Thanks to developments made by Hwd405, new playable prototypes of ‘Crash Bash’ and ‘Spyro: Year of the Dragon’ have been released on Hidden Palace.
These are working prototypes that were in development back in the year 2000 and represent the state of both games before their official retail release.
For longtime fans of these entries in legendary gaming franchises that both made our list of the best PS1 games and the best platform games of all time, it is fascinating to see an alternate version.
Crash Bash / Spyro: Year of the Dragon Prototypes
Spyro: Year of the Dragon and Crash Bash are two iconic Playstation games that released in 2000.
So we have familiar retail releases of both titles to compare to the state of the newly discovered prototypes.
Crash Bash is stamped with the oldest known demo build date (Aug 23, 2000), which is a few days older than the one that was included in the retail edition of Spyro: Year of the Dragon.
In case you are unfamiliar, Spyro 3 featured a hidden demo for Crash Bash that could be accessed by holding L1 + R1 + Square on the main menu.
And interestingly, the Spyro prototype has a date stamp of ‘September 4th, 2000’, which places it 10 days before the final retail build.
And there seems to be a significant amount of differences in that build compared to the final retail iteration, including missing sound effects, differences in cutscenes, and an entirely different soundtrack.
So if the date stamps are accurate, it is possible that the soundtrack for Spyro: Year of the Dragon was not actually finalized until just days before it needed to be submitted for final approval.
Both prototypes represent the closest to what became the familiar final retail iteration, which makes them incredibly intriguing.
And it also makes the differences that much more interesting!
How To Play
The Crash Bash (Aug 23, 2000) and Spyro: Year of the Dragon (Sep 4, 2000) prototypes are both available on the Hidden Palace website.
And when I say “available”, I mean that you can literally download the ROM files and play them right now. I threw both onto my RG351V and had no issues loading both up.
So if you are familiar with either title and would like to dig into the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) differences, this could be a really unique experience.
Hwd405 has released many images and even a livestream of game play to allow those unfamiliar with emulation to still get a glimpse at these prototypes as well.
