#cloud spires

[thedestinysunknown]

Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon - Cloud Spires:

“Second level in the game and it’s another beautiful one. I love when Spyro levels have a very “fantasy” type of look, and this one fits that concept well. It’s a fun and pretty level.”

PS: the gameplay used for this gifset is not mine. The original video belongs to the user: Thabeast721, on Youtube.

[catbatquartet]

[fyeahspyroandcrash]

[breezeharbour]

[almightyhamslice]

It’s time for more dragons! Now I’ve officially drawn one dragon for each realm in Sunrise Spring.

Lulu’s egg is the one you get after completing the sun seed challenge. Cumulus, the npc who gives you the egg, thinks it’s a defective sun seed. Because of this, I decided to make Lulu’s design slightly reminiscent of a sun seed. Her horns are shaped and positioned similarly to the cloud imps’ horns, and her spots are shaped like raindrops. She’s very proficient with magic, particularly hydrokinesis and pyrokinesis. 

Ryan’s egg is given to you as a token of honorary membership to the tiki lodge, after you play hide and seek with Shale and the other tiki men. As such, just like all the tiki men, Ryan can take off his head and put it back on again. His fashion sense is also heavily derived from what the tiki men wear. His tail stripes correspond to the stripes on the toucan enemies’ beaks. He’s very mischevious and eager to play pranks on others.

Duke’s egg is the one you have to fish out of the ultra high speed superfluidity tunnel. Because of this, even though he’s sluggish on land, Duke can reach insane speeds while underwater. His wings don’t really help him fly, but they are very effective fins. The mechanical box on his back is a breathing apparatus.

John’s egg is your reward for winning the butterfly race, hence why he has butterfly wings. He is incredibly lightweight, and doesn’t like walking on his small legs, so resorts to flying everywhere. He is very proud of his elegant wings, though they are very fragile.

Grayson is the only dragon found in Buzz’s Dungeon, so he somewhat resembles Buzz himself, with a catch. Though his eyes and spines are taken from Buzz’s monster form, the ears, fur, and tooth arrangement are a reference to his temporary rabbit form, and the apron is a reference to Buzz’s original form, as a Flowerpot Rhynoc. As for the bright rainbow pattern, that’s there because Grayson’s hatching animation shows him creating a rainbow with his hands, though it’s lava-colored as a reference to the battle arena you find him in. Much like the boss guarding him, he has aspirations of becoming a gardener.

Nora’s egg is guarded by the Crawdad King. Her tusks, eyes, ‘horns’ (antennae), and tail are based off of him. Her general scale pattern is very shrimp-like, though I looked at a few images of the prehistoric creature Tanystropheus for reference when figuring out her body shape. Much like Duke, she is mostly aquatic.

[sugarypixel]

some sunrise spring babs

[pooka-kanga]

My 100th post! Woo!

(I'm still learning how to color skies...)

[breadknight-likes-things]

The Forgotten Realms, A Look Back At The Worlds Of Spyro Year Of The Dragon: Cloud Spires

Some levels in the old Spyro games didn't need much of a facelift to really sell the imaginative worlds they were trying to impart. Others needed all the help they could get, often because the worlds they were trying to visualize were either too high concept for the PS1 to actually render, or just too vague to really sell their vision. Cloud Spires never fit neatly into either of those categories, but nonetheless, it's visual overhaul in Reignited Trilogy did give it a good identity of it's own.

Like I said before, Cloud Spires never had much of a problem in selling what it was supposed to be back on PS1. It was always bright and colorful, and despite the limited ability of the original PlayStation, it was obvious what it was supposed to be. Fulfilling the old "Castle in the Clouds" trope was something that Spyro, as a series, had actually done multiple times before. Hell, the fulfillment of this trope was one of the original games more memorable home worlds. Spyro was always really good at this trope specifically, so it never had an issue selling it when it decided that's what it wanted a level to be.

Cloud Spires isn't just a castle in the sky though, it's also a....cloud....factory? As story concepts goes it's a little strange, I suppose. It's not like they do much to sell you on the idea that this place being blocked up is preventing clouds from being made. they're all over the sky either way. Of course Cloud Spires also seems to be a general purpose weather factory, so all the talk of clouds may really just be vague stand in for "weather". As a kid growing up on stuff like Pajama Sam, this wouldn't even be the first time I encountered that fantastical concept. You can't convince me that rain storms aren't made by a nervous woman at a desk in the clouds.

As level designs go, Cloud Spires is actually one of the simplest to actually play through in all of Spyro Year Of The Dragon. It's a fairly straightforward jaunt around the courtyards and cloud billow systems. None of the eggs are all that hidden, and the enemies don't pose that much of a threat. There's a couple bonus levels contained within it, but both of them are even more simple than the main area. One has you guiding a "Sun Seed" to a large cauldron to create....a new sun? I guess? And the sun is wearing Sunglasses so you know it's cool? The other is a simple flying challenge to ring 6 bells within a quick time frame of each other, which unless you make a large mistake in, is almost impossible to fail. Honestly it could very well be the shortest main "Spyro" level of the game, and none of the bonus rooms feature any appearances by the other playable characters, so there's little in the way of gameplay variety,

Simple or not, though, as I said, Cloud Spires never really needed any help to sell what it was. It's just a fun time soaring by some big cloud machines, finding eggs, and beating up some Rynocs. Does it really need to be anything else? Not really!