Here’s the origin story for Dark Spyro and how to get him in Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. Alongside the Crash Bandicoot series, Spyro The Dragon started life on the PlayStation 1. The original game introduced the cute little purple dragon, who was tasked with rescuing imprisoned members of his kind from his homeland. The first game was a smash hit upon release in 1998, leading to Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage! and Spyro: Year Of The Dragon in 1999 and 2000 respectively.
This marked the end of the original Spyro The Dragon trilogy and the series would receive further sequels and spinoffs in the years that followed on the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube. The Skylanders games actually began as a spinoff of Spyro, with Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure being the first entry in the series back in 2011. The series follows a group of heroes collectively known as the Skylanders, who protect a realm called the Skylands. The games also involve a feature known as toys-to-life, where players place a real figure on a “Portal Of Power” device that brings the character into the game.
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Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure also features the return of the purple dragon’s evil alternate form, Dark Spyro. This character originated in The Legend Of Spyro: The Eternal Night for the PlayStation 2 when during a battle with Gaul, the Ape King, Spyro was caught in the beam caused by the Celestial Moons, which was being used to free series villain Malefor.
This beam caused Spyro to transform into Dark Spyro, who killed Gaul. After Spyro struggled to stop his dark side taking over completely, he was knocked out of the Lunar Alignment’s power and freed of its evil influence. Dark Spyro later returned in The Legend Of Spyro: Dawn Of The Dragon, when Spyros’ grief over losing a friend caused Dark Spyro to manifest. The Dark Spyro seen in Skylanders is the result of Spyro the Dragon being able to harness the power of the elements. Spyro can harness the energy from The Darkness to take the form of Dark Spyro when he needs to, causing him to become a much more sinister character.
While his abilities are pretty close to regular Spyro, he has some unique magical attacks of his own. Dark Spyro was originally an exclusive character included in a Nintendo 3DS Bundle Pack. Despite this, the figure was playable with any version of Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. Dark Spyro was eventually made available in a single pack too, although this was only sold in the UK. The figure is relatively simple to track down online now, though, given his rarity prices can vary.