The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night is the second video game in the Legend of Spyro trilogy. It was released for the PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS and Wii. It is the sequel to The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning.
Gameplay
Many elements of the game are the same as The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning. Spyro must travel to the end of a level in a linear fashion and defeat the boss at the end of each level, defeating enemies with his combat moves.
Spyro will learn different breaths from the Chronicler, who is met in dreams which occur to Spyro during the course of the game. The breaths are a tool for defeating enemies. They come in different elements; Fire, Ice, Electricity and Earth. Spyro can also use furies, which are big blasts of elemental magic. Spyro is required to obtain a certain amount of purple gems to be able to use these skills. He is able to learn the skill of "Dragon Time" from the Chronicler. This power allows Spyro to slow down time. He can use this ability to jump on platforms which are too fast to land on with his normal speed. He can also use this ability to defeat enemies easier.
On the levels, there are hidden items called "Dragon Relics". There are five Health Relics, and five Magic Relics. Each Relic gives you the ability to increase your health/magic bar. Also, there are forty items called "Scriber's Quills". Each "quill" collected gives the player 5 pieces of concept art, and if you get them all, they give you 200 pieces of concept art.
Setting
The Eternal Night continues the storyline established by A New Beginning, which ended with the defeat of Cynder, a black dragon in servitude for an enemy named Malefor, the Dark Master. In The Eternal Night, a new antagonist, Gaul, the Ape King, has risen to power and is intent on resurrecting Malefor on the Night of Eternal Darkness. The actual story takes place weeks after the events of A New Beginning (this is supported in the game with both Sparx and Spyro stating time has passed since he lost his powers and Cynder came to stay).
Story
The story begins with Spyro following Cynder through the swamps and jungle surrounding the Dragon Temple after hearing from Sparx that she was sneaking out into the temple's garden. Spyro caught up with her, and Cynder reveals that she's leaving the temple, feeling guilty for all the things she had done under the Dark Master's control, and that her destiny is somewhere out in the world for her find. Despite Spyro's pleas, Cynder departs. When Spyro was about to chase after her, he suddenly collapsed and is pulled into a dreamscape. A voice emitted in his dream and Spyro regained his fire element before being shown a vision of a great tree, and the voice speaking to him was called the Chronicler.
Shortly after Spyro woke up, an Ape army attacked the Temple, and Spyro repelled the dark forces. Afterwards, Ignitus, the Fire Guardian, tried to locate Cynder after discovering she was missing, but found a vision of Spyro at the base of a great tree. Spyro claimed that he kept seeing haunting visions of a mountain draped in shadow and darkness beneath the two moons. Terrador, the Earth Guardian, realized that the mountain Spyro was describing was the Mountain of Malefor. Spyro also revealed that a voice, called the Chronicler, came to his dream and showed him that tree. The Guardians were shocked, and Ignitus explained to Spyro that the Chronicler is an ancient dragon of immeasurable wisdom and was often interwoven with tales of doom. The Guardians became increasingly worried about the Celestial Moons coming into an eclipse as the Night of Eternal Darkness was drawing near. Ignitus sent Volteer (the Electric Guardian) and Cyril (the Ice Guardian) to the mainlands to learn what news they can, and sent Terrador to the Shattered Vale to warn everyone living there about the darkness spreading in the mountain, while Ignitus stays behind and went to search for Cynder.
Spyro had been assigned to go to the Ancient Grove to seek out the tree that he saw in his dream. While searching, he was once again summoned into a dream by the Chronicler to regain his ice abilities and showed Spyro a vision of a terrible Ape king, leading a huge army of Apes to the Mountain of Malefor, shouting, "...The Well of Souls!", another name of the mountain. After Spyro woke up, he eventually found the great tree, but it later turned out to be a monster called Arborick, whom Spyro defeated it. After that, a group of Skavengers, led by a captain named Skabb, wanted Arborick for "entertainment" in a fighting arena, but that changed when the Skavengers wanted Spyro to "cooperate", so they knocked him unconscious. Spyro later awoke, finding himself in a cell within a massive flying ship called Fellmuth where the Skavengers intend to have the young dragon battle against monsters for their entertainment.
Battle after battle, Spyro had defeated many challenges that the Skavengers threw at him, including the Blundertails, the Ravage Rider, and the Executioner. After his first battle, Spyro was summoned yet again by the Chronicler to regain his earth powers and told him more about the Well of Souls and the Night of Eternal Darkness before informing Spyro to find him at the Celestial Caves at the White Isle. Afterwards, Spyro received a message from another prisoner called Hunter of Avalar, saying that he had become Spyro's ally. Shortly after defeating his latest opponent, Spyro was forced to fight Cynder in a final match, but she told him about her plan for escape which was cut short when an Ape army attacked and captured Cynder. With Skavengers on their ships in chaos, Spyro managed to defeat Skabb, and escaped.
After he escaped from the Skavengers, the Chronicler summoned Spyro in his dream again to regain the power of electricity and showed him a vision of Cynder in chains, standing before the Ape King. When he arrived at the White Isle, Spyro overcame tough challenges of his elemental skills and he eventually found the Chronicler, who told him about Gaul, an Ape King who led the raid at the Temple at the night of Spyro's birth and stole Cynder's egg. Spyro insisted the Chronicler on what will happen to Cynder and learned more about her past and where was she taken. The Chronicler told Spyro about Malefor, the Dark Master. According to him, Malefor was the first purple dragon to exist; his raw power allowed him to master practically every elemental power his Elders willingly taught him. However, his power was unlimited and he consumed everything. When he didn't stop, Malefor was exiled by the Dragon Elders, but after that, he built an army of Apes and taught them how to use the Spirit Gems, the dragons' life force. Malefor's malice was so great that it split the earth and createda pit of despair called the Well of Souls; where the Apes have established, in effort to revive Malefor at the Night of Eternal Darkness. The Chronicler wanted Spyro to hide from the Apes until a later time, but Spyro insisted on going to Cynder's aid.
Spyro eventually made it to the mountain, fighting Gaul's minions along the way. When he finally reached the mountain peak, he found himself in Gaul's throneroom where the Ape King himself was waiting. Using his magical staff, Gaul rendered Spyro weak and drained him of his elemental powers. He then ordered Cynder to attack Spyro, but she attacked Gaul instead, in which the Ape King knocked her out and challenged Spyro himself. During the fight, the lunar alignment occurred, and the evil energy it generated was channeled through Spyro, transforming him into Dark Spyro. Spyro then used his immense power to kill Gaul, and leapt back into the beam of evil energy. Cynder awoke and knocked Spyro out of the beam, freeing him from the moon alignment's influence. When the alignment passed, the mountain began crumbling around Spyro, Sparx and Cynder, trapping them. Spyro then used his time fury powers to encase them in a time crystal to protect them as debris collapses around them.
Spyro, Cynder, and Sparx are later revealed to be frozen in time inside the crystal, safely unharmed within the remains of the Well of Souls. The Chronicler's voice speaks to Spyro telepathically that when [he] wakes up, the world will be different, but adds that he is not alone, he has allies. A figure is seen standing near the time crystal, revealing to be Hunter of Avalar, watching over it. The story continues in The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon...
Levels
Voice Cast
- Elijah Wood as Spyro
- Billy West as Sparx
- Gary Oldman as Ignitus
- Kevin Michael Richardson as Gaul/Terrador/Sniff
- Martin Jarvis as the Chronicler
- Mae Whitman as Cynder
- Corey Burton as Volteer/Additional voices
- Jeff Bennett as Cyril/ Mole-Yair/Scratch/Additional voices
Development
The Producer of the Spyro franchise at the time, Don Meadows, stated that The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning was never intended to be a one off; it was always about taking the Spyro franchise and reworking it, with the story and development of characters to be a key part of the experience and not an afterthought. The developers of Krome Stuidos wanted this to be a collection similar to a series of epic movies gamers get to play; and not just say that to the press, but deliver that to the end-consumer. They really wanted to bring those elements of the great story-telling epics across from movies and into the game platform while still delivering a great game that would appeal to kids and adults alike.
Sierra Entertainment had a really good back-catalogue of being able to do that, and with the Ty the Tasmanian Tiger series, Krome has the proven experience of being able to bring those kinds of stories targeted at families to console. Within the context of the series, A New Beginning was about establishing the characters as much as it was about changing the perspective of what type of game-play can be approached in a product that from the outset that is intended as an 'everyone' title.
The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night very much continues that story, and the developers really focused on delivering the next chapter, and bringing forward the deeper themes that are part and parcel of the next chapter of being an epic story. This is the primary reason why this game is darker, in every aspect from the art style to the darker musical score - the mood of this story is a departure from the 'bubblegum' platform games, and one we were both very excited, but also were quite nervous about doing - the hope is that what we have done with the story-arcs, and that the story is driving the game and not something that happens for 5 minutes between levels will be something that the younger audience appreciates. The level of work probably only expected of movie scripts was put into making the story really go somewhere and touch the audience.
From a production schedule, they were already into full development of The Eternal Night before the A New Beginning's shelf launch date. This overlap had given Krome an opportunity to be able to incorporate characters and themes that would feature significantly in The Eternal Night their introduction in A New Beginning.[1]
Reception
Upon its release, The Eternal Night has received mixed reviews, garnering less praise than The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning. Like A New Beginning, it was criticized for its gameplay and its high difficulty. Game Chronicles said that while the game may be too difficult for kids and a bit too simple for adults, many will be able to find a lot to like about the game.[2] The voice acting was also mixed among critics, particularly Billy West's role as Sparx the Dragonfly, stating that the character's lines are placed incorrectly.[3][4] British Nintendo magazine NGamer gave it 70%, calling it a "decent platformer, if you can get into the relentless fighting groove".
Joystiq gave the GBA version a 9.5, praising the game's graphics, combo system, and its storyline; they called it "the last great GBA game." IGN was the harshest and among the most negative reviewer to criticize this game and they gave the Nintendo Wii version a 3.6 while the Sony PS2 version a 3.5. They criticized it for its "Lame controls, lame storyline, lame platforming, lame combat and crappy experience. The biggest problem is just how pointlessly difficult this game is."
Trivia
- In the GBA version of The Eternal Night, Amaze Entertainment mistakenly identified Cynder as Spyro's "sibling."
- Also in the GBA version of The Eternal Night, Cynder doesn't appear in the Fellmuth Arena. Instead, Ignitus appears.
- In the same version, the moons are named Adrano and Zella.
- The Eternal Night was the last game to be released for the Game Boy Advance in Europe, being released in November 2007.
- The GBA version contains a secret room in the Training area. Here, there are several statues depicting what is believed to be legendary dragons.[5]
References
- ↑ The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night AU Interview
- ↑ Game Chronicles Review
- ↑ The Legend of Spyro PS2 IGN review
- ↑ The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night for PlayStation 2 Review - PlayStation 2 The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night Review
- ↑ The Secret Room in the GBA version of The Eternal Night
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