Wii Fanboy Review: The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night
I'm going to be honest with you: this is the first Spyro game I've actually completed. I remember playing a friend's copy of the original Spyro back on the original Playstation in bits and pieces, here and there, but never sitting down to actually play through the entire title. Platformers were never my favorite genre, so at a time where my age limited my game selection (developers didn't want to send me copies for review when I was a teenager, sadly), I often overlooked titles that were considered good or great by the mainstream.
And, based on what I've read and heard of past Spyro games, I can confidently say that The Legend of Spyro: Eternal Night fails to fill the shoes left by its predecessors.
From a control standpoint, the game really doesn't present effective use of the Wii's control scheme. The little motion-based controls in the game are often handled better using the buttons on the Wiimote and nunchuk themselves, such as in combat and stringing attacks together. You can double jump, glide, and use different elemental abilities. Everything here is pretty much run-of-the-mill and, because of that, becomes fairly mundane and tired early on in the game. Combined with the overall ease of the title, this makes for one jaunt that is without any kind of challenge.
Developed by Krome Studios, The Legend of Spyro: Eternal Night has a real problem letting go of the player's hand. Throughout the entire title, the game seems to have this kind of attitude for the player that an over-protective mother might have for her child. It coddles you, making sure you have plenty of health and magic by situating small crystal structures that may be destroyed for several meter's worth of filling in just about every room or area you traverse in the game. And, there are also crystals that allow you to beef up Spyro's elemental attacks and powers, generously spread out as the others. Combine this with the abundance of crystals defeated enemies drop and you'll find an experience that is easily best by most.
Then, there are the times when this coddling mother seems to be out on a smoke break, as you're forced to navigate these odd platforming segments where your failure to get from point A to point B results in death after death after death. It's this stark contrast between the usual segments of gameplay that see you entering a room or area, clearing it of enemies and moving on to rinse and repeat that make it incredibly frustrating to play at points.
But, that's not to say that The Eternal Night doesn't have some value within. The combo of Frodo and Fry Elijah Wood and Billy West are a welcome addition to the otherwise boring voice work of "sounds like Ian McKellen" guy and "generic teenage girl". Oh, Gary Oldman also lends his voice talent, but sadly you'll spend more time playing the game than listening to its expensive cast of voices.
Overall, it's not enough to save the title from falling to the bottom of the sea. A sea called Mediocrity, as The Eternal Night fails to validate itself beyond the slew of other cookie-cutter action platformers out there. While they may not all be on the Wii, the lack of compelling titles surely doesn't make this one any better. Unless you're a Spyro junkie, we feel you'd be better off avoiding this game.
Final Score: 5.5/10
