The Sorceress' Lair
| “ | Woooohoo!! Time to kick some Sorceress butt! | „ |
| ~ Agent 9, before joining Spyro to fight the Sorceress at her Lair. |
The Sorceress' Lair is the Sorceress' very own hidden arena found within her Castle at the Forgotten Worlds' Midnight Mountain and a boss level in Spyro: Year of the Dragon. This area is where Spyro the Dragon fought the Sorceress herself for the future of the Forgotten Worlds and the recovery of the Dragon Worlds' very own 100 Dragon Eggs.
The area becomes accessible after at least 100 Dragon Eggs has been collected. It is a ring shape surrounded with red-hot lava within a circular high wall surrounded by 4 castle turrets (which serves as dungeons of sort for her prisoners and her "guests") in the mountains, with balloons in the air that contain stationary cannons, trolley cannons (hover boards) and UFO flying saucers. The balloons are shot by Agent 9, causing them to pop, allowing the weapon to fall to the ground. You can then hop on it and use it to damage her. He will also occasionally shoot down sheep to heal you.
Battle
The Sorceress
During the first round, the Sorceress will occasionally conjure and shoot 3 magical light-blue bomb-like orbs of shockwaves with her magic Wand towards Spyro. These are easy to dodge - just walking around will do the trick (avoid their shadows falling from above). She will also try to hit you with a fireball attack which seems to follow Spyro, and charging is to only sure way of avoiding one of these. Once Agent 9 finally shoots down a cannon, hop on it and the Sorceress will begin running around the arena. Hit her before she stops and launches a fireball towards you. If she does, quickly jump off the cannon to prevent getting hit.
After successfully hitting her with the cannon for 2 times, the stationary cannons will disappear to make way for a new machine, the Hover board. This machine is very similar to the ones you used at the Haunted Tomb in the hover board challenge, and the only difference is that it doesn't have the lob shot option (by pressing the square button. At this stage, the villainous witch will generate more of those mystic shock waves and pour them down at you. Again, these are easy to dodge. Just avoid their shadows falling from above, and you'll be fine. Keep on making damaging impacts on the Sorceress until she loses less than half of her life in the health bar show below the screen.
The devices to use next in line will be the UFO Flying saucers. These have unlimited firing power and flying time, and Spyro can only fall off if you press the X button to jump off the saucer or if the Sorceress manages to hit you with her redundant fireball attacks. At this stage, the Sorceress will be in a 'frenzy' and use up all her wand's power trying to dispatch you with swarms of those aforementioned shock waves. Once more, the shock waves can be avoided with great ease. Walking or charging around will do the trick. Keep on pipping the Sorceress until she gets pushed towards the lava, subsequently drowning. Afterwards, Spyro will be awarded with an egg, in this case, baby George.
If you cannot beat the Sorceress during the first try, do not lose hope. Once you get used to this level you will find it very easy to dispatch the evil queen. As they say, practice makes things perfect.
When Sparx is already in the color green (very low health level indication - green), Agent 9 will begin to shoot down sheep you can flame or charge) to regain valuable health. He will shoot down 1-2 sheep.
Gallery
Trivia
- The background in this level is based off Doctor Shemp in Spyro the Dragon, with added towers.
- Many Spyro fans think that the Sorceress is a little boring to fight, and even say that the wicked wizard Ripto's Arena (from Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!) is more difficult and epic (thanks to the opera-rock boss music). Though the pipe organ-rock music for the Sorceress is the perfect music and sound fit for evil queens such as her.
- The upper tip of the Sorceress' long sceptre-like wand contains a light-purple egg, which will eventually revert back to the normal color of the one, final and stolen Dragon Egg after she along with her sceptre is submerged in the lava (once Spyro defeated her the first time).
- In the PAL version of the game, the background music is replaced by that of the creature Spike's Arena, and in the NTSC version it is replaced with the Sunrise Spring's background music.
- Along with the Super Bonus Round, there is a "portal" inside one of the castle towers outside the arena. Although it is unreachable here, with hacking, you can fly towards it in Super Bonus Round. Do not get your hopes up, for it is solid, and not an actual portal.