The fourth Spyro the Dragon game, released on the Game Boy Advance in 2001. The first not to be developed by Insomniac, it was developed by Digital Eclipse.note
A sorcerer named Grendor has frozen all the fairies in the Fairy Realms in blocks of ice, and plans to take all their wings for a spell to cure his headache (ironically induced by tinkering with Bianca's spellbook without her permission). Spyro and Sparx set out to rescue the fairies.
This game contains examples of:
- Anti-Villain: Grendor's motivation for capturing the fairies is just to get rid of the extra head and extreme headaches he gave himself while misreading a spell, and he immediately sways away from villainy as soon as Zoe reverses it.
- Bottomless Pit: All levels that are not surrounded by water or lava are surrounded by an abyss.
- Bottomless Pit Rescue Service: Falling off in the hub worlds is nothing to worry about, as fairy magic is used to get Spyro back if he falls off a ledge.
- Call-Back: Moneybags' reason for being back in the fairy realms is that haiku poetry wasn't much of a profitable businessnote .
- Checkpoint Starvation: You won't lose lives in a Sparx World when you run out of health, but every enemy and hazard (including the boss) will respawn due to the lack of checkpoints.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: At the end of the game, Zoe reverses the spell that gave Grendor his extra head and massive migraine, and points out that she could have done this at any time if he'd simply asked.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Downplayed. If you lose all of your lives in a level, you go back to the hub world and have to find the portal to the level you were currently playing and restart. But all of the gems and fairies you've collected up until that point is saved so you don't have to find them all again, even the gems that were found in the treasure chest. And since if you die at any point in a stage, you restart from the beginning of it anyway also with your gem and fairy counters intact, losing all of your lives isn't that different from just dying normally. The only exception are the enemies, which respawn and you have to defeat them all again to earn the fairy for it and open up the gate back to the hub world.
- Floating Continent: All levels that are not instead surrounded by water or lava.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: With the Fairies being captured and acting as the game's collectables, they're unable to do their usual role of saving Spyro's progress, hence the lack of in-level checkpoints.
- The Lost Woods: Done with the Hummingbird Fort level. It is located in a forest where some of the platforms are tree trunks and true to its name, it is populated by hummingbirds.
- Super Drowning Skills. If Spyro so much as dips his toe into the water, he sinks like a rock; and, unlike in Spyro the Dragon, he cannot jump out.
- Super Title 64 Advance: The Japanese title of this game is Spyro Advance.
- Unexpected Shmup Level:
- Sparx's levels are played like top-down shooters, just like in Spyro: Year of the Dragon.
- Somewhat similar to the original trilogy, there are "speedway" levels in which Spyro flies indefinitely, collecting gems and time bonuses to complete the level before time runs out. However, in this installment, Spyro shoots ahead of him rather than breathe fire and the levels play more like rail shooters, culminating in a boss fight at the end.
- We Help the Helpless: The formula in every level's primary objective and many other quests, to a certain extent. Rhynocs have invaded and are causing mayhem in every level and the inhabitants ask Spyro for help when he arrives. And once every enemy in the level has been defeated, the portal back to the current Fairy World will open up.
