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The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night (Wii)

• Developer:
• Publisher: Sierra
• Genre: Action
• Official Website: http://lair.spyrothedragon.com
• Score: 2 of 5: Strictly Rental

Spyro has been around for a while, and he needs to freshen things up a bit. To do that he'll borrow gimmicks from other popular games and tack on some unnecessary motion controls. The Eternal Night is the second chapter of Spyro's "Legend of Spyro" trilogy. In order for a trilogy to really work there needs to be an engrossing narrative. Without a good story any trilogy is just a set of three games that could be played in any order with no real consequence. Unfortunately for purple dragon fans out there that's exactly what The Legend of Spyro is.

Story tends to be a weak point in platformers - particularly platformers aimed at children (like Spyro games). A bad guy steals a magic artifact or usurps the king's power or some other nasty evil thing and plans to enslave the population, cast the world into darkness, resurrect the dark lord, etc., and the dashing protagonist, tubby plumber, or purple dragon must run, jump, and use special powers to defeat him. Eternal Night's story is no different. The head bad guy is the Ape King. His nefarious plan is to use the Temple of souls to cast the world into darkness and resurrect the Dark Master. It's Spyro's job, along with his dragonfly brother Sparx, to save the day.

Spyro's move set is fairly basic, but it does one big thing very well. The player is allowed to choose whether to attack with the B trigger or slash the Wii remote. If motion controls aren't the only way to do something then they need to be an option (I'm looking at you, Twilight Princess). No platformer is complete without adding to the plucky hero's repertoire of moves, and Spyro has been paying attention to Ubisoft's own Prince of Persia; he now has the ability to slow down time to make platforming easier, slide under doors that would close too quickly under normal circumstances, and escape rapidly crumbling floors. Time slow-down is implemented well, but it feels unnecessary and isn't ever really fleshed out enough to feel like more than an afterthought.

Graphically, The Eternal Night is no powerhouse. Competing against a new Nintendo-developed platformer isn't helping the recycled PS2 appearance either. The Wii is capable of more than this, and the audience knows it. If games on the platform can look as nice as Super Mario Galaxy then there is no excuse to be seeing PS2-quality graphics on the console. Environments and enemies are bland, and assets are reused more than they really ought to be. The Legend of Spyro isn't selling itself on its graphics, and it shows. Just because the game released for the Wii and PS2 doesn't mean that graphics development should have only happened once.

One thing the development team managed to nail, however, is sound design. The voice acting, in particular, is excellent. Elijah Wood (of hairy-footed hobbit fame) lends his voice to Spyro while Gary Oldman (of Harry Potter's godfather fame) lends his voice to Ignitus, Spyro's wise old tutor. Other character voices, although not as well known, still turn in a wonderful performance. Watching the cut scenes feels like watching a well made cartoon thanks to the excellent voice work.

Eternal Night's gameplay is repetitive, its story is unimaginative, and its graphics are decidedly from the previous console generation. If you're hurting for a Wii platformer and can't find Super Mario Galaxy then The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night will get the job done, but there are better games out there, and you should be playing those instead.

Dec 11, 2007 | 0 comments
Justin Last