Skylanders: Giants delivers a satisfying blend of action-adventure and toy-to-life magic. The core gameplay loop of battling with collectible figures that spring to life on screen remains incredibly fun. The addition of the larger "Giants" characters brings exciting new abilities and destructive power. While the story is somewhat generic and can feel repetitive at times, the game boasts colorful worlds, engaging level design, and a wealth of challenges for dedicated players making for a solid experience for kids and fans of the unique genre.

Well consider me absolutely baffled at how well this game holds up. Last year I revisited a series I remember quite fondly from my elementary school days, that being Skylanders. Many would disregard the series due to its "disgracing" of the Spyro franchise, and its admittedly sketchy, anti-consumer business practices. This, of course, flew right over my head as a young kiddo, and I loved the games to bits.

After having replayed the first four games, I'm ecstatic to say that my favorite installment from when I was a kid is exactly as magical as it's always been. Each of the levels are wonderfully charming in their own way, the beat-em-up gameplay is really fun while mixing things up just enough to never get old, the story builds on the first game's in some very cool and creative ways, and even the writing is surprisingly fantastic.

If you had to pick just one Skylanders game to try out, it'd have to be this one. I struggled to choose my favorite installment between Giants and Trap Team, though in the end it came down to which one I would recommend the most people give a try. Don't make me repeat myself now, this is a hidden gem.

The year…is 2012. The London olympics have been hosted, Whitney Houston died, and West Ham beat Blackpool to return to the premier league. But I feel like we are missing something important, a small piece to this very large puzzle. A year ago to this year, Skylanders spyros adventure released. An experimental game to not only attempt to bring back spyro, but to also birth a new gaming trend: toys to life. And so, on 2012, that is when, I finally got my first toys to life game: Skylanders giants. To any onlooker of this series, they would simply assume giants is quite possibly the weakest and most cashgrab entry. But today, I’m here to disprove that, and hopefully give people a taste of what one of my favourite games as a kid was. So without further ado: let us begin.

The story is pretty simple, basically these Skylanders have been brought to earth and forced to just be these figures, which we the ‘portal masters’ have to save by spending actual currency to put them on a FLASHING LIGHTS portal and then they get brought back into the game. Simple right? Well we also have to stop this evil dude called kaos, who is just as evil as me when I leave the toilet seat up. He basically is trying to reawaken the arkeyan robots whom the giants stopped years ago. And that’s it in terms of plot.

Gameplay wise it’s VERY simple. You scan a Skylanders onto the FLASHING LIGHTS portal and then that Skylander is put into the game. You then go through really simple and basic levels. You beat the enemies, do a tiny bit of exploration, and you move on. At certain points you’ll find certain areas that can only be unlocked through having a skylander of a certain type (fire, water, etc) so you know what that means! Spending time! There are also little puzzles and also…the legend that is: skystones. Remember tetra master from final fantasy 9? It’s basically that but better in every way. It is the quintessential card game.

The music is also something I have to stop by and talk about. Lorne Balfe put his heart and soul into this soundtrack. Levels like the junkyard isles and wilikin village give me an instant hit of nostalgia that is unparalleled. The other tracks as well are also quite memorable and honestly he did a really great job of giving the game that cinematic feel to it.

To be perfectly honest, I do kinda miss this franchise. Not to sound like I’m 8 but man collecting the figures was a lot of fun. Fortunately I still have mine and I do look at them from time to time just because I can’t get rid of them. Even if I could I’d only get a penny from them and that’s the unfortunate downside of toys to life as a whole. But that’s a story for another day. Giants would also be the game to bring other competitors in, those being Disney and Warner bros. and oh man, this is gonna get real big and go down very quickly. But until then, I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on a classic childhood game of mine. Gone but certainly not forgotten.

…also for those who might ask, my favourite was jet-vac.

Ok story, simple gameplay, brilliant music, skystones is peak, also the drill-x rap lives in my head rent free