The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night

The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night continues the darker reimagining of the series that A New Beginning kicked off, further deepening the story of Spyro and his bond with his former enemy Cynder, who, after the events of the previous installment, becomes his ally and loyal companion on his travels. Instead of fighting her, Spyro must now face an even greater threat — the sinister dragon Malefor, who seeks to shroud the entire world in an eternal, endless night without light. Cynder, meanwhile, must come to terms with her own past and the guilt for the deeds she committed under the rule of evil, which adds another layer of tension and mistrust to her relationship with Spyro.

Gameplay remains faithful to the action foundation of the previous installment: Spyro combines four elemental breaths with physical attacks and gradually unlocked combos into longer chains, while the story also offers the chance to play as Cynder in her own segments, with different abilities and a different fighting style, adding variety to what is otherwise a similar cycle of exploration and combat. The Wii version also makes use of motion controls for some attacks and elemental abilities, in an attempt to noticeably distinguish itself from the versions released in parallel for other consoles of the time.

The darker tone, the more elaborate relationship between Spyro and Cynder, and the emphasis on cinematic storytelling continue the trend of moving away from the lighter atmosphere of the original PS1 trilogy toward a more serious, more mature fantasy epic. The environments Spyro passes through hold to a gloomier color palette and darker motifs, which, combined with the musical score, heightens the sense of an approaching catastrophe that the main heroes must save the world from. Eternal Night functions as a bridging middle chapter before the concluding installment, Dawn of the Dragon, and fans especially appreciate it for deepening the relationship between the main characters, even though, as the middle part of the trilogy, it logically carries a somewhat more open and unresolved feel to the overall story.