Oct 17, 2007

Spyro’s back for another multiplatform romp, and once again, he includes the Nintendo DS in his console travels. Unlike Spyro’s previous outings on Nintendo’s double-screened wonder - which were played from a top-down perspective - Spyro: The Eternal Night is a behind-the-character-view 3D platformer, much like its console brothers. Unfortunately, this shift in perspective leaves something to be desired.

Things look okay from the outset. Visually, Spyro: The Eternal Night is passable, and has an overall look very reminiscent of the original Spyro games for the PlayStation. The game’s story is told through voiced narration and hand-drawn cutscenes, which feature some very attractive and well-done artwork to set the mood. The sound and music are suitable enough, though hardly noteworthy. Finally, the controls are easy to grasp for anyone familiar with action games, though the lack of analog control makes maneuvering Spyro feel a bit finicky at times.

Gameplay is where things start to falter a bit. The stages in Spyro are the typical “head from entrance to exit fighting enemies until you reach the boss” affairs we’re well used to by now, with little about their design that is particularly noteworthy. Spyro’s skills are also run-of-the-mill platforming fare - dash attacks, double-jumps, glides, and a few powerful special skills with limited use. The game attempts to break up the general monotony by interspersing light-reflection puzzles that must be solved to clear path for Spyro to proceed along. These puzzles can be fun on their own (and are even playable on their own as a separate minigame), but sometimes feel annoyingly out-of-place and can become particularly irritating when Spyro’s forced to roam around and collect extra mirrors scattered throughout a level to finish a puzzle. The game’s other touch-screen element - triggered by launching an enemy into the air with repeated melee attacks - has you trying to juggle an enemy using simple stylus prompts. It’s not very fun, and feels like it’s there mainly because DS games are obliged to use that touch screen for something.