darkSpyro

My initial impression when flipping through this book was "Cliff's Notes for the Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure Official Strategy Guide (Official Strategy Guides (Bradygames))", and that sums up my lasting impression as well.

The Bradygames guide was published prior to the Spyro's Adventure game's retail release in October 2011, and it covered the gameplay basics, gave each Skylander a two page bio/abilities list, and level walkthroughs. Perhaps due to the time it was written, some errors were present, but it did an adequate job as far as a dedicated strategy guide goes.

Master Eon's guide is billed as "the definitive source for all the realms and characters of the Skylanders universe", a claim that falls way short. The book is a less complete version of the Bradygames guide. Roughly the first twenty pages rehash the Spyro's Adventure manual, paraphrasing the basic game mechanics and introducing the main characters. The majority of Skylander bio pages feature identical artwork and stats from the packaged trading cards, "Personality Profiles" (which appear to have come from a random adjective generator) and INCOMPLETE upgrade lists. Yes, this "definitive source" fails to mention any of the Soul Gem-granting super upgrades! The rest of the guide features blurbs about the game's enemy roster and brief descriptions of the levels and some of their goals--there are no maps, strategies, or walkthroughs in this "guide", just some tips akin to "don't get hit" and "be careful not to get lost". The presentation of the Adventure Pack levels particularly irked me; these are treated as an afterthought, as though any information about them is still shrouded in mystery. As they are some of the trickier levels in the game, they would have benefited the most from maps, extra tips or insight to young readers.

The Bradygames guide at least got into some backstory/lore about each Skylander. Powers and their costs are listed, but the super upgrades are not mentioned at all, either in name or where to find them. There is no walkthrough or maps to speak of, just brief descriptions of the levels with some of the goals pointed out and some recycled artwork.

The fact that Spyro's Adventure has been on shelves for almost a year, this book truly could have had an opportunity to be a "definitive source" to the console and 3DS versions of the game and all of the characters/lands to date. Instead, the end product is a lazy, incomplete, brochure-like summary of the groundbreaking first game in the series. I feel that any Skylanders fan, regardless of age, will find more missing from this book than items of interest. If not on a new Skylander, your money would be better spent on one of the lore-focused novels or the aforementioned Bradygames guide. The latter gets you considerably more detail about the game with an overall cleaner presentation and additional franchise lore.