Game Name: The Legend of Spyro - The Eternal Night
Platform: PlayStation 2, Wii, Nintendo DS, GameBoy Advance, mobile.
Developer: Krome Studios (console)
Year: 2007
Genre: 3D action game
Rated: Everyone
Mode: Single-player
Multi-Player Support: None
Media: DVD-ROM

Dragon Contents:

This rating only indicates the dragon contents and importance they play in the movie/game/episodes reviewed.

R a t i n g :

This rating indicates how good or how bad was the movie/game/episodes reviewed. A rating of 5 stars on 10 is considered as the average which mean it is not good but not bad either.

The Legend of Spyro - The Eternal Night is the second game in the trilogy. It is still a lot more action-oriented than the previous series but the focus has returned to platforming and exploring around in order to collect special items. It is not mandatory but there are rewards in terms of health boost (red dragon / Health relics) breath weapon/magic boost (green dragon / Magical relics) and enchanted Scriber's quills (bonus concept arts and artwork available in the menu). In the game, there are a total of 5 Health relics, 5 Magical relics and 40 quills that unlock 200 images. A very small number of them are truly hidden, while for most of them, it is just a question of being aware of your surrounding and moving the camera around. You can see how many of these special items you have collected in the menu but the game does not provide any hint about where the remaining items are located or if you you have missed some of them along the way. Note that you can't backtrack to previous levels or previous sections of that level but the missed items are available to collect on a second playthrough.

Spyro continues to have a varied number of attack moves, but now some enemies are more vulnerable to a specific kind of attack while taking less damage from normal attacks. For example, spiders can be squashed for massive damage with a tail strike, scorpions need first to use knock-up and then be squashed and so on. It's not terribly difficult to figure out or remember, especially since the game guides you in this process, but you can't simply hit "O" repeatedly to brute force your way through as in the previous game.

Spyro also begins as blank state; it is usually the way most games go as rarely does the hero ever come back clad in the finest dragon mail armor, with Excalibur in one hand and a mithril shield in the other. Here however, The Legend of Spyro was designed to be trilogy so when Spyro felt drained at the end of A New Beginning, it was to explain why in The Eternal Night. He will have to re-learn his breath weapons and upgrade them once again. The breath weapons are different this time, with alternate fire having a more defensive purpose such as Ice Tail and Earth Pound that will throw enemies away from Spyro. These attacks can be very useful when Spyro is surrounded or on the brink of being overwhelmed. The Polar Bomb (ice breath) can also creates ice rafts over water and other liquid surfaces for Spyro to use as a platform. He also gains very early in the game the Dragon Time ability that will allow him to slow time significantly. Note that he too will be slowed but not as much as the rest of the world around him. This ability is on a self-regenerating meter but be warned that it costs Spirit point to use (something I only figured out half-way through the game). Spirit points (blue gems) allow you to upgrade your different breath weapons, so if you abuse of this ability, you won't have as much points available to upgrade your magic/breath weapons. In this game, they are also more scarcer so it's not like in the first game where you will have much more than necessary and you won't be able to fully upgrade all of Spyro's elements.

Fury has been improved, it is now useful against larger and more difficult enemies as the damages done by this attack has been significantly increased. It also has a cinematic dragonball-esque animation when used, but as soon as you hit the button, Spyro becomes invincible so it doesn't really matter if the enemies keep moving toward him or even hit him. The appearance of the level up / upgrade screen is slightly different than in the previous game but the core concept remains the same with the first tier costing much less spirit points than the second that in turn, costs less than the final third.

The game itself is still very linear with eight levels and four dream mini-level where Spyro re-learns an elemental attack. Defeating enemies provide health, magic, spirit and fury gems to various degrees. Spyro still seems to be able to both fly and not being able to depending on the situation. For example, he can fly a long distance toward to the White Isle at the end of Pirate Fleet level, but can also die if he falls off the edge of one of those flying pirate ship.

Overall, the game is more interesting than The New Beginning because you have things to look for and the gameplay is a bit more focus on exploring. The game however, still have huge waves of enemies trying to kill you. This mostly happens in the last level, but it is a bit more understandable here because the boss of that place has every reason to throw everything he has available at you (after all, you are in his lair).

Spoilers and discussion:
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At different moments in the game, you encounter people you helped before, people whose lives you saved. And in some situations, those people could clearly have repaid their debt and yet they don't. And here I'm not talking about some sort of heroic sacrifice or doing anything that would be unbelievable bold. After all, you had to intervene and save them for a reason. Mole-Yair for example, is on the pirate ship as some sort of servant/slave. Manweersmalls are too frail to make for worthwhile entertainment in the arena, so they are being used to serve grog to the pirates. However, they seem to be in this game merely as a reference to the previous one since the pirates don't really need them. At any rate, he clearly has the opportunity to free Spyro, to do a small gesture of enormous consequences. Had Spyro been imprisoned when the ship was attacked by Gaul's forces, they could have sent it crashing down and this would likely have killed Spyro. However, if he is free, he could basically use the opportunity of the attack to do what he did in the game (the attack occurs when you are in the arena so at this point Spyro is not technically imprisoned). Instead, Mole-Yair doesn't do anything and Spyro ends up saving/freeing him and his friends once again.

Same thing occurs when Cynder is trying to knock the scepter off Gaul's hands. This scepter weaken Spyro and probably all dragons (it actually completely drains your magic/breath weapon and Fury gauges). You see, Cynder was an anti-hero and designed to be the opposite of Spyro. She was able to turn the tide of battle against the guardians all by herself and while she is now smaller and just a shadow of her former self, she is well aware of what she did and she is definitively battle-tested. She clearly indicated in Fellmuth Arena that she would not fight Spyro and she was just circling him aggressively for the show and to buy some time so they could figure out what to do. Spyro knows that. So at the end, when she says "Just like old times, huh Spyro?", she is telling him the exact same words as in the arena so that she can position herself to knock the staff out of Gaul's hands. However, Gaul and other onlookers would interpret this as reference when corrupted Cynder was battling Spyro. But her attack fails miserably and after being tossed aside, Gaul then draws his swords and attacks Spyro. Why didn't the writers allow her to knock that scepter out his hands? He switches to his blades anyway so the scepter doesn't play any role anymore at this point. By allowing her attack to succeed and Gaul, being a fighter, someone who is strong and probably uses his strength to intimidate and make others submit to his wills, it would be natural for him to not retrieve it, preferring to draw his blades instead. His overconfidence and that he cannot accept such an act of defiance from this whelp of a purple dragon, he would feel compelled to do what worked so well so many times before: move into close combat using brute strength to win. The scepter would thus be lying around somewhere unprotected and vulnerable to the chaos of battle. And when on the brink of defeat, Gaul would inadvertently cause its destruction in one of his attacks.

However, if he has the scepter on him the whole time (Cynder's attack having failed) then the scepter still get destroyed but it's unclear how this happens (of course, we see the scepter falling and breaking on the ground but why did it slips from Gaul's back?). So again, it's a missed opportunity to show that small actions can be very consequential and to prove that Spyro was right to save these people. Not just because he is a "good guy" and that it was the right thing to do, but also because if he had somehow wavered and didn't, he would have sealed his own fate. By being so determined to choose his own path despite everything else, he also changed the fate of the other characters in Books of Time. But as it is now, the canonical story is that Spyro saved them, but it is inconsequential because they are useless; the Manweersmalls exist to be helped and Cynder, despite once being one of the most feared dragon in all the world, whose sight would chill people to the bone and plague their dreams with images of death and oblivion, suddenly becomes weak and helpless and is saddled with the role of the "damsel in distress".


Storyline:
The game begins in Convexity with the same cinematic at the end of The New Beginning, when Spyro saves Cynder from being sucked into the purple vortex and presumably to certain death. Spyro is remembering these events into his dream and is awaken by Sparx who tells him that he is quite happy since Cynder the "evil-psycho-she-dragon" is now gone, that he saw her sneaking out into the garden. As it is dangerous to be outside at night, Spyro decides to go find her. Cynder reveals to him that she is leaving because she doesn't belong here after all she has done. Despite that nobody blames her for that (aside Sparx), she is constantly reminded of that and she realized that her destiny lies out there for her to find and she leaves.

Spyro then falls unconscious and is transported (mentally) into the Dream World, summoned by the an entity named the "Chronicler" who warns him that time is running out and that Celestial moons are almost at an eclipse bringing forth the Night of Eternal Darkness. The Chronicler asks Spyro to seek him out and provide him with a vision of a special tree standing in the middle of a forest. When Spyro regains consciousness, the Temple is being attacked by the mandrill monkeys forces.

He eventually makes his way back to the other guardians and Ignitus reveals that he only heard stories about the Chronicler and that he even began to doubt the tales. According to him, the Chronicler is an ancient dragon of immeasurable wisdom who is shrouded in mysteries. However, the tales of the Chronicler are often interwoven with tales of doom. Since this name is so old and so few would have heard of it, there is no doubt about the truth of Spyro's story.

The attack on the temple also shows that the Ape King's forces know of Spyro existence and that they won't stop until they have witness his demise. Cyril and Voolteer are tasked to go to the mainland to learn any news they can while Terrador must warn the inhabitants of the Shattered Vales that darkness is spreading in Malefor (as a note here, Ignitus spoke of "Malefor" as if it was a place and not as the name of a person). Since these are dangerous times for a dragon to be wandering about, Ignitus decides to search for Cynder while Spyro seeks out the tree from his dreams.

As such, Ignitus sends Spyro to an Ancient Grove within the forest at the end of the Silver River. This Grove is a secret place untouched by civilization where the waters are poisonous, as well as the creatures who are nurtured by it. Meanwhile Ignitus will wait at the Temple for his return once his task is completed.

And thus, Spyro's journey begins...

Spoilers:
(select the text with your mouse to read it)
Spyro will eventually find the tree in Ancient Grove that will turn into an hostile wood golem called Arborick. After defeating the monster, Sparx will ask a bit confused and outraged if they really went all this way only to kill it. But fortunately, this tree wasn't the Chronicler. So the vision of this tree doesn't live up to expectations; it's not only utterly unrelated to Spyro's quest but also misleading because the Chronicler clearly said to seek him out while putting the vision of this tree in Spyro's mind. If this was to test Spyro's strength and prove that he is indeed the right purple dragon, then why all the tests at Celestial Caves. Moreover, why would Ignitus show Spyro the way to go there? Sure, he saw Spyro's vision in his scrying pool and he would know something about a big monstrous tree in Ancient Grove, but not a tree that would be relevant or related to the Chronicler nor even worth mentioning in old tales and legends (in a positive manner). If the tree had been an important marker or contained some sort of key on how to reach the Chronicler, then it would have been a different story but alas it is not.

In summary, Ancient Grove, Fellmuth Arena (pirate gladiator area) and Pirate Fleet are filler levels since Spyro doesn't need to go there and he doesn't learn anything important from those places. In fact, he learns of the Chronicler's hiding place in the Earth Dream where he asks Spyro to look for him in the Celestial Caves of the White Isle. Fortunately, in captain Skabb's cabin at the end of Fellmuth Arena level, there is a map showing where this place is located and at that point, Spyro could have begun travelling there right away (he just flies there) and this makes the whole Pirate Ships level entirely inconsequential. It is also very likely that Ignitus would have known where the Celestial Caves are located so it's unclear what the Chronicler was trying to accomplish here. And fixing this could have been easy: Spyro must hijack one of the flying pirate ship because the White Isle is simply too far away for him to fly there since he would be travelling over the sea and there would be no place for him rest along the way. Spyro would also needs to defeat Skabb otherwise the pirates would relentlessly pursue him and try to take his ship down.

As a note, Spyro could have been killed almost every time he was called into the Dream World, since he falls unconscious right on the spot, even when flying over the sea which he miraculously survives only due to pure luck. The Chronicler is said to have immeasurable wisdom but being unaware or willfully blind to the risks of communicating with Spyro that way, seems to be very unwise.

And it is only at the end of the Crystal Cave before the very last level, that we actually learn about the backstory of the Dark Master, the Chronicler, Spyro, Gaul (aka the Ape King) and Cynder and where all those things are neatly tied together and expand on the story of A New Beginning. The Chronicler is an ancient dragon recording the history of dragonkind since almost the beginning of time. Each dragon has a book containing what they did and showing glimpses of their future. He reveals that it was Gaul who led the raid against the temple to destroy Spyro's egg and kidnap Cynder. He also tells Spyro that when Cynder was taken by Gaul, she was poisoned and corrupted and he made her to do the Dark Master's bidding. Her entire life has been spent in shadow and that she knows no other way. The Chronicler also says that when the Dark Master returns... she will concede. Spyro refuses to believe this. But the most interesting tale is that the Dark Master is actually the first purple dragon ever born and whose raw power was far greater than anyone had ever seen or could imagine. This is similar to Spyro's own story but unlike him, the Dark Master was corrupted by this power. He was then cast into exile and from his new fortress within the mountain, he built an army of apes and taught them to artificially harness the power of the gems; the life force of dragons. The Chronicler admits that he asked Spyro to come to the Crystal Caves so that he could ride out the storm, be somewhere safe and live and fight another day as the Dark Master's escape is unavoidable. Spyro points out that he cannot just stay down while Cynder is forced to join the Dark Master and when everyone else is in danger. Spyro says that for all the talk about choosing a path, Cynder didn't had a choice, and that he has to try to save her. Surprisingly, the Chronicler agrees with Spyro and decides to show him the way so that he can stop Gaul and save Cynder from her dark fate...


Graphics:
I don't really see a significant improvement of the graphics. It is not surprising since A New Beginning and The Eternal Night games where both created very close to each other, even overlapping. As such, the game more or less use the same assets than in the first part of the trilogy with a few new models here and there.

The game supports a widescreen resolution and since it has the same slight cartoonish appearance of the previous installment of this trilogy, the features (such as anti-aliasing) found in an emulator will truly make a large difference in the look of the game and will make the pixilation pretty much disappear. You see for yourself by comparing the game when played on the PCSX2 emulator versus the original PS2.

The cutscenes are still blurred like in A New Beginning. I feel that they could have used the engine assets for many of these video but while it would have looked better on an emulator, it's difficult to say if they would have appeared as such back in 2007.

They also restricted the ability to really sack a level, so there are less things to break and the objects that can be are of low value/consequences. For example, aside from depopulating the Pirate Fleet of its crew, the damages done to these ships is rather insignificant. It would have been nice to down most of the fleet when flying from one ship to another but this doesn't happen.


Sound, Voices & Music:
The style remain quite similar to the music in the first game and the music will be appropriate and in the background setting the atmosphere of the game and the situation Spyro found himself into but without being too aggressive about it.

As for the voices and dialogs, there is less varied than in the first game, since Spyro is mostly alone or dealing with enemies rather than allies. However, the Chronicler's voice in the dream world sounds like he is right next to Spyro talking to him. This sounds a bit odd and sligthly confusing considering the out-of-this-world atmosphere of these levels. Perhaps it would have been better to put a slight echo into his voice to make it sounds like he is talking to Spyro while not actually being there either since it's more or less a dream. Some will also note that Cynder's voice sounds like (and I will steal an analogy from a discussion on the forum) "she's chatting with someone in the back of a classroom". It may be to give the impression that after all she did in her corrupted form that she is not confident enough of her own opinions and thoughts to voice them too loudly and that she prefers to almost whisper when speaking.

Lastly, as in the previous game, Sparx's dialog did not improve; it even got worse. There is still no real reason for him to be around. Though in his defense, he is useful once in distracting the pirates long enough for Spyro to return from his dream state (but this will ultimately have little importance). But at the beginning of the game, he is clearly out of line. There is really no other way to say it: he behaves like a jerk. I said that in A New Beginning, fraternal rivalry could explain some of it, but here on more than one occasion, it simply doesn't. It's just at the level of being rude and small-minded for the sake of creating a contrast with Spyro who is optimistic, has tenacity and who will never give up even when all hope seems lost. Later in the game, Sparx's attitude changes as he seems to be resigned to the fact that danger is present all around and things will only get worse so why not meet the challenge head on rather than be dragged screaming and kicking toward it. And this where his lines get more interesting, more amusing than just being the guy who makes cutting remarks inappropriate to the situations. For example, right after being attacked Terrador will say that the Ape King will not rest until he sees Spyro demise to which Sparx replies "Demise... hehehe... Hate to be you." or when Spyro tells Cynder that nobody blames her for what happened when she was under the Dark Master's control, only to have Sparx bluntly interrupts to say that he does, confirming that he is oblivious to the concept that not all thoughts deserve to be said out loud.