YMMV / The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night

• Best Boss Ever: The Advisor in the GBA version is a ninja ape you fight three times over the game, with each battle being more amazing than the last, and always manages to be challenging without being unfairly hard. It requires the player to use all the skills they've built up over the game, and in the final battle he has one of the coolest death animations of all the characters in the game.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Spyro is hit by the beam of evil energy and becomes Dark Spyro. He turns Gaul to stone, shatters him and then jumps back into the beam to absorb more energy. Cynder knocks him out of the beam and Spyro goes back to normal.
• Breather Boss: In comparison to his fight in the console version, Skabb's fight in the GBA version is rather easy in comparison to the bosses before him, albeit a bit of Guide Dangit to figure out how to damage. All his attacks are easily avoidable, and he doesn't hit particularly hard. You even have two spirit gem clusters close by should things go south! The most dangerous thing about this battle are the Ledge Bats he summons.
• Complete Monster: Gaul is the leader of the Apes who seeks to release Malefor from his prison. Prior to the story, Gaul personally led the raid on the Dragon Temple, destroying every Dragon Egg there. Taking Cynder's Egg back to his lair, Gaul uses Malefor's magic to warp the young Cynder into an instrument of war, keeping her aware of her actions, and through her had countless innocents enslaved or slaughtered. In the second game, Gaul has his followers siege the Dragon Temple again purely to kill Spyro. Later in the game, Gaul commits an attack on the Skavenger's ship, leaving it to burn with its inhabitants inside to kidnap Cynder, mocking her impending demise at Malefor's hand. Before the final battle, Gaul drains Spyro of his magic for an easier kill. Despite having a deep hatred for dragons, Gaul committed many atrocities under Malefor's command purely to obtain more power.
• Game-Breaker: Earth's primary attack allows Spyro to conjure an earth-based flail that he can swing around. Upgrading this ability increases the overall size of the flail, allowing you to just spin around in a circle, knocking over and decimating every enemy around you. In fact, pretty much any enemy that isn't a Commander can get easily tossed around like a ragdoll with this move.
• Good Bad Bugs: There's a bug where, if you use an element while time magic is up, it slows down the mana consumption while using the element, but the element's attack still does the full amount of damage to the enemy. This is a really useful bug, considering The Eternal Night can get brutally difficult at points.
• Polished Port: The Game Boy Advance version. The console version of the game was infamous for being Christmas Rushed which resulted in it being one of the single hardest Spyro games in the franchise. The GBA version, however, is a far better balanced 2D platforming Beat 'em Up with Metroidvania elements. Spyro's health, mana, and strength increase over the game instead of staying static like the console version, and there's even an option to adjust the game's difficulty for those who find normal mode still rather hard. The environments are also more varied — such as The Chronicler's dream / soul sequences being more based on the respective element he's teaching instead of being a generic purple void — and it has some of the best graphics on the system, with one swearing some of the cutscenes were in actual 3D instead of Digitized Sprites.
• That One Boss: Both battles against Skabb in the console version. His first battle takes place on a tiny, cramped platform with very little room to dodge his attacks (including a vicious gatling gun), with only a single spirit gem to replenish health. It doesn't help that he's only vulnerable for a short time, meaning you'll have to save your Dragon Time for when he's vulnerable to land a lot of hits on him instead of using it to make dodging his attacks easier. His second battle has a much larger arena, but has no spirit gems at all (meaning the only eay to restore health and mana is to defeat his flunkies), and Skabb uses much harder attacks and has less opportunities to be hit.

---