Soundtrack and Audio Dialogue Differences

This is a sub-page of Proto:Spyro: Year of the Dragon/September 4th, 2000 build.

The STR file, containing the game's XA audio, is vastly different from the final.

Soundtrack#

The soundtrack differs vastly from the final release in a number of ways (and is, in fact, larger!).

Levels with Unassigned Music#

As in other builds, levels not assigned their music yet are instead assigned the music for another level. In this version, a track called "Grape" (which was also released on Stewart Copeland's website and in the 2022 official Spyro the Dragon OST release) is used by all levels which have not been assigned their final themes, yet.

• Sunrise Spring Home, Midday Garden Home, Evening Lake Home and Midnight Mountain Home all lack their respective tracks and thus use Grape.
• Buzz's Dungeon incorrectly uses Grape, despite its track being finished and implemented. Its finished theme is not assigned to any level in this build.
• Starfish Reef uses Grape - considering that it's the only level to do so whilst not being a homeworld or a boss level (all of which would get their own themes in the final release), it's suspected that Grape was actually intended to be Starfish Reef's theme. In the final, it would just reuse the title theme.
• Sorceress's Lair also uses Grape, though the build additionally includes an unfinished version of the final Sorceress's Lair theme which is not assigned to any level. This unfinished theme is notably darker and more sinister than the final track, which has a somewhat more optimistic tone.

Levels with Revision 1 Themes#

Most levels which did not have their own theme in the earliest final release but would get their own themes in North American Revision 1 use their Revision 1 themes in this version, albeit with slightly different audio levelling:

• Mushroom Speedway, Enchanted Towers, Country Speedway, Honey Speedway, Haunted Tomb and Dino Mines all use their Revision 1 themes.
  • Mushroom Speedway - Sep04 starts roughly 0.179 seconds later and is about 2db louder and also has an extra 0.889 seconds of fade-out / silence at the end.
  • Enchanted Towers - changes appear to be mostly negligible, possibly audio levelling differences.
  • Country Speedway - Sep04 starts roughly 0.898 seconds later and is about 2db quieter and also has an extra 2.355 seconds of fade-out / silence at the end; audio levelling appears to be slightly different, particularly in the volume of the drums, which appear to be a fair bit louder in the final track.
  • Honey Speedway - Sep04 starts less than 0.001 seconds earlier and appears to have some very slight audio levelling differences and also has an extra less than 0.001 seconds of fade-out / silence at the end.
  • Haunted Tomb - Sep04 starts roughly 0.001 seconds later and ends roughly 0.001 seconds earlier, they are also roughly identical in volume.
  • Dino Mines - Sep04 starts roughly 0.056 seconds later and is about 1db louder and also has an extra 1.491 seconds of fade-out / silence at the end.
• Crystal Island's Revision 1 theme is implemented, but it is instead used by Bugbot Factory, whereas Crystal Islands uses the title theme, a track which is used by Bugbot Factory in the final release. This appears to be a mixup rather than the intended order of these tracks.
  • Crystal Islands - Sep04 starts roughly 0.503 seconds later and is about 1db louder and also has an extra 1.363 seconds of fade-out / silence at the end.
• Lost Fleet's Revision 1 theme is implemented but is not used by the level. The level uses a different theme, as explained below.
  • Lost Fleet (Revision 1) - Sep04 starts roughly 0.761 seconds later and is about 8db quieter and also has an extra 2.067 seconds of fade-out / silence at the end; the percussion throughout the track seems to be slightly different.

Levels with Unique Themes#

In addition to anything already mentioned above, a number of levels have themes not found in any other build of the game:

• Crawdad Farm uses a track called Cherry (also released on Stewart Copeland's website and in the 2022 official Spyro the Dragon OST release) rather than reusing the title theme.

• Lost Fleet uses a unique theme which was not present in any final build. This theme is a finished version of the track heard in the April 25th, 2000 Prototype.
  • It's not known why two Lost Fleet tracks are present in this version, or if the Revision 1 theme had been intended to be used elsewhere (e.g. in a Sheila sublevel). It's possible that the Revision 1 theme was later used in favor of the original theme due to preference, which would suggest that they may have been considering this change at this point.

• Spider Town uses an entirely unique theme not released elsewhere in any form.

Additional Differences#

There are additional differences with respect to sublevel and in-game cutscene music:

• All critter sublevels use the music used by the wider level, rather than using that critter's theme. This is likely due to the moby code which activates their music not yet being present.
  • As a result, the main area of Enchanted Towers uses its intended theme, rather than reusing Sgt. Byrd's Base's theme.
• The Cloud Spires belfry music, the Icy Peak ice dance music and the Enchanted Towers bone dance music is all unimplemented and thus never gets used in-game.

Audio Dialogue Differences#

In addition to the soundtrack, the STR file also contains all of the XA audio dialogue used throughout the game. There are a few notable instances of how these changed between this build and the next. Text dialogue changes will be logged with their respective levels.

• Many dialogue audio tracks are slightly different lengths in this version, due to there being cut down or extended silent sections.
• All Sparx audio dialogue and all but one of Bianca's audio messages are absent. Notably:
  • Mushroom Speedway - all 10 of Sparx's audio messages are missing.
  • Midday Garden Home - Bianca's audio dialogue message is missing.
  • Country Speedway - all 10 of Sparx's audio messages are missing.
  • Evening Lake Home - Bianca's audio dialogue message is missing.
  • Honey Speedway - all 10 of Sparx's audio messages are missing.
  • Midnight Mountain Home - all 3 of Bianca's audio dialogue messages are missing.
  • Harbor Speedway - all 10 of Sparx's audio messages are missing.
  • Super Bonus Round - all 6 of Bianca's audio dialogue messages are missing.
• One of Hunter's audio messages in Midday Garden Home (Type 8 Msg 0, "When you see a ladder...") seems to be a dev recording.

• One of Bob's audio messages in Icy Peak (Type 0 Msg 4, "This place is getting too dangerous...") has an unused duplicate (Type 0 Msg 5), for some reason.
• One of Shui's audio messages in Bamboo Terrace (Type 1 Msg 6, "Thank you for offering to help Spyro...") is absent. Interestingly, this line is unused, so it's not clear why it was given audio at this stage of development.
• One of Sing Sing's audio messages in Bamboo Terrace (Type 2 Msg 2, "Would you care for a cup of my medicinal herbal tea?") is absent. Interestingly, this line is unused, so it's not clear why it was given audio at this stage of development.
• One of Ling Ling's audio messages in Bamboo Terrace (Type 3 Msg 0, "Spyro! Rhynocs have been harassing us all day...") is a different recording to the final version. Rather than referring to "Evening Lake", Ling Ling says "Sunset Shore", a name for the level that wasn't known until this build was discovered. Given that builds from around 3 months earlier than this one called the level "Evening Lake", this dialogue is very, very out of date.

• Two of Hunter's audio messages in Country Speedway (Type 1 Msg 1 and 2) diverge completely from his text dialogue, and seem to describe a version of the minigame used in the level which would have been closer to the Mushroom Speedway minigame (even going as far as to mention his plane, which doesn't appear in the mission otherwise):
  • One of the messages is word-for-word identical to one that is used in Mushroom Speedway but seems to be an entirely different recording.

• In the final game, in Evening Lake Home, there are two unused lines of audio dialogue for the Professor (Type 6 Msg 0 and 1), a character that has never been seen to actually feature in the level in any known build. In this version, he has a third line, for some reason:

What? You built the rocket without me? Why didn't you invite me to see the launch?

• In Lost Fleet, Crazy Ed's "Has anyone seen my pick?" (Type 0 Msg 4) audio line, previously discovered in an earlier demo version of the game, and seen in text form as early as the April prototype, is still present. This dialogue is completely unused and was removed in the final game.

• One of Allgeier's audio dialogue messages in Haunted Tomb (Type 3 Msg 4, "I've waited 7000 years...") is absent.