I must confess that when seeing that the second instalment of the Spyro reboot trilogy on DS had 3D graphics, I hoped that it might be closer to the original games. I should have known better.

Amaze handled this handheld version as they had done with A New Beginning, but with a fully 3D world this time there’s a more adventurous feel, and more interesting level design with more platforming. It’s a pity Spyro is still sluggish to control, and the game still boils down to endless tedious combat. About half the enemy models are reused from the first game. The mirror puzzles even return, albeit with a new isometric graphic style that makes them harder to fathom. No more flight-based bosses; what boss battles there are (mainly against the dragon mentor characters from the first game, for some reason) use the same battle setup as the rest of the game. The best thing I can say about the combat is that most of it is easily skippable.

I derived some enjoyment from learning unintended movement techniques: if you rapidly cycle between jump and attack, Spyro repeatedly does dive attacks close to the ground, which lets you move a bit quicker and elicits a series of amusing grunts. At first I tried to complete every combat with an aerial finisher (a mechanic carried over from the console game, but on this platform necessitating tiresome touch screen swipes) to collect blue experience gems, but soon had more than I would ever need. From then on I made heavy use of breath attacks, which don’t correspond to enemy weaknesses this time around but do have significantly different effects. I never bothered to use “fury mode”, as you must complete a five-step Simon sequence to even activate it, no thanks.

In terms of the plot, The Eternal Night has “pointless middle chapter” syndrome. Cynder is now a friend, but is absent for most of the game. A new antagonist, the ape warlord Gaul, exists only to fill time until the big bad dragon shows up in the next game. The Chronicler is a new wise old dragon type who narrates your progress, mainly through voiceover over stills, a step down from ANB’s combination of animated excerpts and in-game conversations. Other than him, NPCs are almost completely nixed, making the game feel more empty.

I have to return to the advantage of having a 3D world in this one though, because it’s its greatest strength… which is not saying much. The levels are almost fun to traverse while making use of Spyro’s abilities, and obstacles are contextual to their environment instead of literal magic progress gates. And although I miss the sometimes lushly drawn backgrounds of the first game, I’m a sucker for the low-poly aesthetic that impressed me while still young, that is recaptured on these later low-powered handheld devices. I do tend to better notice the woeful draw distance now though! Regardless, for these reasons I enjoyed TEN a bit more than ANB, but still can’t endorse it. Stick to the classics.