The Skylanders Experience
Skylanders was the forerunner of the "toys to life" genre of game that sort of plagued the market for a few years around 2013-2016 and is not typically looked back on fairly well, the exception being amiibo which are still in production. When it comes to amiibo, having a statuette of a beloved Nintendo character is the main selling point, gameplay functionality rarely matters to most who purchase an amiibo. But for Skylanders, these toys were absolutely necessary to play the game. Each character placed on the aptly named Portal of Power would bring to life a Skylander in the game which held its own unique moveset and stored information such and level and purchased upgrades in the figure itself. Over the many Skylanders game that were made, there is an absolute plethora of figures available to play with, which was the main draw for me. With Spyro the dragon and the very rare crossover characters being the only recognizable characters that are playable, each Skylander is a a totally original character created specifically for this universe, creating a pretty massive cast of some very bizarre characters to play around with.
My personal collection is rather large, somewhere around 150, though most Skylanders I've purchased used either a year or so after their debut or somewhat after the games had fallen out of favor, but for the last few games in the series, I was buying brand new. I played each game again however, this time using an emulated portal to be able to experience just about everything these games have to offer, getting a taste of Skylanders and level packs I don't own. Generally speaking, Skylanders all have access to several upgrades, and after the halfway point choose between two paths to specialize in a specific set of their skills. Each Skylander typically has 3 abilities, though some can have 4 or even more. In each game, you can collect a Soul Gem to unlock the final Soul Gem ability of each Skylander. However, if you take a character from Spyro's Adventure to a later game for example, you no longer need to collect their soul gem. Each Skylander can be played in games released after their debut fully, even in games like Superchargers, a gen 1 Skylander can drive a vehicle all the same as one released in Superchargers.
There are 8 elements in Skylanders, 10 starting in Trap Team, and each game except for Imaginators has elemental gates, that can only be opened by Skylanders of their respective element. Each game introduces a new type of gimmick Skylander to make things more interesting, with them often having cool new gameplay to come with them.
My personal collection is rather large, somewhere around 150, though most Skylanders I've purchased used either a year or so after their debut or somewhat after the games had fallen out of favor, but for the last few games in the series, I was buying brand new. I played each game again however, this time using an emulated portal to be able to experience just about everything these games have to offer, getting a taste of Skylanders and level packs I don't own. Generally speaking, Skylanders all have access to several upgrades, and after the halfway point choose between two paths to specialize in a specific set of their skills. Each Skylander typically has 3 abilities, though some can have 4 or even more. In each game, you can collect a Soul Gem to unlock the final Soul Gem ability of each Skylander. However, if you take a character from Spyro's Adventure to a later game for example, you no longer need to collect their soul gem. Each Skylander can be played in games released after their debut fully, even in games like Superchargers, a gen 1 Skylander can drive a vehicle all the same as one released in Superchargers.
There are 8 elements in Skylanders, 10 starting in Trap Team, and each game except for Imaginators has elemental gates, that can only be opened by Skylanders of their respective element. Each game introduces a new type of gimmick Skylander to make things more interesting, with them often having cool new gameplay to come with them.
1 Games
Since I started with Swap Force, I never actually went back and played Spyro's Adventure before to completion, so this was the first time. Overall, it's easy to say how the gameplay formula became more in depth over time, as Spyro's Adventure introduces a few elements to level traversal that are very basic and are commonly used in levels throughout the game. No jumping, no running, just a sort of slow meandering from objective to objective, with many branching paths along the way. Backtracking often with a newly found bomb or flipped switch is extremely common. Some levels in this game can take around 5 or 6 minutes, and others especially if you choose to do the elemental gate challenges can take nearly half an hour. It's easy to get lost in a lot of these levels as well, with so many different paths its hard to remember where you're supposed to go to progress the stage and I often found myself going in circles.
Like most games in the series though, the gameplay is still fun. The combat is surprisingly good here, and the upgrade formula is really solid. Each of the 32 Skylanders in this game feel pretty interesting to play and the progression is nice. Out of these first wave of Skylanders, my favorites are Zook, Boomer and Wham Shell. Boomer actually is my overall favorite Skylander, and his gameplay involves lobbing and kicking bombs at people. I always loved that his Troll Bomb ability actually needs to be kicked and is effected by physics. Zook is a pretty typical ranged character, many of which have some sort of way of keeping enemies away while they shoot form afar. Zook can place a mushroom barrier and then assault his enemies with a pineapple mortar and bamboo missiles which explode into shrapnel which makes him great at clearing packs of enemies all the while he looks extremely goofy. Wham Shell is a heavily armored melee character who has some decent flexibility. Like a lot of melees, Wham Shell has combos but I found that his Poseidon Strike AoE was always very reliable.
For this playthrough, I tried to use Skylanders I had never played with before, and I found myself mainly using Ignitor and Gill Grunt. Ignitor starts off pretty weak like a lot of melees, but with upgrades, I think he is extremely powerful, and has some of the best range out of any melee. Gill Grunt felt completely broken at times thanks to his basic attack and his water jetpack gave him some sorely needed mobility that a lot of characters I felt were missing. I was always very delighted to see with any Skylander I played that the upgrades were typically a lot more than just "does more damage", though those types of upgrades are present however they often provide a visual upgrade to the character, and their Soul Gem upgrades make them really stand out.
An issue with all the games in this series is that using a low level or unupgraded Skylander really sucks, and unlike later games which introduce some sort of training or arena mode, this game has no great way of juicing up back-up Skylanders except playing through levels with them, which later in the game can be pretty annoying to try and do with their lower HP pools. This game can actually be pretty damn hard, specifically the gauntlet style bossfights with bullet hell sections. Since your "Lives" are just whatever Skylanders you have access to, in my situation its never really an issue to die. However if you only have the 3 starter pack characters, it can be a pretty difficult experience.
Overall, most levels can be completed with one or two Skylanders pretty easily, though having a few backups is a nice thing to have. There are few sections in the game overall that present a major challenge that will take down multiple of your Skylanders. A mechanic introduced in this game that isn't really present in the later ones are the Heroic Challenges. Each Skylander you have in your collection adds a heroic challenge that all Skylanders can do to increase their heroic level. This is a pretty cool idea, but in practice, the heroic challenges are not fun to complete, especially not all of them on all Skylanders.
The level design in this game typically is alright, but as mentioned before, there can be sections in stages that involve a lot of backtracking that can really slow down progress. Obtaining 100 percent completion of a level cannot be done on your first run through, as there are pretty strict timing goals that cannot be achieved if you want to do optional areas, meaning you'd have to complete each of the 22 chapters a minimum of twice. It's definitely a tall ask but it can be good if you wanted to get more out of this game.
In order to fully complete the game, you need 1 least 1 Skylander of each element to open all the elemental gates in the levels. The starter pack comes with 3, so naturally you'd need to purchase 5 more. Compared to later games, this isn't terrible, especially because the other Skylanders you purchased can be used in the later games as well. For me, playing from start to finish was enough. I think the game took me about 15 hours in total to complete, but I was not going for 100 percent. For the first 16 chapters, I went out of my way to explore all the paths and complete elemental challenges, and I also was doing a few heroic challenges along the way, but toward the end of the game, I was simply focusing on completing the stages.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with this game, but I am more than ready to take my Skylanders to the next game.
Like most games in the series though, the gameplay is still fun. The combat is surprisingly good here, and the upgrade formula is really solid. Each of the 32 Skylanders in this game feel pretty interesting to play and the progression is nice. Out of these first wave of Skylanders, my favorites are Zook, Boomer and Wham Shell. Boomer actually is my overall favorite Skylander, and his gameplay involves lobbing and kicking bombs at people. I always loved that his Troll Bomb ability actually needs to be kicked and is effected by physics. Zook is a pretty typical ranged character, many of which have some sort of way of keeping enemies away while they shoot form afar. Zook can place a mushroom barrier and then assault his enemies with a pineapple mortar and bamboo missiles which explode into shrapnel which makes him great at clearing packs of enemies all the while he looks extremely goofy. Wham Shell is a heavily armored melee character who has some decent flexibility. Like a lot of melees, Wham Shell has combos but I found that his Poseidon Strike AoE was always very reliable.
For this playthrough, I tried to use Skylanders I had never played with before, and I found myself mainly using Ignitor and Gill Grunt. Ignitor starts off pretty weak like a lot of melees, but with upgrades, I think he is extremely powerful, and has some of the best range out of any melee. Gill Grunt felt completely broken at times thanks to his basic attack and his water jetpack gave him some sorely needed mobility that a lot of characters I felt were missing. I was always very delighted to see with any Skylander I played that the upgrades were typically a lot more than just "does more damage", though those types of upgrades are present however they often provide a visual upgrade to the character, and their Soul Gem upgrades make them really stand out.
An issue with all the games in this series is that using a low level or unupgraded Skylander really sucks, and unlike later games which introduce some sort of training or arena mode, this game has no great way of juicing up back-up Skylanders except playing through levels with them, which later in the game can be pretty annoying to try and do with their lower HP pools. This game can actually be pretty damn hard, specifically the gauntlet style bossfights with bullet hell sections. Since your "Lives" are just whatever Skylanders you have access to, in my situation its never really an issue to die. However if you only have the 3 starter pack characters, it can be a pretty difficult experience.
Overall, most levels can be completed with one or two Skylanders pretty easily, though having a few backups is a nice thing to have. There are few sections in the game overall that present a major challenge that will take down multiple of your Skylanders. A mechanic introduced in this game that isn't really present in the later ones are the Heroic Challenges. Each Skylander you have in your collection adds a heroic challenge that all Skylanders can do to increase their heroic level. This is a pretty cool idea, but in practice, the heroic challenges are not fun to complete, especially not all of them on all Skylanders.
The level design in this game typically is alright, but as mentioned before, there can be sections in stages that involve a lot of backtracking that can really slow down progress. Obtaining 100 percent completion of a level cannot be done on your first run through, as there are pretty strict timing goals that cannot be achieved if you want to do optional areas, meaning you'd have to complete each of the 22 chapters a minimum of twice. It's definitely a tall ask but it can be good if you wanted to get more out of this game.
In order to fully complete the game, you need 1 least 1 Skylander of each element to open all the elemental gates in the levels. The starter pack comes with 3, so naturally you'd need to purchase 5 more. Compared to later games, this isn't terrible, especially because the other Skylanders you purchased can be used in the later games as well. For me, playing from start to finish was enough. I think the game took me about 15 hours in total to complete, but I was not going for 100 percent. For the first 16 chapters, I went out of my way to explore all the paths and complete elemental challenges, and I also was doing a few heroic challenges along the way, but toward the end of the game, I was simply focusing on completing the stages.
Overall, I enjoyed my time with this game, but I am more than ready to take my Skylanders to the next game.
4 Comments
Love, I request that you explain which skylanders you used the most and why, and why you didnt mention stump smash. Also how long does it take for you to complete a run in these games. Thank you
One more thing, it sounds like you tried to use every skylander in Spyros Adventure, but do you have an idea of how many skylanders you think you actually needed to complete a level/beat the game
As far as Stump Smash goes I didnt mention him because I didn't use him that much, only early on, he kept dying so I could never level him up much. I think that he is okay when you have him fully upgraded and he does a ton of damage, I actually used him in the final boss fight because the boss stands still at parts, but overall he's just too slow and cumbersome to use in a lot of situations. I mostly updated my review with this information however I did mention how many Skylanders you'd need to 100 percent the game. I did add how many I'd say you would need on average just to get from start to finish.
Lefty
7 months ago