Spyro 3 - The "Pre-E3" Screenshots
All three of the original trilogy games had sets of press screenshots which were sent out to journalists and the like for use in magazines and articles, and all three games also had at least one especially early build used amongst these press screenshots. For Spyro 3, it's a set of screenshots I've always called the "Pre-E3 screenshots", since they're from a build that's... earlier than the E3 build, obviously.
It's not hard to come across these screenshots by looking through magazines from the era, but one might wonder how many of these screenshots there are, and how much we know about them. So, let's have a quick refresher on the earliest known build of Spyro 3.
First thing: when is this build from, how does it compare to other builds, and where have all the screenshots come from? While all of them can be found in magazines if you look hard enough, a bunch can be found in old online articles, through internal Sony press sources, and on press asset CDs. The highest quality version we have of each image has been compiled into the collage above - five of the ones remaining have so far only been located in scanned-magazine quality. We also know that there's 28 of them, thanks to an old GameSpot UK page, which listed 28 (mostly lost) screenshots from that time, exactly matching the total number we've managed to find.
I've got something coming up in the future which will hold links to all such press material sources, but it's currently a work in progress. For now, here's a link to the PS2 E3 2000 Artwork Disc - not only does it contain high quality versions of several of these screenshots, but they also have creation dates of March 27th, 2000, over 5 and a half months before the game was finished. While we don't know for certain that this is when they were taken, it does suggest that the build shown in the screenshots is probably from this date or earlier. The build shown here is somewhat similar to the April prototype, a preview build used in many different publications and seemingly also the build used at E3 2000, but naturally this build has got a few additional differences from the April build on account of it being a few weeks earlier in development.
Perhaps the most well-known of these screenshots is the fabled "fountain screenshot" - Sunny Villa originally had a fountain, which we also saw in the later April build. Here, though, the building at the end of the level can also be seen to hold balconies, something that would be removed by the next build. The upstairs area of this building is actually where the skateboarding sublevel portal is located (which can be seen in the left balcony), so presumably they were removed to avoid major sequence breaking taking place.
Sheila's sublevel contained some completely unique Rhynocs not seen in the area in the final game. Their designs would be reused in the final, though - but only in a couple of the cutscenes.
Some of the Spooky Swamp Rhynocs had a totally different colour scheme, and the tigers in Bamboo Terrace that we saw in the later April build were first seen in these screenshots, too. Funnily enough, one of the dialogue lines referencing tigers remained in the game until only a week before the game was finalised, at which point it was changed to refer to the water buffalo instead.
This one's easy to miss - check out the wall surrounding the plunger Rhynoc on the floor. What was that used for? Who knows. In the April build, the walls were already gone and the Rhynocs would start wearing metal armour, which was removed again later in development.
Frozen Altars seems to have had some restructuring towards the end of the level - an ice wall wouldn't usually go there and access to the building wouldn't normally be in that exact location, either. Spyro's flame isn't ice coloured, here - I doubt flaming the snowman would help that much, regardless.
Agent 9 looks very very weird. As Pepper has already pointed out, the difference in his eyes just seems to be a case of the vertex colouring changing between this build and later ones, and his suit can be seen to change colours between builds too. Sgt Byrd also looks a little bit different here, having a slightly different model and different texture work, but his early model would persist for several months after this build and can even be seen in some locations in the finished game.
Expect more posts like this one - reviewing known early builds and key points in Spyro's development cycles - in the future, particularly as I gear up to releasing the first part of a project I've been working on for quite a while now.
