The combat in Dawn of the Dragon has you employing a combination of weak and strong melee attacks, an assortment of elemental powers, and the ability to grab smaller enemies in your adorable little jaws and thrash them around. Unfortunately, the gameplay falls well short of matching that level of excitement. While not very original, the visual design, coupled with a gorgeous musical score, is effective at creating the sense that the fate of the world hangs in the balance of Spyro's struggle. And as Spyro, Elijah Wood has some distinctly Frodo-esque lines of dialogue. This influence is frequent and undeniable, from the initial confrontation with a massive fire-breathing demon of the deep, to a desperate battle against the siege towers of tremendous armies from the ramparts of a pristine city, to the foray into a scorched land dominated by a volcano above which the Dark Master resides. Specifically, it takes more than a little visual inspiration from the Lord of the Rings films. Dawn of the Dragon certainly looks like the climactic chapter of an epic fantasy trilogy, too, and not just any epic fantasy trilogy.

It all makes for a typical wrap-up to a fantasy trilogy.

Picking up where The Eternal Night left off, Dawn of the Dragon concludes the Legend of Spyro series with an extremely run-of-the-mill tale of our purple hero, accompanied by nemesis-turned-ally Cynder, taking on the Dark Master Malefor. You'll battle a massive fire-breathing balrog. It's an unfocused, uninteresting game that, despite its flying heroes, never manages to get off the ground. The first two entries in his current trilogy, The Legend of Spyro, have been marked by mediocrity, and sadly, the conclusion follows suit. But oh, how the fire-breathing have fallen.

When he first debuted on the scene just over 10 years ago, Spyro the lovable purple dragon starred in a series of truly excellent platformers on the original PlayStation.

The legend of spyro: dawn of the dragon