Tomas: Intent on winning, I powered through the fight and finally managed to push Buzz into the lava.
Sgt. Byrd: I breathed a sigh of relief as the cutscene played showing Buzz drowning in the lava and the egg popping out.
Bubba: I wasn't expecting what I saw then.
Sparx: The "You already have this egg" text was just as messed up as usual, but the name itself said, "You left us".
Agent 9: Instead of disappearing, the cutscene ended and both Spyro and the hatchling were left standing in the arena.
Cleetus: Usually the balloon came down and took you to the next homeworld, but there was nothing.
Lateef: I ran around the arena, trying to figure out what to do, but nothing happened. When Spyro approached the baby dragon, he just walked through him like he wasn't there.
Cleetus: I tried pausing and exiting to the homeworld, but it played the sound effect and did nothing.
Hunter: At this point I was getting sick of all these glitches and decided to just kill myself and delete the old file once I was booted back to the title screen.
Agent 9: Walking to the edge, I jumped into the lava.
Billy: Spyro bounced around until Sparx was gone, then fell into the lava. Instead of doing the usual animation where he turned to a black crisp and fell onto the surface, he instead was doing the drowning animation, much like the one in the original Spyro game.
Lindar: Just as Spyro's head was nearly swallowed up, the game froze and emitted a terrible squeal.
Cleetus: I dropped my controller and covered my ears, grimacing at the awful noise.
Lindar: My old Gameboy had made a noise like this when I took out a cartridge while the game was running, but I'd never heard a console doing it.
Lateef: I fumbled for the remote, trying to find the mute button, but my hands were shaking—and then the squealing stopped.
Spyro: I looked up and the game was still frozen with Spyro just barely above the lava, but the game was silent and a text box was on the screen.
Damon: There was no name on the text box or any voice acting, just the words "Do you think you can get out of this so easily?" Slowly, I reached for the controller and hit X to advance the text.
Sheila: "Why did you leave us alone? How could you just forget about us? Don't you understand what she did once you disappeared? Even the ones you saved, the ones that had been hidden away, she found them all! Why, Spyro, why didn't you come back for us?"
Sgt. Byrd: I gawked at the screen.
Cleetus: Whoever this was, what on Earth were they talking about?
Lateef: Who was "she", and who was it that had been forgotten?
Bartholomew: Before I could move to press X again, the text advanced on its own.
Sparx: "It isn't too late."
Billy: The moment the words finished typing themselves out, the Playstation shut itself off, leaving only a blue screen.
Spyro: I stared at my reflection on the TV for a full minute before getting up and turning it off.
Bubba: I quickly rolled up the controller and dashed for the living room.
Cleetus: My legs shook as I collapsed on the couch and I took a moment to catch my breath.
Damon: I didn't know why I was so frightened, but that game was seriously skeeving me out.
Lateef: I decided to just take a little break and get some lunch before returning to the game—hopefully whatever the hell that was, it was just a one-off and the game would be back to normal again.
Damon: I didn't even know that consoles could shut themselves off.
Tomas: Maybe the weird Easter Egg had overheated it?
Hunter: About an hour later, I felt I had calmed down sufficiently and headed back into my room to try again.
Sgt. Byrd: The game started up normally, with no lag unlike last time.
Bartholomew: I tried to my new save again, but when I attempted to load, it just said it had been corrupted.
Tomas: Sighing in annoyance, I decided to try my old save and see if it had been corrupted as well, and if not, if it was just as broken.
Cleetus: To my surprise, it began loading up fine.
Tomas: "The Adventure Continues..." and a low-res picture of Midnight Mountain, the last homeworld, appeared on the screen.
Elora: I leaned back against my bed where I was sitting on the floor and sighed as the minutes dragged on.
Sparx: Playstations were usually pretty loud but this thing was whirring, clicking, and chugging louder than a machine in a factory.
Agent 9: I could barely hear my own thoughts, which were along the lines of "Why is this taking so long?" It was like it was having a hard time loading whatever was in there.
Damon: The little brown blob... that had to be Isabelle, the first dragon you rescue in the game!
Cleetus: At this point I wasn't that shocked, considering everything else that had happened, but I definitely knew that she wasn't supposed to be there... staring at you...
Agent 9: It looked like this save was bugged too...
Damon: Though I was interested to see more, I was still a little creeped out.
Sparx: I looked down at the camera and saw the charge light was flashing; too invested to find the charger, I shut it off before it could die.
Damon: The level began with Spyro hopping out of the rocket that later replaced your balloon as a means of transportation. Immediately I noticed a startling change in the music: instead of the usual perky orchestral hits that comprised most of the song, it was led by a slow violin instead.
Spyro: Usually the instruments switched to a loud warbling tone of an instrument I couldn't identify later in the song, but once it reached it, a soft flute was played instead.
Hunter: It was sad somehow, such a contrast to the upbeat music that had once been here.
Cleetus: Thinking that I would try to beat the game, I charged over to the Haunted Tombs portal located inside the building on the largest floating island, but the portal was gone.
Bartholomew: The arch still remained, but there was nothing inside.
Cleetus: I checked all the other portals, but they were blocked off as well.
Lindar: There was nothing I could do but go back to the rocket and try another homeworld.
Sparx: I planned to head to the third world, Evening Lake, but all the choices except Sunrise Spring and Buzz's Dungeon were greyed out.
Billy: Well, after what happened last time I certainly wasn't fighting Buzz again, so I headed to the first homeworld instead.
Hunter: I was dismayed by what greeted me when I got there.
Cleetus: The floor in the building your rocket lands in was cracked and grey, caked with dirt as if it hadn't been tended to in years.
Damon: When I headed outside, I saw that the small lake was completely dried out, leaving nothing but a hole in its wake.
Sgt. Byrd: The portal to Seashell Shores was active, but it was too far to glide and I didn't want to take a chance falling into the hole and having no escape.
Sheila: Instead I glided to land and continued my exploration of the new Sunrise Spring.
Spyro: It only got worse as I continued on.
Hunter: All the portals were either broken and crumbling.
Bartholomew: The leaves on the trees were gone, leaving only dark trunks with what looked like char marks, their naked branches sticking like a dagger into the grey sky. The grass was brown and dead, the stream near where you start the game was dried up as well, and there was no sign of life anywhere.
Tomas: Even the rabbits that served as life fodder were gone.
Sparx: The music was similar to before; the same song with slower, sadder instruments playing it.
Tomas: It only made it all the more depressing.
Spyro: It looked like every last drop of magic had been sucked out of this world, leaving behind only a hollow shell and a memory of what had once been.
Cleetus: What could have happened here to reduce it to such a state?
Spyro: Was it because of Spyro disappearing as the strange speaker had said?
Bubba: But where did Spyro go, and why did he leave?
Bartholomew: The portal to Sunny Villa was the only one in good shape, so I headed there, having little other choice. The once bright place was now in a similar state to Sunrise Spring: the sky was colourless and the whole place was filled with a dreary haze.
Billy: Most of the buildings in towers were crumbling and the tiles in the plaza were scuffed and cracked.
Spyro: Not a lion, the usual animal inhabitants here, was in sight.
Damon: Instead my screen was filled with dozens upon dozens of rhynocs.
Sheila: They acted normally for the most part, raising their weapons whenever Spyro drew near, but some ignored him totally.
Bartholomew: When I tried to attack them, Spyro's flames just sputtered out and he bounced off them while charging, as if they were walls. gave up and just tried to avoid them, navigating through the level.
Hunter: There were no gems or eggs to pick up, so the place just felt bare.
Sgt. Byrd: Even the music had abandoned this desolate place, leaving it dead quiet except for Spyro's footsteps and the enemies' noises.
Tomas: The silence held dread in it, and I felt that perhaps the inhabitants were not dead but in hiding, enslaved by all the rhynocs here and afraid to even leave their houses.
Billy: I could almost feel them watching Spyro, watching me as I headed through the level.
Damon: Finally, just as I reached the home portal, I saw the mayor standing exactly where he usually was.
Tomas: I approached him and he automatically began to speak to me.
Billy: "Spyro? Could that really be you?"
Bartholomew: To my surprise, Spyro responded, "What happened here?"
Hunter: The mayor took on a more hostile tone.
Cleetus: "The Sorceress took over everything after you abandoned us... Can't you see that? There is nothing left here for you. Please just go home, whatever is left of it."
Bentley: There the conversation ended.
Nestor: I tried to speak to him again, but there was only a blank box.
Tomas: There was nothing left to do here, as the rhynocs were all unkillable and I couldn't go into the skateboarding minigame, so I decided to see if any other worlds had been opened.
Cleetus: As the homeworld loaded, I pondered on what he had said.
Sheila: No wonder the worlds were all abandoned and dead, most of the portals in ruins.
Damon: The Sorceress must have destroyed them all.
Sgt. Byrd: I was beginning to piece together the story of what had happened to this place, but I still had so many unanswered questions.
Lateef: When I landed back in Sunrise Spring, I saw something in the distance, where you spawn at the beginning of the game, that wasn't supposed to be there.
Cleetus: Going over to investigate, I saw that it was a hole in the ground.
Bartholomew: Curious, I jumped inside, and the game immediately began loading.
Bubba: The screen was different than the normal scene of Spyro flying through the sky, instead totally black with only Spyro's eyes and a brief outline of him visible in the darkness as he walked through the tunnel.
Cleetus: When the game loaded, it looked like I was in the cutscene at the very beginning of the game, when all the dragons are sleeping in the field. But this time, there was no one in sight. Despite appearing just as abandoned as everywhere else, this place didn't seem to be dead; the sky was a typical blue and the grass below Spyro's feet was lush.
Hunter: There was no music again, but it wasn't the same terrifying silence as before, and was instead replaced by a gentle ambiance of chirping birds and the rustling of wind.
Lateef: I had been on edge since I started up the game, but here I finally allowed myself to relax.
Sgt. Byrd: I walked around for a bit, hitting a lot of invisible walls, as this area was clearly never meant to be played in-game.
Lateef: I did a lot of running against the walls trying to find a spot to get through and was about to reset the game when I finally broke through.
Sheila: It was like a small hallway, with the invisible walls on both sides, so I was unable to head any direction but forward.
Astor: There was nothing in sight but an endless field, but I continued on anyway.
Cleetus: As I walked along, Spyro's speed began to slow to a crawl, until I was only able to walk despite pressing the analog stick all the way up.
Lindar: I felt dread spike my heart as the sky began to get dark, ugly grey clouds rolling in and covering the sky.
Sgt. Byrd: After a few moments it began to rain in torrents, the sound of thunder, rain, and roaring wind replacing the previous peaceful sounds.
Cleetus: I didn't want to know what was up ahead, and I tried to turn back, but the invisible wall had closed behind me.
Sheila: I had no choice but to continue on.
Sparx: Something was stopping me from simply reaching over and pressing the power button.
Cleetus: It drove me on and forced me to keep playing this to the end. Eventually I could just make something out in the distance, though at this point it was so dark that barely anything was visible in the storm.
Hunter: Soon I hit what looked like an iron fence and walked along the walls until I reached an open gate.
Cleetus: As I entered the small fenced off area, the storm cleared up just enough.
Lindar: And even in the dark, I could tell what the object just a yard away from Spyro was: a gravestone.
Bartholomew: Cautiously I approached it, Spyro still walking at a slow pace.
Billy: As he drew near, "Press Triangle to Talk" appeared above it as if it were a person.
Damon: I complied, and a text box appeared.
Bentley: "In memory of the forgotten."
Hunter: The moment I exited out of the text box, my heart leaped and I swallowed. Standing a few feet before Spyro was Isabelle, the hatchling that had been stalking me.
Agent 9: There was no indication that she could be talked to or interacted with, and stood there unmoving and unblinking, staring up at Spyro.
Lindar: I tried to move, but no matter what button I pressed, Spyro refused to do anything.
Bartholomew: knew the game hadn't frozen, as the rain still poured and Spyro's idle animation continued.
Tomas: As I stared, I noticed that Isabelle's wings were only little stubs. After several suspenseful moments, Isabelle began to slowly float forward, lacking any animation.
Hunter: The closer she got, the quieter the game got, until the sound of thunder was barely even there.
Agent 9: The moment the little dragon touched Spyro, the screen flashed and a cutscene began.
Cleetus: Like most cutscenes in the game, it began with an oil-painting like picture, this one a close-up of Isabelle's face.
Spyro: The music in the cutscene was just ambient white noise, and it began with the same close-up of a frightened Isabelle.
Bartholomew: An adult dragon with the same beige scales as her appeared, her colours faded and washed out, and picked up the young dragon.
Bentley: She said nothing to her, and merely ran outside of their house.
Billy: Around them was littered debris from the Artisans' castles and flames reaching up to the sky, a thick smoky haze covering the ground. Isabelle choked and coughed, clinging to her mother and closing her eyes tight.
Lateef: As they ran I caught a glimpse of a few dragons and rhynocs laying still on the ground.
To be continued