Elora was originally going to be a centaur, but the character designer, Oliver Wade, decided she would be better as a faun, and cut out the two back legs. Her face is modeled after one of his friends, and the name "Elora" was derived from one of the other Insomniac employees named "Caroline".

In Metropolis, if you get through the whole level without beating a single enemy and talk to the Inventor Droid at the end, she'll say "I've Successfully developed a super powerup here Spyro... knock off just a few more enemies and you can be the first ever to use it." This dialogue isn't normally available to see or hear because the power up only requires one enemy to be defeated to work and there are enemy pigs that self destruct when you get close enough to them.

In the "Mystic Marsh" level, coins can be found in the fountain with the face of Dan Johnson on them. Dan was an Insomniac employee famous for his in-game cameos. This is the first time that Dan Johnson appeared within a game, a trend that would continue in the Ratchet & Clank series.

An outro for the Glimmer stage exists. The first time you play through the level it will lead you onto the following cutscene in the game, but completing and obtaining the Talisman a second time will show you the outro cutscene.

When you first start the game, Spyro isn't given a chance to introduce himself. Despite this, Pogo the Gemcutter already knows his name. In the Japanese version, however, he refers to him as 'Dragon-san' instead.

An early demo for the game shows that many level names were changed. Originally, many levels were linked to one another (such as Crystal Glacier originally being known as Skelos Glaciers to match Skelos Badlands).

Hidden in the game's files is an unused creature that resembles a mini version of Buzz.

In demos of the game, the ability to Roll (like in the first game) is present. This was removed in the final version of the game.

The Epilogue shows several enemies that were cut from the final game.

In Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!, there is a large orange enemy with a wrench and a small robot accompanying him. They seem to have served as the basis for the characters Ratchet and Clank. Insomniac Games developed both titles.

In the Japanese version of the game, Sparx occasionally speaks instead of just buzzing.

The song "Wintery Mist" from Silent Hill: Homecoming sounds almost identical to "Winter Tundra", only slowed down.

The back of a Pizza Hut demo disc shows the walls surrounding part of the castle contained water at one point during development.

In Summer Forest, the name Bryan can be seen on some of the walls, and in Winter Tundra, the name Brenda can be seen. Bryan and Brenda are the names of Spyro animator and character designer Oliver Wade's children.

In Colossus, Brother Ned states that "you should kill that yeti", whilst the dialogue box reads "you should torch that yeti" instead.

There is a glitch which allows Spyro to double jump. Performing this glitch can allow the player to skip a considerable portion of the game, including skipping most of Moneybags' payment.

When the game was released on the North American PlayStation Store (PSN), it was taken down less than a week later due to reports that Idol Springs and Colossus were not working properly and contained glitches. These glitches included getting trapped in the Idol Statues, and items getting stuck within the levels. The glitches have since been fixed and the game has been re-released.

Ripto received his name through the Japanese katakana for Spyro (スパイロ­). On the illustration, Insomniac felt that it looked like it spelt out 'Ripto' and thus his name was created.