The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night is a continuation from an earlier game, The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning, developed by Sierra. It has our hero, a lovable purple dragon voiced by Elijah Wood (that hobbit guy) and his trusty sidekick Sparx, voiced by Billy West (Futurama). Spyro gets to go and do battle with various minions of the dark master. Over the course of 19 levels, Spyro will have to solve puzzles, find objectives, survive and do the usual run of things associated with an adventure/role-playing game.
Visually, I found the game to be rather appealing — running on a PlayStation 3 on a HDTV resulted in a very short screen, but this can be quickly changed to a widescreen format to suit most of today's TVs; however, those of us with widescreen LCD and plasma TVs will find it a little odd, with a definite letterbox experience. The display was amazingly crisp for a PS2 game, with the colors being bright and vivid (with the exception of the dream world, which was suitably dark). Sound quality also was good, with the voices of the various characters easily understandable over the background music and audio prompts.
Leaping lizards — control over Spyro is achieved via the analog control sticks and various buttons on the controller. One stick moves him; the other moves the camera. The various buttons let him jump, attack, dash and spin attack; you can even gain some altitude and a limited glide by hitting jump twice. There are quite a few combination moves that can be learned over the course of the game, and you're encouraged to discover your own.
In addition to Spyro's standard attack arsenal, there are elemental attacks. As he finds special crystals scattered throughout the level, he can level up his elemental attacks, going from a mediocre fire attack to a truly awe-inspiring blast of fire that broils his enemies where they stand. In addition to fire, electricity, ice and earth also can be learned.
By finding the special fury crystals scattered about the levels, Spyro can unleash an elemental attack that is a combination of all his abilities. Other crystals that can be found and smashed to be absorbed are health, magic and the ever-desired ability level up. Another neat feature of the game is the ability to find special quills scattered throughout the levels. While the quills themselves don't give any particular bonus to the game, they instead offer access to bonus content, such as artwork, sketches and movies.
As Spyro attacks and progresses through the various bad guys, small pieces of crystals can be found as rewards for defeating enemies. It's not much, but every little bit of help counts.
That's not all. Spyro has a unique ability: Dragon Time. With a touch of this, time slows down and allows Spyro to do some amazing things — jump on to a fast-moving platform, perform dizzying rapid attacks on an enemy... The only limit is your imagination ... oh and, of course, the rapidly draining Dragon Time meter. Don't panic, however, some of the crystals scattered around the level can refill your Dragon Time meter when smashed, and occasionally enemies will drop the appropriate crystal components.
Over the course of the adventure, you'll jump, blast and glide your way though in a manner becoming of a chivalrous and nimble dragon. Some levels will have puzzles that need to be cleared through the use of logic; others, though the timely use of Dragon Time and the dash button.
Dying in this game is something you'll do often, but fear not. The game autosaves before every level, and as you progress through the level, you'll hit checkpoints that let you continue from that point on if you've made a misstep. One negative to this, however: you cannot save your game mid-level. If you shut off the console during a level, you'll have to complete the entire level from the start and not from an intermediate checkpoint. That said, it's also important to note that if you've collected something previously from a earlier checkpoint and die, you won't have to go back and grab it again. It's a definite bonus for those of us used to earlier games in which a single misstep meant re-doing everything.
I thought Spyro was a neat game; however, for all my good hand-eye coordination, I found it to be difficult and frustrating as an adult. I'm sure children with their limitless patience when it comes to video games will fair much better. Those with good depth perception also will find the game much easier to play, as I had to watch for the shadow cast by the dragon to judge my landing position. Failings here led to more deaths than any other point in the game.
Having voiced my frustrations with the game, I would like to point out that I would enjoy playing the game again in the future despite having to take 25 or so attempts to clear each level!). Parents will be particularly pleased by the lack of blood and gore in this game — there's violence, but it seems to be muted by today's standards. All in all, I think it's a particularly good game and will be much enjoyed by anyone who loves dragons or the action/adventure genre.
Got started in the gaming industry with the beta for Asheron’s call. From there I’ve pretty much done a huge amount of beta’s for the industry. I’ve beta’d games, worked in customer service for games – been a game cop (kinda like a higher level gm…), written articals for games, about games, hint’s and tips for games.
It’s probably pretty safe to say that I have either beta’d or played every MMRPG game that has come out onto the market since 1999 – And I’ve played muds, moo’s and mush’s as well. My likes about the game industry. Oh so much creativity! So little time. Dev’s doing what they say they will. Hmm, What else do I like about games. Well, I do like to explore… Some dislikes. Well, I really, really hate buggy games. Especailly buggy games that are actually really interesting. There’s nothing worse then having this super-hyped game that’s groundbreaking in many new ways – only to have it unplayable due to stupid little bugs that should have been cleared up waaaay before release.
