The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night

The Good
The Eternal Night is a bit of a change for the Spyro series, as it's more of a brawler than the traditional collectathon. The Metroidvania aspect comes from the new abilities you collect, with out-of-the-way locations in each level that require a bit of backtracking and exploration, some with extra abilities, or increased health. This works well.

Also of note are the bosses, which are generally well-balanced to be difficult to beat without being frustrating.

The story is a bit darker than the usual Spyro fare, but it is well-done.

The environments range from "next-gen brown", (see below) to lush jungles and pirate ships, and usually look quite pleasing.

The Bad
On to the bad. You know those little birds, or bats, or whatever that can be killed in one hit, but have a tendency to be very, very annoying? Well, every single level in this game features these monsters. Whether balls of light, or bats, or whatever, these monsters will hover just outside of attack range, and swoop in to knock you into lava, or break your hit combo, or just be really annoying.

While you have unlimited lives, the enemies never seem to drop enough health. This means that running past everybody to get to the exit is the best strategy in many levels, which isn't all that fun.

The worst level of the game is undoubtedly the fire temple. You visit it early in the game, before you have most of your abilities, and a very short health bar. The enemies are mostly brown, and the background is a slightly different shade of brown. The annoying flying enemies are abundant, of course, and the pools of lava everywhere don't hurt the enemies. I almost gave up on the game here, but it does improve significantly once you leave.

The Bottom Line
In general, the good outweighs the bad. There's nothing quite like revisiting an early level with a new ability, and finding a bigger health bar or an extra attack.