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he good news is that Spyro remembers all the skills he picked up in his last game. The bad news is that he'll need more than those tricks to beat the Sorceress.

1) John, Cheryl, Deidre, Mike, Kelly, Katy and the California Yeti sent in how to do some of the named skateboard tricks in the skate parks, which are all worth bigger points. (If you're new to Spyro, these tricks are all named after bosses from the first two Spyro games):

• Gulps and Crushes: Four spins each, one left and one right
• Big Gulps and Orange Crushes: Five spins each
• Gnasty Gnorc: Two front flips and one side roll
• Gnarly Gnorc: Two front flips and two side rolls
• Twisted Lime: A side roll and a front flip
• Twisted Lemon: A side roll and a back flip
• Thrash Master: A flip followed by a side roll.
• Super Thrash Master: Multiple Thrash Masters (two? three?)
• Dr. Shemp: Four left rolls
• Toasty Twist: Four right rolls
• Raging Ripto: Two front or back flips with three side rolls
• Triple Tower: Jump all three towers at the Enchanted Towers skate park

See the cheat codes at the bottom of this page to change Spyro's skateboard into a squid. No, really.

2) When playing as Shiela the Kangaroo, double jump any time it's safe to do so: On her levels, there are LOTS of things hidden above ground level. You unlock each of Spyro's new friends by finding them in a home world, paying Moneybags off and then playing their first level all the way through.

3) Wish that Sparx could point to the nearest gem by holding down the shoulder buttons? He'll remember how to do that after the second of the Sparx solo levels. (He gains a new ability after each of them, making them well worth it, even if you find the levels frustrating.) You can play the Sparx world on each level after beating that world's level boss. (There's also a cheat code below for this, if you can't wait.) If you can't find the gems after doing this, move and turn, to make sure that Sparx isn't actually just pointing straight ahead. If he still doesn't point to the gems, they're almost certainly in a subworld off the main world. Try this trick there.

4) As with the past two Spyro games, there's a Crash Bandicoot demo included on Spyro 3, the first nine challenges for "Crash Bash." And, once again, this is apparently a secret in the overseas version. To play the demo, go to the title screen, hold down R2 + L1 and press Square.

5) There is a two-player mode in Spyro 3, or at least in part of it. Here's what Brian Hastings, lead Insomniac programmer on Spyro 3, has to say about it: "After you beat the yeti in boxing, if you plug in two controllers and attempt to replay the challenge, it will go into two player boxing mode! One player controls Bentley, the other gets the yeti. It actually makes a pretty fun two-player game (we wasted a fair bit of time with it during development.)"

6) After beating the Sorceress, the game is NOT over. See the Super Bonus page for more. But, yes, you can only get 117 percent, not 120 percent, as in Spyro 1. (Spyro 2 ended at just 100 percent, as many readers have pointed out.) It just worked out that way. There are no additional secret levels and, no, you can't unlock the permanent super fireball power again.

7) "HEY! My mod-chipped Playstation won't play Spyro 3!" No, it won't. Sony cracked down on this with the last few games released for the original Playstation console. There doesn't seem to be anything you can do about it. (There's also other protection in the game to prevent "back up" games from running properly.)

8) Spyro fans who played "Ripto's Rage"/"Gateway to Glimmer" probably remember the Skill Points that could be collected after beating Ripto. The same thing goes for this game, too: Accomplishing difficult, insanely difficult or sometimes just silly tasks gets you a free life and one step closer to seeing the complete epilogue, including a special message from the game programmers. There are 20 skill points in the game (note that you only see the list of the ones you've completed after you beat the Sorceress, at which point it appears in your atlas). You also get a bonus life every time you accomplish a skill point, even if you've gotten it before.

• Sunny Villa: Flame all trees (1)
• Skateboard courses: Beat the course records at Sunny Villa, Enchanted Towers and Lost Fleet (2, 3, 4)
• Molten Crater: Put the heads together (5)
• Molten Crater: Supercharge wall (thief area) (6)
• Seashell Shore: Catch the funky chicken (7)
• Icy Peak: Glide to pedestal (thief area) (8)
• Spooky Swamp: Destroy all piranha signs (9)
• Sgt. Byrd's Base: Destroy the gophers (10)
• Frozen Altars: Beat yeti in two boxing rounds (11)
• Fireworks Factory: Agent 9's power up (look up) (12)
• Charmed Ridge: Land on Impossible Tower (13)
• Charmed Ridge: Shoot out all the cat witch windows (14)
• Bentley's Outpost: Push the crate off the cliff (15)
• Desert Ruins: Destroy all seaweed (16)
• Haunted Tomb: Swim into the dark hole (17)
• Dino Mines: Hit all the sea horses (18)
• Dino Mines: Hit the secret dino (19)
• Agent 9's Lab: Blow up all palm trees (20)

The above list was compiled by Happopo, Holly V., Glenn, John, Rod, Connie, Steve, Jake, Ericka, me and my wife.

9) Don't expect a lot of help with the skill points here -- they ARE supposed to be for advanced players -- but the impossible tower is so hard, here's some hints on how to beat it:

• Lauren thinks the skill point is a "piece of cake": "From the area where Moe's egg is, jump to the edge of the tower (so you are walking on the rim). Two or three jumps up like stairs, and glide from there." Jes8Ocon uses the same technique, with further details: "Don't forget to hover. Go slow, it's easy to fall off." The technique is also endorsed by other players, including Tony and Jeff Sampson.
• Kashimira has an alternate solution: "First, of course, you'll want to kill all of the Catwitches in the general area. In the tunnel, climb up the wall near the Super-Flame power-up. From there, you'll want to hop up onto the ledge and look to the right. Jump and glide to the platform where the Catwitch that was levitating the tower was standing ... that should be a pretty easy one. This next one is a bit more difficult to make ... remember to use the triangle button at the end of the jump/glide. Facing the 'impossible tower' you'll see an odd structure on the left near the edge ... position yourself as close to that as possible. Now jump and glide to the lower part of the odd structure. Hop up onto the top grassy part. Again, position yourself as close to your target (this time the 'impossible tower') as you can. Jump and glide to it! This is another difficult jump, so remember the triangle button at the end." Another way to try this, according to my wife: "I just got on the highest point of the tower that had Moe's egg. I charged what little distance there was at the top, jumping/gliding as I leapt off and hovered when I got to the impossible tower. I find that when you charge/jump, your jumps are higher which gives you the extra gliding time you need to get there. It took me nearly a week to get to that tower so it's not going to be easy."

10) OK, here's one more skill points hint: To get Agent 9's powerup in Fireworks Factory, play his Doom game and when you're leaving the second room and heading to the third, turn around and look up at the ceiling. You'll know what you're looking for when you see it.

11) This is the last skill point tip, I swear -- these are meant to be for advanced players, so put on your thinking caps before e-mailing in out of frustration -- no one said anything about the bodies in the skill point for Molten Crater. Think about it.

12) Some apparent bugs in the game:

• Rod reports: "In Agent 9's Lab, when I shot all the boats and got the egg, it said 'You already have this egg'. Huh? That was the first time I ever did it."
• Also see the Speed Rounds page for a potentially serious bug in the game.
• Dayna reports: "In Crystal Islands, where the giant floating gems are out in the open, you can swim in the air and go nearly anywhere, just avoid the whirlwinds and enemies you have to flame, and you'll be OK. Oh, and stay out of the water, 'cause it will undo the bug. ... Jump into the water and swim to the edge where you can see the Bently's porthole. Dive forward into the edge of the shore until you are on the ground. (Make sure you are mostly pressing the D-pad up.) You'll have to play with the D-pad a little though, but a few tries should do it. You can now go anywhere you please. I use this bug often now, it really makes things easier."
• Radagar found a skateboarding bug: "In the second skate challenge, when you come off the super jump ramp, turn a hard right and up you will fly outside the skate park for a short time, then die but the view is pretty neat. If you are lucky you can also fly back into the skate park."

13) Brian Hastings, lead Insomniac programmer on Spyro 3 on some of the cooler non-essential bits of in the game: "These are three of my favorite things to do in Spyro 3:

• "Choose not to pay Moneybags, even though you have the money. The funniest lines in the game come when you do this.
• "Smash Bartholomew on the head in Bentley's Outpost.
• "In Frozen Altars, charge through the rock piles next to the rock throwing guys (without hitting the rhynoc.) The rhynoc now has lost his source of ammo and will moon you - he can even be frozen in that position."
• "Oh, by the way, the Greatest Hits version of the game has fixes for the raceway bug and the Fireworks Factory gem bug (for both U.S. and Europe.) It also plays the 'Spike is Born' movie at the proper time, and it has a little extra polish and special effects work that didn't make it into the final release."

14) And now, the moment seemingly everyone has been waiting for ... the cheat codes. All of them, direct from Brian Hastings. Pause your game, and then do the following:

• 99 Lives: R2, L2, R2, L2, Up, Up, Up, Up, Circle
• Sparx Treasure-finding (without doing Sparx worlds): Right, Right, Left, Left, Right, Right, Left, Left, Circle, Circle, Circle
• Extra Hit Point (without doing Sparx worlds): Circle, R1, Circle, L1, Circle, R2, Circle, L2, Circle
• Change Spyro's Color: Up, Left, Down, Right, Up, Square, R1, R2, L1, L2, Up, Right, Down, Left, Up
  ["The next button you press determines the color, I can't remember the ordering, but the valid buttons are: Triangle, Square, X, Circle, Up or Down"]
  To the rescue come SpyroHints.com readers Happopo, Brian Urtz, Gwen and hollso:
  • (Green) Triangle: Green Spyro
  • (Blue) X: Blue Spyro ("Be careful," Happopo warned, "This will cause you to exit the level, or quit the game if you're not in a level.")
  • (Red) Circle: Red Spyro
  • (Purple) Square: Dark Purple Spyro
  • Up: Yellow Spyro
  • Down: Black Spyro
    
• Flat (Parappa Spyro): Left, Right, Left, Right, L1, R1, L1, R1, Square, Circle
• Big Head Spyro: Up, R1, Up, R1, Up, R1, Circle, Circle, Circle, Circle
• Play Credits: Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Square, Circle, Square, Circle, Square, Circle
• ACT (Automated Challenge Tuning) -- in other words, change the game's difficulty, which normally adapts to how good of a player you are (all of you who keep writing in to say how easy the Impossible Tower is, think about this before sending in extremely cocky e-mails ...): Circle, Square, Right, Left, Right, Square, Circle, X (To set to the harder difficulty mode, instead of the easiest, press the Square instead of the X)
• Skate on a squid instead of a skateboard: Up, Up, Left, Left, Right, Right, Down, Down, Square, Circle, Square. Brian explains this one: "It turns your skateboard into a squid (like in the epilogue.) It's actually a little inside joke at Insomniac. The skateboard idea grew out of a minigame in Lost Fleet where you were intended to ride on the back of a squid. Riding the squid became so much fun that we decided to use it in multiple worlds - but a squid didn't fit very well outside of Lost Fleet, so we turned it into a skateboard. We kept the squid in as a cheat for sentimental reasons."

15) One more cheat code, discovered well after the game shipped. Insomniac thought they had removed the level warp code, but nope, it's still in there. According to Brian Hastings, you begin by pausing, then punching in up, down, up, down, left, right, left, right, square and two more buttons, based on what you want to do:

Sunrise Spring Home: X, Circle
Sunny Villa: X, X
Cloud Spires: X, Square
Molten Crater: X, Triangle
Seashell Shore: X, Right
Mushroom Speedway: X, Down
Sheila's Alp: X, Left
Buzz's Dungeon: X, Up
Crawdad Farm: X, R1

Midday Garden Home: Square, Circle
Icy Peak: Square, X
Enchanted Towers: Square, Square
Spooky Swamp: Square, Triangle
Bamboo Terrace: Square, Right
Country Speedway: Square, Down
Sgt. Byrd's Base: Square, Left
Spike's Arena: Square, Up
Spider Town: Square, R1

Evening Lake Home: Triangle, Circle
Frozen Altars: Triangle, X
Lost Fleet: Triangle, Square
Fireworks Factory: Triangle, Triangle
Charmed Ridge: Triangle, Right
Honey Speedway: Triangle, Down
Bentley's Outpost: Triangle, Left
Scorch's Pit: Triangle, Up
Starfish Reef: Triangle, R1

Midnight Mountain Home: Right, Circle
Crystal Islands: Right, X
Desert Ruins: Right, Square
Haunted Tomb: Right, Triangle
Dino Mines: Right, Right
Harbor Speedway: Right, Down
Agent 9's Lab: Right, Left
Sorceress's Lair: Right, Up
Bugbot Factory: Right, R1

And ... the long awaited super-secret code ...

SUPER BONUS WORLD: Down, Circle

And ... the movies (in roughly the order you would see them playing the game)

Startup Movie: Left, Circle
"An Evil Plot Unfolds...": Left, X
"A Powerful Villain Emerges...": Up, Down
"A Desperate Rescue Begins...": Up, Left
"No Hard Feelings": Up, Up
"The Second Warning": Left, Square
"Bianca Strikes Back": Left, Triangle
"Byrd: James Byrd": Up, R1
"Hunter's Tussle": Left, Right
"Spike Is Born": Left, Down
"A Duplicitous: Larcenous Ursine": Up, L1
"An Apology: And Lunch": Left, Left
"A Monster To End All Monsters": Left, Up
"The Dancing Bear": R1, Triangle
"The Escape!": Left, R1
"Deja Vu?": Left, L1
"A Familiar Face": Up, Circle
"Billy In The Wall": Up, X
"One Less Noble Warrior": Up, Triangle
"THE END": Up, Right

"I think that's it. 'Spike Is Born' is the 'hidden' movie that was intended to play at the introduction of the 2nd boss, but never made it into the game. The only way to see it is to use the cheat."