The Legend of Spyro The Eternal Night Review

BY Nicholas Rego | POSTED: 02 December 2007

An eternal flop.



Possibly the best selling genre for consoles has to be the platformer. There’s just something about running around in 3D freedom that makes you giggle with glee. I’ve been playing platformers since the dark ages, and with every new platformer that’s come out, the genre has either taken a step forward or moved back. With The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night for the PS2, the game literally plunges the genre into a venerable cesspool of appalling gameplay.

When noted game developer Insomniac decided to step away from the Spyro series, many fans were left wondering if this meant the end for our little purple dragon. But with Krome Studios getting on board, the series took a slightly different take from the happy-go-lucky attitude that featured in the previous Spyro games. The Legend of Spyro is actually a three part series launched by Krome, with the first game, A New Beginning, receiving an overall positive reception from gamers. However after playing The Eternal Night, gamers will be left wondering if Krome Studios was the right choice to continue the franchise, as they seem hell bent on making it suffer a slow and painful demise.

The Eternal Night picks off right from where A New Beginning ended. In the first instalment, Spyro defeated a dragon called Cynder, who was under the control of an evil force known as the Dark Master. Instead of leaving Cynder behind, Spyro rescues her and takes her to the Dragon Temple. Fast forward to The Eternal Night, and we find that Cynder cannot forget all the chaos and destruction she caused, and attempts to flee the temple. Her escape is thwarted by the sudden attack of a hormone-crazy ape named Gaul, who like 90% of game villains, is hell bent on resurrecting the Dark Master on the one night of lunar alignment. The game makes a fairly decent attempt to pick up the story from the first game, so even first-time players will be able to understand the storyline thanks to the brief opening cinematic.

As with all of the Spyro games, you are able to harness various elemental forces in the form of your dragon breath, such as fire, ice, and even electricity. However, you’re not given any of these powers at the start of the game, since Spyro is so traumatized from being accused of a dragon-beater in the first game, he’s pretty much lost all his mighty dragon heart. But thanks to several dopey blackout sessions where you’re magically transported to another realm, you begin to unlock and master your various dragon breaths – tic-tac anyone? The game is more than just going around blowing at your enemy – Spyro can also head butt enemies into the air and then catapult them off a cliff. As thrilling as this may sound, it’s about as exciting as watching paint dry. You’re constantly overwhelmed by wave after wave of enemies, so you’ll spend most of your time madly bashing away at buttons to try and stay alive, which itself is a mammoth task as it only takes about 4 hits to get Spyro into a coma. The fundamental mechanics of the game pretty much stays the same as you go along – unlock a new dragon breath, take out a wave of enemies, rinse and repeat. You are occasionally given ‘puzzles’ to solve, but these either make you flip a switch, drag an abject across, or activate elemental orbs – no rocket science here. As you pummel you way through enemies and levels, you can pickup gems to regain your health and breath energy, and also fill up your Fury meter. Spyro’s Fury attack is quite good, dealing some solid circular damage to enemies, complete with a cheesy slow-down effect in play.

During your tutorial, you learn to harness your unique power known as Dragon Time. This essentially lets you slow down time so that you can dodge enemy attacks and solve some related puzzles, such as running through a door before it slams shut. However, instead of using Dragon Time to solve puzzles and defeat enemies, you’re more likely to use it to time your jumps across the various platforms. The camera angle here is simply appalling, so what looks like a short jump is actually a jump + glide away. Get used to listening to Spyro scream over and over as you slip off a platform and plummet to your doom. I must have respawned at least 11 times  during the tutorial itself, thanks to the dodgy camera. It also doesn’t help that the game lack any serious translation of the words ‘difficulty level’. In some areas the puzzles or enemies are just too tough to defeat, while in some areas you can plaster them on the walls. Spyro’s jumps are often mis-timed – take for example an enemy that is riding a snail. You have to jump up to strike the idiot on the top, but no sooner are you airborne, the snail will thwack you down to the ground. And that’s not all – Spyro seems to like lying on the ground, as he often takes ages to get up again, so your enemies can land plenty of cheap shots before you’re able to attack.

Coupled with the annoying camera is the equally bad graphics. The game looks like it was painted over with poster paint – everything is way too bright to look at, or excessively lit. This may appeal to younger players, but it seriously does hurt your eyes after a couple of hours of gameplay – too bad the game doesn’t come bundled with cute purple Spyro Shades. There are some good effects with Spyro’s breath and Fury attacks, but they too get lost in the level’s colours. The background audio is passable, but the voiceovers are truly disappointing. Though well-known stars like Elijah Wood provide the voice for the main characters, the models don’t animate in time to the narration, so there is plenty of mis-timed dialogue in play here. The actors themselves don’t sound too enthusiastic – you can just picture them in some cramped studio all huddled around one microphone sharing two copies of the script. Spyro’s best friend Sparx (voiced by Billy West) is some sort of dragonfly hybrid, and is so annoying at times that you just want to reach for a can of Pif Paf and put him out of his misery.

Ultimately, The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night is a complete let down, and clearly shows that no other developer can truly fill Insomniac’s shoes. Crippling camera and controls along with unfair enemy AI bog this game down, leaving us to wonder what the third instalment is going to be like (The Legend of Spyro: He’s Actually a Cat). Unless you’re an OCD Spyro fan with a shrine to the little fella, give this game a clear miss for your own sanity.