The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

This isn't Puff the Magic Dragon

Apparently this game has won an award in France as the best mobile game. Now it's definitely a good game, but it's not amazing.

The graphics are solid and even on my K600, the intro screen is vibrant and well detailed. In the game the sprites are a little smaller, yet still well rendered nonetheless. There are a number of different backgrounds and it's here that the developers seem to have paid attention to the most detail. The sound is a catchy tune on loading and also vibration in the game so standard stuff.

Controls are easy to pick up, you can use the pad or stick to move Spyro around. Pressing the main button or 5 will fire his element of choice and you switch between these with #. There are four elements to collect and each one is useful for a different type of enemy. When jumping you can float down by pressing the same number or direction again allowing you to get to difficult to reach ledges. And then there's the basic headbutt attack you can use by pressing 7 or 9. This not only headbutts, but allows you to break open walls to reveal secret areas.

So you can tell there's a fair bit in the game, but what's the playability like? Well, Spyro takes stock from the very safe formula of side scrolling action game. I say action, but it's dragon action, so firing off elemental breath while collecting gems. There are some baddies to contend with and different enemies are susceptible to different elements so make sure you use the right ones.

One good feature Spyro has is that not all the areas of the level are accessible straight away. Some need a specific element to allow you to access the area and therefore you will find yourself coming back and replaying levels to get all the power ups. Or you will if you were me. If you're not me, you can just keep playing the game and take on the bosses who each require a different technique to beat them. Don't worry, they're usually easy to figure out, but if you are stuck, your helpful friend Sparx will give you some tips.

This is a well put together game that's fun to play. The levels do also have some variety between being gem collecting levels, boss levels and flying levels. The plot progresses at a reasonable pace, although to be honest, it's not the sort of heavily inventive storyline to have you desperate to see what happens next. But none of that really matters as when you combine a cute dragon, enjoyable gameplay, plenty of levels and different elements to collect, you have a very decent game on your hands. I'm not sure that it's the best mobile game, but it's certainly not the worst.