Preliminaries

To fully complete the game you have to complete every level three times, and on each of those visits the level increases in difficulty.

For the world routes, unless specified further one gets from point A to B on the direct path (e.g., by just going right). Also "menu warp" refers to quitting out to the save slot menu and going back in—this will spawn you at the beginning of the respective overworld.

Big thanks to Lovebot, CDRomatron and 7eraser7 for "playtesting" this guide and improving it gradually!

The Run I - Spyro Fusion

Right in the main menu, hold L+R to enter cheats:

• V4N1LL4 (Stone Riptoc card)
• S0YB34N (O Sheep card) There are also two gem cheats which are only needed as a backup (if you run out of gems in the Tech Park shop):
• V1S10NS (100 gems)
• T4P10C4 (200 gems)

Be aware that the gems are capped at 999 in this game, and given that later shops cost 100 gems per game that cap is not too generous. So be mindful of your money!

World 1 (first half)

• Level: Castle Cruisin'

• Shop: Buy all 4 Cards (Green Gem, Purple Gem, Yellow Gem, Blue Gem)

• Level: Fall in, roll out

World 1 (second half)

• Level: Rumble on the Ramparts. Drop down to the right and go to

• Level: Altitude Adjustment

• Level: Castle Chaos (top right of the map). You can SKIP the shop inbetween as it only contains Crash cards

• MENU WARP and go to the World 2 Portal

• Boss Fight: Crash

World 2 (first half)

• Level: Snow Steps

• Shop: Buy all 4 Cards (Dragon Egg, Crystallized Dragon 2, Crystallized Dragon 3, Talisman). Up the elevator to the right is

• Level: Arctic Attack. MENU WARP after completing this stage and double jump up at the first gap to get to:

• Level: Blizzard Balls

World 2 (second half)

• Go to the top right where the Arctic Riptoc is and fall down left

• Level: Tread Lightly. Fall down straight all the way to the bottom, then go to the left

• Level: Ice Chopper

• MENU WARP and go to the World 3 Portal (top left)

• Boss: Crush & Gulp. The pattern of Gulp's ice balls is 1-4-2-3-2. The optimal route goes: 1-2-3 (Headbutts) 2-1-4 (Flame). It is also documented and shown off in this video.

From here on you have to care about the unique colored gems. If those are not on the direct path, they will be specified further!

World 3 (first half)

• Go to the top left as soon as possible

• Level: Fire Fight

• Shop: Buy all 5 cards (Fire Riptoc, Frozen Riptoc, Gnorc, Ice Riptoc, Ember). Go to the left and up the yellow-ish stairs

• Level: Ring of Fire

• Go to the top left to collect the two yellow gems (and the blue one on your path). After that, quit Level and go right back in (NOT menu warp!)—this respawns you at Ring of Fire. Go to the right (using the upper platforms feat. two yellow gems) until you get to the purple gem (WORLD CARD)

• Level: Turn up the Heat. Go left, drop down, go right to leave this area

World 3 (second half)

• Level: Hot Wings. Go right until the Flamethrower guy, then go up left using the upper platforms (You can SKIP the shop inbetween as it only contains Crash cards)

• Level: Pull of Lava

• Boss: Nina

World 4 (first half)

• Level: Riptocs and Rockets

• Shop: Buy all 4 cards (Moneybags Shop, Floor Spikes, Falling Ice Shards, Level Portal)

• Level: Treetop Flight

• Go up left to get all colored gems. After you got the blue one next to Crash, Quit Level and go right back in (NOT menu warp!) This respawns you at Treetop Flight Portal.

• After loading back in, jump right and collect the purple gem. Then fall down to directly the left and land in the secret corridor. Follow the path until you collected the third green gem (WORLD CARD). Going up fully and falling down left gets you to

• Level: Falling to Pieces. Then go right to leave this part of the world.

World 4 (second half)

• Do a long double jump to the upper right platform (two blue gems) and drop down left (purple gem). ALTERNATIVE if the jump is too difficult: get the purple gem and then go around to get the other two

• Then just go right. Don't miss the green gem above the two piranha plants on your way

• Level: Riptoc Repellent

• Level: Dragon Assault

• Go left and collect the two yellow gems next to the world portal (WORLD CARD). You can SKIP the shop inbetween as it only contains Crash cards

• Boss: Cortex

World 5

Route based on this video

• Drop down right and collect the green gem. Then go right from there

• Level: Tech Tug. Long double jump to the top left (not free but also not too hard). This lands you at

• Level: Gravity Well. Top left platform, from there to the top right

• Level: Space Shoot. Double jump to the right, collect the blue and the green gem. Portal to the right is

• Level: Sky Walker. This level is a bit difficult to learn. To assist, here are videos showing a damageless first pass / second pass / third pass.

• Double jump flutter to the right; under the scientist is

• Level: Tech Deflect

• Below you to the right there are two yellow gems, then walk off to the left to collect a purple gem (WORLD CARD). Then limbo warp to

• Boss: Ripto & Cortex. As soon as the cutscene after beating the boss starts playing, SOFT RESET (A+B+Start+Select) the game to skip the credits. This also allows us to do some RNG manipulation

• Enter W1 limbo and exit during the sheep's turnaround animation

• Go to limbo (any tab in party mode works) and enter the portal where you spawn. Exit party mode, enter story mode. You are now at the Tech Park boss portal

• Go left and stop at the edge right before the shop. Flame once

• Play the vase shuffle game and get Grendor (left vase).

• Exit the shop, jump flame once. Be careful that your flames do not hit the platform to the right

• Enter the shop. You should get Gnasty Gnorc (right vase), Firefly (middle vase), Lava Fountain (right vase) in this order

• Exit the shop and MENU WARP to end up at the world 5 entry portal. Enter it to get to world 4. Now it is time for the:

Backtrack

• In Wumpa Jungle, drop down to the right and get to

• Level: Gem Hop (collect 100 gems in one sitting to win). This level is unlocked by collecting all unique gems in Tech Park—it does not require beating any level in Tech Park, let alone the final boss! This info is of importance if this run is done by more than 2 players, because the optimal route is different then.

• After beating Gem Hop, to the left you find

• Level: Sheep Chase

• MENU WARP TWICE and enter World 3 (Fire mountains). Going to the right gets you to

• Level: Sheep Shakedown

• Get the green gem (top right) and fall down to the left for two blue gems (WORLD CARD)

• MENU WARP TWICE and enter the portal to World 2 (Arctic Cliffs)

• Go to the Arctic Riptoc on the right and fall straight down again, all the way to the bottom. The elevator above the icy surface to the left takes you to

• Level: Sheep Shearin'

• MENU WARP TWICE (you need neither of the cards in World 1 or 2. One is redundant and the other three will be obtained by the Crash player) and enter World 1. The second level to the right

• Level: Death from Behind

The Run II - Trading

When going into trading you should have 95 (or, if you by chance got Firefly in Tech Park shop, 96) cards in your savefile. If you want to make sure you have everything you need, you are allowed to not have:

• Firefly (Blue #21)
• Castle Talisman (Green #1)
• Arctic Talisman (Green #2)
• ! Sheep (Orange #6)
• Spit (Orange #12) Additionally, here is a list of all Fusion Cards and how to get them.

A general tip for trading: hold Start when you confirm your selection of cards to complete the trade faster (because the game allows the input to be buffered). Also you can trade up to 5 (but at least one) card per trade session.

Now all that is left is to trade your 95 Spyro cards (Firefly not included) to the Crash player. This happens in 95/5=19 trade sessions.