darkSpyro

Can you use location pieces, such as darklight crypt, which deals 999 damage to enemies work on the hydra?

No, You can't defeat the Hydra. I've used Empire of Ice and it did nothing to him. You can damage with it (though it will require timing before he retreats), but you cannot harm the Hydra. The only thing you can do is attack Kaos' throne.

You don't actually hurt the hydra during the battle, just the evil Skylanders minions and Kaos. And for some reason when Kaos is defeated, so is the hydra even though it took no damage. It's weird. Also, you can't hurt while he is in the air, I tried with

Ok so you hurt akaos, and the hydra is just there to be annoying?

You can say that

The Hydra is awful. Stupid design, stupid fight, and yet ANOTHER cliched dragon. Actually, yeah, that made me respect Kaos a bit when I said that. The Hydra is absolutely dumb.

It's not like the Hydra is a Skylander, Nibe.

But it is another dragon. Too many dragons in Skylanders in general. It's getting boring.

What do you expect? They're one of the native species in Skylands.

Doesn't make them any less boring.

The old and new Spyro series had too many dragons in general as well. Perhaps the common appearance of dragons is a nod to that.

The Hydra's design is awful. I mean, the body that the heads were connected to looked atrocious.

Spyro The Dragon: The game was based around rescuing dragons. Plus, most of them had interesting lines.
Spyro 2: I don't remember any dragons other than Spyro, to be honest.
Year of The Dragon: The game was based around rescuing dragon hatchlings.
Season of Ice: Only Spyro.
Enter The Dragonfly: I think this one overdid it with making Dragon Dojo and the Dragon Statue, it just felt lazy.
Season of Flame: Only Spyro.
Fusion: Only Spyro.
A Hero's Tail: Spyro, Red, Dragon Elders. Sort of overdone.
Shadow Legacy: Overdone. TWO dragon based areas.
A New Beginning: Overdone, but only because there were so few characters and all the main ones happened to be dragons.
The Eternal Night: Overdone, in the same way as ANB.
Dawn of The Dragon: Overdone, in the same way as ANB.

I'm not saying the old games didn't have a ton of dragons.
But seriously, Skylanders has WAY too many for a game where the main intrest is trying out all the different characters, which makes it a much bigger problem, and making so many of the NPCs dragons doesn't help. Same with elves.

What about the Mabu? They are one of the largest populace of Skylands, even appearing in several levels of SSA, even Cali, Hugo and Flynn are Mabu.

Yeah, but it's not like we have a Mabu Skylander yet, while we have NINE dragon Skylanders, and FIVE elves.
Besides, at least the Mabu are an original design.

Well I DO like the hydra. And personally, I think that the worst part of skylanders is sprocket. But i never played he old games so i wouldnt know about the dragon overload.