The Legend Of Spyro: The Eternal Night

Written by Tom Clare in PS2 Game Reviews, Wednesday 31 December, 2008

Released: 2007
Developer: Krome Studios
Publisher: Sierra
Genre: 3D Platformer
Platform: PS2

The Eternal Night proves to be a most prophetic name for what is undoubtedly Spyro's darkest gaming hour. Fans accept the series hasn't hit the same highs in recent years as the original trilogy managed on the PSOne, but Spyro's fall, even since 2004's decent A Hero's Tail, is simply cosmic. A New Beginning (the first Legend Of Spyro venture) was decidedly lacking in content but still showcased a few encouraging new concepts that, if built upon, could revitalise the series...

...But as it turns out, developers Krome have actually taken a large step backwards from their lukewarm starter. The Eternal Night is poorly programmed, severely repetitive and at times horribly frustrating - there's barely a glimmer of enjoyment to be gleaned from it.

Things begin nicely enough with Spyro reliving the conclusion of the previous game, as he defeats and then rescues dragonette Cynder. Before he can celebrate, things start to get ominous; as it emerges that the Ape King is trying to resurrect the spectacularly unoriginally named Dark Master - and that means trouble for our pint-sized purple protagonist. For the sake of gameplay development, he has conveniently lost his breath abilities from the last game and has to rediscover them at various points via a set of dream scenarios. In these he also gets to show off his new time-slowing ability - something of an oversubscribed feature these days if truth be told, though nevertheless useful in some fights and for tackling moving platforms. The training sections are less bloated and humdrum than the last game, though hard as it is to believe; this is just about the only area of note whereby it does improve on A New Beginning.

There afterwards, The Eternal Night is one long litany of mistakes. Spyro's health bar seems to have been noticeably reduced, as he is now only able to withstand three or four hits before dying. This problem is exacerbated by enemies striking Spyro to the ground and then repeatedly hitting him as he tries to rise, leading to some rather sudden, undeserved deaths. These make getting to checkpoints amazingly frustrating at times - it's a far cry from the perfect, chill-out platforming of his earlier instalments.

As with A New Beginning, there's no freedom afforded to players who want to move back and forth to already visited levels, which somewhat negates the potential replay value offered by the fifty feathers hidden throughout the game that, when collected, equate to some nice bonus material. The platform elements are the limpest, most uninspired the series has ever known showing so little creativity that the simple jumping feels like nothing more than a link between one tedious battle and the next, with only the (very) occasional use of the time-slowing ability breaking the monotony. The duff collision physics cause Spyro to do clumsy little half-jumps whenever he runs over a branch or awkwardly-shaped bit of scenery and this also prevents the battle-engine from being a success as bits of the environment frequently get in the way of you executing your desired attack. Despite this, the developers have ploughed on with their rather unhealthy obsession for boss fights.

In the mid-part of the game, not counting cut-scenes, you'll face four bosses back to back. Ironically, though it is patently obvious that you are shoe-horned towards a tactical way of thinking, this is usually less effective than simply charging at the bosses and button-bashing with maximum aggression. A couple of early foes see Spyro limited to left/right strafing and launching fireballs, though fortunately these are soon cast aside, as they are just horrible.

All of this means it's sadly quite difficult to appreciate the relative success of the games presentation. The major characters look lovely, and are especially well-animated in the cute and colourful cut-scenes. The swamps and flying pirate ship levels indicate some creative flair, with the games best location being the beautiful training missions, replete with floating objects and set against a backdrop of space and the odd attractive, distant nebula. The visual piece de resistance comes in the form of the Fury Attacks, of which there are four (fire, ice, thunder and earth); which are activated by a simple tap of R2; the actions spins around Spyro as he unleashes some remarkably destructive, room-cleaning pyrotechnics which look phenomenal. Sadly in marked contrast to A New Beginning, the periods between being able to make use of Fury attacks are so lengthy that you'll often forget that they are there at all.

Continuing the series move towards the cinematic, Elijah Wood and Gary Oldman reprise their roles as Spyro and dragon elder Ignitus and once again do as sterling a job as their uninteresting dialogue allows them. Of perhaps greater interest is the arrival of Billy West, who voices Fry in Futurama, as he takes over the role of Spyro's sidekick Sparx and does a really good job - the dragonfly remains by some distance the most amusing and watchable character as he mocks the rest of the cast, his own cowardice and to an extent, the game itself. The story does remain depressing cliched however, no matter how many big names get behind the project - you sense that perhaps the majority of the games budget was not being put to best use.

The Eternal Night marks the culmination of Spyro's sad decline. Its predecessor was mediocre, but it did at least hold the prospect of some new ideas that, if built upon, could have lead to the purple dragon returning to something like his former stature. As it is, the developers have not made good on any of them. All that's left is a frustrating, lacklustre title that, for all its pretty aesthetics and Hollywood name dropping, can't even get the fundamental basics of platforming right.

1 Comment

1. Dan said on January 1st, 2009 at 12:45pm

   Hey Seems like this was a complete waste, lets hope the new next gen outing will deliver!

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