisan levels that offer an egg. By the time you are done, you will have 500 gems, 12 dragons, and 2 eggs.

THE JOURNEY FROM PEACE KEEPERS TO MAGIC CRAFTERS:

• Upon arrival to Peace Keepers, you will have 500 gems, 12 dragons, and 2 eggs.

• In Peace Keepers, Gosnold the balloonist requires you to have collected 1200 gems to allow you access to Magic Crafters. I initially figured I’d continue the strategy of choosing the only 2 levels that will offer an egg (Dry Canyon and Cliff Town) but I’ll soon realize that’s not the best approach. The best options will actually be Dry Canyon and Ice Cavern. All three levels mentioned will each garner the highest amount of gems (400 each) but Cliff Town only offers 3 dragons. Dry Canyon will offer 4 dragons and an egg. Ice Cavern will offer a whopping 5 dragons and no egg. It’s best to opt for more gems and the lack of egg in Ice Cavern. After all is said and done, you will have 1500 total gems, 21 dragons, and 4 eggs.

• So far the first two homeworlds definitely required the established rule set we’ve been following of completing each Home and 2 levels within that homeworld. You also couldn’t get to Magic Crafters if you decided to complete the Artisans and Peace Keeper’s Home levels and then all four of the regular Artisan levels (Dark Hollow and Toasty included) instead of completing any of the Peace Keeper’s regular levels. Not only does the Artisan levels offer the least amount of gems cumulatively but Dark Hollow and Toasty offer the least amount of gems in the Artisans homeworld (100 each). The gem count per level in Peace Keepers increases compared to Artisans so you are forced to take advantage of that if your goal is to keep mainlining the game. This was Insomniac’s way of requiring players to take on the more slightly amped-up difficulty from what Peace Keepers has to offer.

• It is also clear at this point that you can’t choose to do a flight or boss level as one of your two choices per homeworld because they offer the least gems, there’s no dragons or eggs in a flight level, and you’re mostly only getting one dragon per boss level. It simply will not fly.

THE JOURNEY FROM MAGIC CRAFTERS TO BEAST MAKERS:

• Upon arriving to Magic Crafters, you will have 1500 gems, 21 dragons, and 4 eggs.

• After completing the Magic Crafters home, you will now see why it was key to choose the eggless Ice Cavern in Peace Keepers because Tuco the balloonist is already ready to take you to Beast Makers without you having to play a single Magic Crafters level. Magic Crafters’ home already offers 2 egg thieves so you can have 6 eggs by the time you reach Tuco. He only requires 5 eggs to gain access to Beast Makers. Interestingly if you don’t have enough eggs by the time you speak to Tuco, he will tell you some specific levels which have an egg. Maybe Insomniac figured players would not have the attention span to chase down every egg thief they came across until now. It is a task that requires more skill since it places emphasis on your charge ability and trains you to take subtle shortcuts in your chase in order to catch up to the thief. If Peace Keepers was about forcing the player to toughen up and take on a greater difficulty of levels, Magic Crafters is about honing your… craft. Thus the introduction of the supercharge.

• From here on out, you don’t need to worry about egg collecting ever again. If you follow the rule set, the best choices for regular levels in Magic Crafters is Alpine Ridge (500 gems, 4 dragons) and then your choice of High Caves or Wizard Peak which each offer 500 gems and 3 dragons. I chose Wizard Peak. After all that, you will be moving on with 2800 gems, 34 dragons, and 9 eggs. Wow, Magic Crafters was easy as pie in terms of progression…

THE JOURNEY FROM BEAST MAKERS TO DREAM WEAVERS:

• Don’t be fooled though, because Magic Crafters is setting you up for the game’s greatest punchline. The tonal shift in requirement to progress from Beast Makers to Dream Weavers is an epic troll after Magic Crafters lulls you into a false sense of security. Cray the balloonist is cray-cray because he requires 50 rescued dragons to help him sleep at night. By the time you complete the Beast Makers home level, you will only have a total of 36 dragons. That means if we are to follow the rule we’ve been testing up until this point, the next two levels we choose would need to offer 14 dragons in total (7 per level) for us to make the gate.

• Not only is this impossible but Beast Makers’ total dragon count is significantly less than every previous homeworld, adding insult to the injury of Cray’s demands. All of the Artisans’ levels offers a total of 16 dragons, Peace Keepers 16 dragons, Magic Crafters 14 dragons, and Beast Makers only offers 12 measly dragons. Even if you 100% completed the first three homeworlds and collected everything in the Beast Makers home before reaching Cray, you will only have 48 dragons. The game is essentially training you that Spyro the Dragon is a game you’re encouraged to 100% rather than simply pass through because by the time you achieve those 50 dragons, you might as well get everything else. This is the point in the game where the Gnasty Pop will tempt you the most to stop counting your licks and simply crunch down. In order to evade the temptation, we just need to course-correct our discipline. We need to examine the best way to go forward by breaking the 1 home level + 2 extra level per homeworld rule.

• Out of curiosity though, what is the highest amount of dragons we would get if we followed our previous rule for the playthrough? Misty Bog (4 dragons) and Tree Tops (3 dragons) are the levels that offer the highest dragon count in Beast Makers. Terrace Village is a no-no because it offers the least amount of gems (400 rather than 500) and only 2 dragons. Boss levels and flight levels are always out of the question. So after choosing the best possible options, we would end up with 43 dragons, 4100 gems, and 9 eggs (not that it matters but Beast Makers offers no eggs) which is simply not enough to make Cray feel better.

• We’re shy 7 dragons from the requirement to advance to Dream Weavers so what is the least amount of levels we can play that will help us forward with the best payout? The interesting thing is you will need to play three more levels to fulfill Cray’s wishes. No way around it. The two obligatory ones that will garner the highest dragon and gem count is High Caves/Wizard Peak (depending on which one you didn’t choose back when you were in Magic Crafters) which each offer the same payout (500 gems, 3 dragons, and 2 eggs) and Cliff Town (400 gems, 3 dragons). So to clarify, since I already played Wizard Peak, I’m now playing High Caves and Cliff Town for the first two levels needed out of three. That will grant you 6 more dragons, giving you a total of 49. So what is the third level you should play that will ensure we have enough for what the Dream Weavers balloonist will ask of us? We only need one more dragon to make this gate and the next task will be a gem requirement. Keep in mind, we’ll be able to (and should) play the entirety of the Dream Weavers home level, as well as two extra levels.

• Our best choices for the third level before speaking to Cray: Dark Hollow (100 gems, 3 dragons), Terrace Village (400 gems, 2 dragons), Metalhead (500 gems, 1 dragon). Each flight level you have available offers 300 gems and 0 dragons so we can rule out flight levels from ever factoring into our choice. Yes, we need to focus on gems so the dragon count doesn’t matter since we only need one more, but if you’re interested in seeing how many dragons and/or gems you can get by the time you defeat Gnasty Gnorc, maybe this will interest you in how you choose to proceed. We essentially are bending our rule at this point so it depends what you strive for or value more in achieving by the end of this playthrough when attempting to complete the least amount of levels. A better question might be what will get you a higher percentage of completion by the time we defeat Gnasty Gnorc? Does dragon count add more to the percentage rate or does gem count? All eggs will be collected by the end. Let’s think of percentage rate as our enjoyment rate of the Gnasty Pop. Let’s achieve the highest enjoyment without crunching into more levels.

• Let’s examine our options. Before venturing towards any alternate path, we have 5000 gems, 49 dragons, and have collected all 12 eggs with a percent completion of 55%. Below are what we will end up with after completing the one of the three choices we have before proceeding to Dream Weavers:

Dark Hollow will leave you with a total of 5100 gems, 52 dragons, and 57%. This level will allow you to pass with the most dragons. (Dragon Liberator)

Terrace Village will leave you with a total of 5400 gems, 51 dragons, and 58%. This level will allow you to pass with the most percent completion. (Percentage Pyro)

Metalhead will leave you with a total of 5500 gems, 50 dragons, and 57%. This level will allow you to pass with the most gems. (Moneybags’ Apprentice)

The choice is yours. I guess Spyro has RPG DNA after all…

THE JOURNEY FROM DREAM WEAVERS TO GNASTY’S WORLD:

Now here’s the thing. The thesis here is to reach Gnasty Gnorc with the least amount of levels completed but with the best payout. There’s a balance that needs to be struck. So with that in mind, Dark Hollow wouldn’t actually be the best option because Amos the balloonist of Dream Weavers is asking for 6000 gems. The Dream Weavers home and one extra Dream Weavers level would only net you 5900 gems at most, meaning you’d have to complete one more extra level. However, if you choose Metalhead, you can technically do a beeline straight to Dark Passage, get 500 gems, 5 dragons, and boom, you now have exactly (if not more, depending on whether you collected anything on your way to the Dark Passage portal) 6000 gems. This isn’t a speedrunning thesis though so perhaps the Dream Weavers home level should be played to completion before taking on Dark Passage. This is what Dream Weavers is all about. Weave your own dream. We now only have two options.

I’m torn between going the Terrace Village route where I can play the Dream Weavers home and Dark Passage, OR going the Metalhead route and just beeline to Dark Passage, but ultimately this draws in a philosophical question:

If I avoid the gems in the Dream Weavers home in order to just reach Dark Passage, is it a sin of omission? By collecting 0 gems in the home level does that mean I “didn’t play the level” or is the evasion of the gems in the Dream Weavers home still a form of play? There’s no way around playing through the Dream Weavers home so I believe that inherently means I might as well complete the entire level to honor the concept of “playing the least amount of levels while obtaining the best payout”. It’s worth noting this is not a speedrunning guide or a permadeath run where we need to factor in skill or speed to completion. It’s a playthrough based on principle. Now, lets explore both avenues of Terrace Village and Metalhead under the premise that we need to complete the Dream Weavers home level which will garner 300 gems and 3 dragons.

Having gone the Metalhead route, I am able to beeline straight to Dark Passage without picking up a single gem from the Dream Weavers home. That gives me a total of 6000 gems, 55 dragons, with a percentage of 62%. You might find some humor in the fact that you can easily skip most of Dream Weavers and head straight to Gnasty’s World. You technically can avoid collecting any gems in the home level on the way to Amos the balloonist. Not only that, but there’s a total of 16 dragons across all the Dream Weavers levels. If only these dragons got trapped in crystal in any of the regions we’ve previously explored, so we can fulfill Cray’s wishes, but no. Cray knew he was screwing with us. As the most demanding balloonist, he is the secret villain of Spyro 1. Or is he our secret sensei?

You can compare Cray to Moneybags from Ripto’s Rage and Year of the Dragon, but when you think about it, Cray is the antithesis of Moneybags. For Cray, it’s not about money. It’s about doing what’s right. About encouraging Spyro to liberate the dragon realms. He also discloses that he’s been patching a leak in the hot air balloon while you exercised heroism in rescuing these 50 dragons, so there was actually both a practical and moral reason for Cray not letting us through. Moneybags on the other hand is all about greed for greed’s sake. He’s only looking out for himself even if it means keeping Sheila the Kangaroo in a cage or keeping a bridge closed just because he can. Never mind that the world is at stake. At the end of the day, Cray plays a crucial part in training Spyro and us the gamer the importance of collecting which will come in useful when we come across bad faith actors like Moneybags in the future.

FINAL PUSH TO GNASTY (TWO ALTERNATE PATHS):

We can now technically avoid collecting everything in the Gnasty’s World home level (Gnorc Gnexus) so just for curiosity sake, let’s see where that leads us because now we have to play Gnorc Cove and Twilight Harbor sequentially before reaching Gnasty Gnorc. Guess what I’ve discovered though! Even though I completed Gnorc Cove and exited through the ‘Return to Home’ portal as I should, the dragon statue head that guards Twilight Harbor will not open. What is keeping it closed? Is it because I didn’t trigger the dragon at the center of Gnorc Gnexus? Let’s test….Yes you actually need to collect that dragon Delbin in order to gain access to Twilight Harbor. Makes sense. I know this is a quick fix, but I just find it interesting that it’s the only unsaid requirement to progress that has nothing to do with a balloonist. I tried searching on google to see if anyone has ever had trouble unlocking Twilight Harbor and there’s nothing. Why would they? The dragon is 5 feet in front of them when they arrive at Gnorc Gnexus. But this is the spirit of what this analysis is all about. Not crunching down on the Tootsie Pop and seeing what reveals itself. After this trial run of avoiding eveything in Dream Weavers home level and Gnorc Gnexus, I ended up with 7300 gems, 60 dragons, and 69% completion. Just for reference there’s 12000 gems, 80 dragons, and 120% in a complete playthrough.

This trial run cheats our thesis though so in conclusion the final outcome of when we collect everything in Gnorc Gnexus and the Dream Weavers home after choosing Metalhead is 7800 gems, 64 dragons, and 74%. Congrats, Moneybags would be proud! How many levels does it take to get to the Gnasty Gnorc center of a Gnasty Pop?

20 levels. 20 out of 35 levels without crunching down for 120% completion.

But yes, lets see what our final outcome is had we chosen Terrace Village: 7700 gems, 65 dragons, and 74%. Congratulations, you are a dragon liberator! Cray taught you well. I easily could have done the math without playing to figure out the gem/dragon count at this point, but how percentage completion works in this game is a little mysterious. After playing it again myself apparently you will end up with 74% regardless if you choose Metalhead or Terrace Village. Any way you slice it, you will have over 25% worth of post-game in order to achieve full completion after beating Gnasty.

Anyway, this analysis was both an excuse to write about something, as well as play Spyro the Dragon again. I hope you appreciated this brief breakdown. If you want to check out my lets play of Spyro Reignited Trilogy, just follow my channel on youtube KevPlays9490. You can also follow me on twitter @letswatchseries to keep up to date on the occasional upload. Thanks for reading!