darkSpyro

Skylanders as a whole is considered a bad thing. Quietly shut down every part, fire tons of people involved, official twitter is dead except for a handful of Ring of Heroes posts, which obv Activision won't advertise and didn't even let Com2us do themselves on E3 meaning they had to do it at a nearby street.

They created something they knew would be unpopular with older crowds and now they're pretending it was the franchise's fault all along, and not the shareholders. Gotta talk only of Spyro, we were totally just waiting for the right time to focus 100% on that instead of just plain not knowing how to handle it risk-free until the nostalgia remakes started to get popular. Skylanders is now risk which equals bad and we can't look directly at it.

Worst part is that we saw a piece with Bad Juju in one of the minicomic compilations, so yes, there ARE parts of this comic done. I can only hope it's not in NDA so we could at least have a taste of what could've been.

I personally consider SF, TT, and SSC to be the golden age of the series. I do consider Giants part of it, but to a lesser extent.

Quote: Street50

saw them in 5 below too. That's also a bit bothering of how bad Imaginators did as I've never seen the starter packs in Five Below.

They did sell SuperChargers starter packs previously. That game also did horribly, though, so not much of a surprise there.

I know that this may not be important , but Super Chargers sold over 3 million copies now
Imaginators has sold almost 1,9 million

Quote: KingMed

I know that this may not be important , but Super Chargers sold over 3 million copies now
Imaginators has sold almost 1,9 million

Took two and a half years, but Superchargers has now sold damn well.


Imaginators's sales are now good.

Quote: HeyitsHotDog

Quote: KingMed

I know that this may not be important , but Super Chargers sold over 3 million copies now
Imaginators has sold almost 1,9 million

Took two and a half years, but Superchargers has now sold damn well.


Imaginators's sales are now good.

only two years

AGAIN? This conversation... AGAIN?

Are they counting recent sales? They may have sold a million sets combined for both series recently. 625 units per 800 TRU stores is half a million which seems reasonable for each series during these last two months during their liquidation. The trouble is that they probably got $10 a set for them or so when they probably had expected to get at least $50 or so.

Something I have noticed is that the prices of certain Imaginators singles has been going up insanely on Amazon and Ebay. Seems now that all supply is for the most part has gone away, the collectors price gouging has begun. I'm thinking that all those cheap starter sets from TRU has increased the demand for rarer singles. Seems like half of the Imaginators out there counts as such.

Come to think of it, the last 3 years of Skylanders are hard to find used vs. the first 3 years of Skylanders. I see boxes of old Skylanders at garage sales frequently now and I do check for any rare ones, but for the most part I always leave them behind. Sucks as I need at least half of the crystal trap molds and I thought I would end up getting them easily anywhere for a quarter a pop. Trap Crystals are one of the few things that seems to have value in Skylanders.

I just realized that The sales haven’t been updated since 2017 So yeah ...

well my closest 5below seems to have sold most of the floor starter packs with the exception of the Wii U edition. I thought about getting another Bloom boom but the only Imaginator skylanders they had left were the Crash and Cortex packs.

Someone sent this to me out of the forum and I forgot already somehow, BUT this specific second shows more cool things that were cut, yaaaay....?

It's a Sky vehicle section of Spell Punk Library, being fought outside of the building as it collapses. Man the more they show of the old version the more disappointed I get with the final product; not in art, but thinking of extra content that went right into the trash makes me miserable.

Quote: Bifrost

Someone sent this to me out of the forum and I forgot already somehow, BUT this specific second shows more cool things that were cut, yaaaay....?

It's a Sky vehicle section of Spell Punk Library, being fought outside of the building as it collapses. Man the more they show of the old version the more disappointed I get with the final product; not in art, but thinking of extra content that went right into the trash makes me miserable.

I love SSC, but boy does it have some major flaws.

Well yeah, though this GDC is focused on the programming part and the stuff they showed off was certainly neat, especially on the animation side (even Burn-Cycle has the rig of a 4-wheeled vehicle, but they add variations so it actually moves like a vehicle with one wheel). But man, Spell Punk Library, forever RIP a genuinely interesting level about some lore that never got so much as a lick of explanation.

SSC is a great example of two steps forward, one step back.

I've decided to reset various figures in my collection to play through all the Skykanders games again. I'll probably write reviews too, going over a bunch of different topics; Gameplay, Boss Fights, Story, Characters, Level Design, Presentation, Side Content, Gimmicks, the actual Roster of Characters, the Figures themselves, The Portal of Power and How Well the Game Supports Old Skylanders.

The figures I'll reset are
SSA: Spyro, Gill Grunt, Trigger Happy
SSA3DS: Dark Spyro, Ignitor and Stealth Elf
SG: Tree Rex, Jet Vac, Series 2 Cynder (I gave the figure to a friend a few years ago, but he doesn't play Skylanders anymore so I might be able to get her back along with other characters)
SG3DS: Punch Pop Fizz, Swarm (I want to play as Swarm more, no other reason really)
SSF: Wash Buckler, Blast Zone, Ninja Stealth Elf (See Series 2 Cynder)
SSF3DS: Rattle Shake, Free Ranger and Volcanic Eruptor
STT: Snap Shot, Food Fight, All the Traps (Because having Kaos from the beginning is kinda OP)
STT3DS: Gusto, Barkley
SSC: Spitfire, Splat and Super Shot Stealth Elf (I'll use their vehicles too, also I like Splat)
SSC3DS: None. Level barely matters and I don't want to reset vehicles. That being said, I'll use Bowser, Roller Brawl, Nightfall and their vehicles.
SI: King Pen, Golden Queen, ALL my creation crystals (but I'm only gonna use Fire, I want to completely redesign the characters)

Giants might take a while due to the figure thing and Swap Force will take a while since I want to play the Wii U version (because the Wii version is bad)

How do you plan on resetting the traps?

Quote: SoulfulWolf

How do you plan on resetting the traps?

I'll use the 3DS Portal method: Putting the Trap on the portal at just the right angle so that the game recognizes it but creates an error, allowing me to erase Trap Data.

Quote: emeraldzoroark

Quote: SoulfulWolf

How do you plan on resetting the traps?

I'll use the 3DS Portal method: Putting the Trap on the portal at just the right angle so that the game recognizes it but creates an error, allowing me to erase Trap Data.

Oh, right. I was never able to get this method to work. Does it work better with a specific type of 3DS portal? SSA/SG as apposed to SSF? What's the angle?

Quote: SoulfulWolf

Quote: emeraldzoroark

Quote: SoulfulWolf

How do you plan on resetting the traps?

I'll use the 3DS Portal method: Putting the Trap on the portal at just the right angle so that the game recognizes it but creates an error, allowing me to erase Trap Data.

Oh, right. I was never able to get this method to work. Does it work better with a specific type of 3DS portal? SSA/SG as apposed to SSF? What's the angle?

Well, I haven't really experimented at all, but I have a theory on an easier way to do it. You see, if you put a Portal thats on right next to a Portal thats off, you can put Skylanders on the off portal and it'll work as if it were on the on Portal. So what if you used a Trap Team Portal (that literally has a spot specially made for traps) as the off portal and use the 3DS portal as the on portal?

Again, just a theory, but it may work.

Alright, I've finally beaten Spyro's Adventure. Now for my thoughts on it.
Gameplay: So we all know how this game works by now. Each character gets 2 attacks to begin with, then you go through various areas with them, getting experience and treasure to level up and buy upgrades. I like to think I understand all the ins and outs of the game (thanks to doing every heroic challenge like 100 times) which is why it's pretty impressive that playing the game again is still really fun. There are occasional lock puzzles in some levels, which involve turning the lock to get the imp to hit all the switches. They're pretty fun, and can be challenging in optional areas. I love how the game gives some elements some use outside of elemental gates (I'll get to these)
such as Water and flying Skylanders going across water, Fire characters going across lava, earth characters being able to break rocks without pickaxes, Life characters making a vine bridge that one time, and... the other elements are there I guess. In certain areas, you get boosts for using Skylanders of a certain element, such as doing more damage and getting more experience. This almost makes the game too easy, but there is some difficulty at times. I only died 3 times during the game but had several close calls in some of the boss fights. Speaking of which...
Boss Fights: Oddly enough, it takes more than a quarter of the game to get to the first boss fight against Kaos. Each of these fights (except the last one) plays pretty much the same: Fight an elemental minion, dodge some spells, minion, spells, minion, and then either another spell followed by fighting all 3 minions at once, or it just skips to the 3 minions at once. One thing I like is that the minions are all evil versions of Skylanders, giving us a chance to see some characters to consider getting. One thing I don't like is the fact that they all have a third of their normal health when fighting all 3 at once. I'm playing on the Wii version and it might be different for other consoles. I dunno. The next boss is the Stone Golem in Stonetown. He throws rocks at you, but you can see where they go. Overall, pretty easy, not much to say. Then there's the Tank in Battlefield, which is nothing more than a joke. You can just leave the arena to get a nearby chest or you could stand on a raised platform and throw 5 bombs and win. Even if you don't use bombs this thing is a pushover. Lastly there's the final boss, where you have to attack Kaos while dodging all his Elemental minions, his spells and the dreaded "Kaos just landing on the ground" attack. It gets really intense when he starts using spells one after another. He can go from fire to lasers to DOOMSHARKS in the span of a few seconds. This actually caused 2 of my deaths in this game (the other was me being cocky in Arkeyan Armoury). Overall, a really fun boss.
Story: The plot here is honestly a train wreck. Kaos destroys the Core of Light, which protects Skylands from the Darkness, which has the power of making the sky look cool and totally isn't a character and never will be Oh by the way, Master Eon survived the explosion of the Core, but became a spirit. Somehow. This sentence just contradicts itself. Anyway, we have to rebuild the Core to stop Kaos from being evil. Spoiler alert: 90% of the game is a fetch quest. Then you go fight Kaos, win, the end. The game's story scrolls are fun though, although one mentions Arkeyan Sorcerers basically shutting down Arkus, when the plot of Giants goes against that. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Long story short, a good game doesn't need a good story, so I guess it's fine.
Characters: The characters here are... mixed. We have good ones like Flynn, Hugo and T-Bone, but also bad ones like Flynn, Gurglefin and Cali. Flynn can be pretty funny like in the credits scene (which I think is only on the Wii version) but otherwise, stop bragging when the most worthwhile thing you did in the second half of the game is point out the Weapon Master exists. Hugo feels like an actual character who constantly worries about everything and T-Bone makes puns and is spoopy. T-Bone is cool. On the other hand, Gurglefin complains about everything and hates puns and I already mentioned Flynn. Cali lacks any sort of personality (aside from being that "serious" character) and lacks any role in the plot other than being a damsel in distress in chapter 2. No, seriously. She has nearly no reason to exist other than heroic challenges. By far the best characters in the game are Glumshanks and Kaos. They just go so well together and their cutscenes are the best part of the game. I love how the eyeball in the background is watching them with their antics. Glumshanks has a sarcastic sense of humour which almost overshadows Kaos, who is literally just Invader Zim. But yeah, everyone else is just eh.
Level Design: Most of the levels in the game are pretty fun. There are a bunch of puzzles in each level, but most are easy enough to get through. The collectables are pretty easy to find too, but some are genuinely well hidden, like the legendary treasure of chapter 1. As I mentioned earlier, certain elements can interact with the environment, which would make Water characters OP in Lleviathan Lagoon, but the developers knew this, so you can't go across water often or you'll get eaten by Lleviathan. This balances Water Skylanders so they don't skip the entire level. It's not all good however. For example, in my very first playthrough of Arkeyan Armory, I though the Giant robot part was really cool. Now? Not so much. It goes on for far too long and there's almost no challenge.

I'll continue this later, this post is already incredibly long.

Ok time for Part 2
Presentation:This game's graphics are fine I guess. I don't pay that much attention to graphics unless they truly stand out as great or terrible. But I can talk about the lip syncing. They don't even try to match what's being said. In fact, all the character animations just don't sync well. Diggs doesn't even move his mouth. Visually, there's not much to be said other than that and some objects disappearing in the background. But this game has some great music. My favourites are Sky Schooner Docks, Stormy Stronghold, Crystal Eye Castle, Arkeyan Armory, Dragon's Peak, The Necropolis/The Occulus Fight, Icicle Isle, Cyclops Square and the song that plays when you're building the Core. Pretty much everything else is good too.
Side Content: Ok, there's a lot to go through, so bear with me. Firstly, Heroic Challenges. I lost the ability to enjoy them long ago, so I can't say much. Then there's the adventure packs. Empire of Ice is... a level that exists. You end up going so slow on the ice that it's better to use characters who can fly just to deal with that. The ending has you breaking down a wall which honestly feels a bit monotonous. Just aim for the bottom of the wall to speed things along. Next, Pirate Seas, the worst level in the game. Parts of it are fun, until you have to play Pirate Cards, which is just a waste of time. The timer you get is longer than you actually need. Darklight Crypt is easily one of the better levels in the game. The world shifting mechanic has so much potential and ends up being pretty fun. Dragon's Peak is probably my favourite of the bunch. Sure, Flavius could just take us straight to Vathek, but then we couldn't see much of the best looking level in the game. Also the flying minigame is pretty fun. I should talk about the hub world. There's not much to do here, other than find all ten Winged Sapphires. Some are in plain sight, and others are pretty well hidden, like the one where you have to oil the train. Still, they aren't too difficult to find and they give discounts on upgrades, which is always nice. Last but not least... Elemental gates. They range from really cool open areas to fun puzzles. There are some terrible ones like the Fire gate in Oilspill Island and the Earth gate in Sky Schooner Docks, but most are pretty good.
Gimmicks: There is none.
Roster of Characters: Most of the Skylanders in this game are cool. The best ones in my opinion are Sonic Boom, Gill Grunt, Prism Break, Stealth Elf, and Sunburn. There are characters I don't like such as Drill Sergeant, but the good far outweighs the bad. In my playthrough I used the three starter pack characters. Gill Grunt is probably one of the best characters to speedrun the game with, Trigger Happy is fun if you like button mashing, and Spyro... doesn't do enough damage to be as good as the others.
Figures: In general, the figures are alright. Some are good, but others have stupid poses (Sunburn) or break easily (Hex). Lightning Rod has a creative use for the base that the Skylanders stand on though, so it's not all bad.
Portal of Power: There's something that feels magical about the first Portal. It has a great design and the Runes on the sides light up as well. There's enough space on it so even Giants can fit on it easily. My one major issue is that it's battery powered. During the game the Portal's battery ran out, so I just switched to the Giants portal for the rest of the game.
How Well The Game Supports Older Figures: Can't really say much for obvious reasons.

I'm glad to say that this game is pretty fun despite it's flaws and even after I've spent hundreds of hours in the past playing. Next I'll review the 3DS version which I haven't played in a while, so I'm looking forward to it.

I'd agree with that review. I played it at the same time as Giants, so graphically if felt a slight step behind, the figures weren't "as good", but it felt very pure, only really needing a jump to feel a bit better. I miss doing Stealth Elf Speed runs...
- Unreall

What's the highest level Imaginators can be?

Well there’s 44 senseis (including variants) so 15 (base level) + 44 = 59. Unless I miscounted or have some wrong info.

Now for my SSA3DS review.
Gameplay: This is a much more fast paced game in comparison to it’s console counterpart. Instead of a game where you solve puzzles and beat enemies, you have to get to the goal really fast while completing certain tasks, such as gathering enough radiance or beating a certain amount of specific enemies. Every Skylander has 2 normal attacks instead of 3, but now they also have a sprint and jump button. This essentially turns the game into a platformer. Also, instead of switching characters whenever you want, you just have 2 with you at all times. They can be switched out at any time when you aren’t in a level. This and the fact that enemies hit pretty hard makes this game actually pretty difficult. There’s also 2 elements of the day, giving more experience at the end of each level if you have that element on you.
Boss Fights: This game has 2 boss fights. One is Vathek from Dragon’s Peak, and the other is Hektore, the final boss. Vathek is incredibly easy is you have a ranged attack and Hektore is just “beat the enemies and run to a certain point.” Barely a boss fight really..
Story:Hektore is evil, go stop him. Also he kidnapped some people to use the power of the darkness, I guess.
Characters: Without looking it up, name the 5 Mystic Sages. Yeah, exactly. 99.9% of you can’t. That’s my point. All the characters are pretty forgettable.
Level design: This game’s levels are completely different to the console version. This game gives you room to run and jump throughout the game. While the console game usually has only one path from start to finish, this game has multiple branching paths, allowing you to experiment and find the best possible route. The ice levels are annoying though, but the jumping helps with that.
Presentation: The games audio is alright for a 3DS game. Nothing really special. The game’s music is mostly from the console version with some tracks I don’t recognize. I also want to say how cool the 3D effect looks, particularly when looking at the collection of Skylanders in game.
Side Content: The adventure packs are the only side content other than completing all the main levels. They’re alright. The Empire of Ice suffers from ice physics a bit. Darklight Crypt looks cool though. The elemental gates in this game are... ok. They’re just platforming challenges. Nothing special.
Roster of Characters: I already talked about the characters in my previous review, but I’ll talk about the characters I used here. Stealth Elf is... frail. Like, the damage enemies do is too much for her. She has a ranged attack though, but it’s pretty weak. Ignitor is good if you use his secondary attack alongside his primary attack so that 2 things are beating up enemies at once. Dark Spyro has such a fun play style that it feels like the entire game was centred around him.
Portal of Power: This Portal is underwhelming compared to the console equivilant. Sure, it’s small, which is nice for portability, but it only glows one colour, being blue. Also it’s hard to press down on the thing.

In conclusion, this game is actually pretty fun. I would advise getting it for a low price, but don’t expect too much content from it. I got through the entire story mode and all the adventure packs in 3 hours. Still worth picking up though.

SSA>SSA3DS

Actually, I’m playing through the series again with my ten year old, and we are really enjoying it. I love Skylanders. It’s not hard, but we sit and talk about everything. I did the same thing with my daughter so Skylanders will always hold a place in my heart.

As for the future, I imagine we’ve seen the last of it for a while. I do wish though they would focus on some of the other characters besides Spyro. There are a ton of interesting stories that could be told from this group.

Ok so my friend got rid of his old collection so instead of S2 Cynder and S3 Stealth Elf I'll use Fright Rider and Zoo Lou.

Alright. Time for Giants. And I’m making the review seem less like a wall of text.
Gameplay: The game works mostly the same as Spyro’s Adventure. Most of the differences come from the Giants, which I’ll go over in the gimmick part. The main notable change I noticed is that you can now get Skylanders to level 15 instead of 10, but I never got anyone past level 10 in my playthrough. The game is much more difficult than Spyro’s Adventure, mostly because in the later levels do more than 100 damage. It’s a small change but it make the game more fun. On the other hand, there is a special nightmare mode you get after beating the game. I haven’t played that mode in a long time, so I’m not sure how insane it is.

Boss Fights: Every few levels have arena battles, which have you fight 2-3 waves of enemies, then a tougher enemy. I wouldn’t call these boss fights, but without them this game only has 3 bosses. But it’s clear that these 3 went for quality over quantity. The Chompy Mage involves using a world switching mechanic to avoid hazards and change Chompies to Enfuego Chompies to deal damage. Drill X is a musical number. Those are always fun. The boss itself is slightly weaker, but you can use Giants to throw objects to deal more damage, but it gets rid of cover to avoid attacks. The final battle has you fighting Robo Kaos and his robot minions alongside another giant robot in this really cool action sequence (which I actually lost all 3 characters I was using). My main gripe with this fight is that the arena is WAY too small for you, all the robot minions and the lasers. Still fun though.

Story: The plot is a fun story about Kaos trying to rule Skylanders with a literal iron fist... until you think about it. So that’s why instead of going through the plot and why it’s bad, here are numerous plotholes I found.

We get literal time travel powers but don’t use them for anything other than a history lesson. Why not... oh, I don’t know... stop Kaos as soon as he lands in front of the robot at the start of the game?

I mentioned this in the SSA review, but the Arkeyan sorcerer kings didn’t shut down Arkus, the fall of the robot king did.

The Secret Vault of Secrets that has the map to Arkus can only be accessed by a Conquertron, but a Conquertron would surely know where Arkus was? Kaos’ one knew about the secret entrance and everything.

Kaos’ Mother doesn’t like the Wilikin, yet plays Skystones with them.

Drill X was drilling into the island where Arkus was to get to it, but later the main characters are like “oh no where could Arkus be?”

When Kaos lost the Iron Fist, the robot army lost power. But Kaos’ Conquertron was powered by Kaos’ electricity, not the Fist. Yet he loses power anyway.

Characters: Well, the story might be terrible, but at least the characters are amazing. Remember Kaos and Glumshanks? Now there’s more of that. Flynn is much more tolerable when he’s bragging now that Cali is around for most of the game. Oh by the way, Cali actually has a personality now, keeping Flynn from doing stupid stuff. She actually does stuff in this game too, like setting up explosives. Of course if you use a Giant, this doesn’t matter, but it’s the thought that counts. Machine Ghost appears in three levels, so it’s amazing that you can feel sad for this guy after literally being with him for less than 30 minutes. The Wilikin are the creepiest thing in these games, hands down. They create such an atmosphere in their level which leads to so many theories. Auric shows up in each level and is so nonchalant about everything that he’s just fun. Ermit is probably the best character, because of the different dialogue he has between levels. No seriously, go check out what he has to say. I never get tired of his banter.

Level Design: One thing I forgot to mention about levels in the SSA and SSA3DS reviews is that sometimes the levels aesthetics don’t change too much. We go from war zone to war zone, then spooky dark place to spooky dark place to yet another spooky dark place. This barely happens in SSA, but in SSA3DS, I couldn’t tell you anything interesting about them other than “Cave, Forest, Ice, Stormy.” But Giants has MUCH more variety. I rarely visit a place where I go “Didn’t I already do this?” The only exceptions are the last few levels, but even they’re different enough that they feel unique. Now from a gameplay perspective, we have some really cool levels. The Autogyro is way more fun than the Arkeyan Robot (which unfortunately makes a return, but at least it’s a bit more interesting). Wilikin Village has you switching between the Wilikin and real world, similar to Darklight Crypt. The Oracle has a multiple choice thing going on, so you’re encouraged to go back and play again, which is good, seeing as though the level is really fun.

Presentation: Graphically, the game looks mostly the same. There are some changes, like the magic moments, but otherwise, not much. All Skylanders have full voice acting, for better or for worse (I legitimately thought Tree Rex was saying “Giants are Tall” instead of “Nature Calls” so... I don’t know). The text box that appears when characters speak is... not great in my opinion. I don’t know, I prefer the old one. The music is much better this time. We have some great remixes of SSA songs, but also original ones. Cutthroat Carnival, Wilikin Village and Slippery Tunnels are among some of the best songs in the series (although I prefer some of the newer versions of the latter to the original).

Side Content: This game has more side content than SSA. Heroic Challenges are back, but like I said, I don’t enjoy them anymore. Now we have Arena Battle modes, where you get through 3 waves of enemies while doing certain things (protecting a point from enemies or constantly taking damage). There are 21 challenges, so it’ll keep you occupied for a while. The Adventure Pack levels from SSA are back, but honestly there isn’t much point to them other than seeing Tree Rex ride a dragon. The hub world is... small. Not enough room for secrets, but one secret was pretty well hidden. It requires you to use the Dragon Engine, so you could go the entire game without knowing it was there. Finally there’s the elemental gates. The good ones are even better than SSA’s, such as Chapter 10’s Air Gate. This is probably my favourite gate in the entire series because of how fun it is to fly to other islands. The area is incredibly large for an optional portion of the game and it’s used so well. However, this game has some of the worst gates as well. Like... walk into a room and get the prize immediately. Oh well. At least the areas all look cool.

I hate to leave this review just before I talk about the Giants, but I’m pretty tired. I’ll pick this up tomorrow.

Just helping out with your story concerns:

Time Travel - Portals Masters can manipulate time. The player and the kaos just don't have that ability(Kaos probably doesn't have it at all because his powers are given), though your complaint about the use stands.
Arkus - I think this is actually mentioned in a strategy guide or something? Iirc, The Iron Fist actually only controls the War Machines that are the only robots in that area. Arkeyans are a species, not a single model.
Kaossandra - She's a huge hypocrite. Also a strategy guide thing; she hates Portal Maters(later retconned) and believes they're the true evil of the word; so she just starts with the psychological abuse to Kaos and taking his friends away even if she treats everyone horrible to some degree.
The Iron Fist thing goes back to the previous point. Conquertron was also reactivated by the portal short circuit, which could very well be magical in nature.

And trivia on top of Ermit, yes, he has 3 or more lines for each level and you have to keep talking to him. Lost forever if you beat the game, gotta restart it and talk after each level.

While I still have issues with it (And I always loved it) I've been playing a ton of Imagiantors recently. Maybe it's just due to current life stress or it's out of Reignited hype, but I'm having a great time with only occasional burn out. I've made new Imaginators, like Dragon Rush, Elora, Eagle Heart and Mariachi Werewolf, I've gotten nearly all parts, been exploring levels and just been having a great time. I really need to go back to all the others and just ENJOY the games, and due my usual exploring and waling around levels, go back and enjoy something that gave my so much happiness. Maybe this week I'll dedicate a few hours to each of them.

Alright back to the review.

Gimmick: While it may not be my favourite gimmick, from a gameplay perspective, this is easily the best gimmick in the series. Sure, using villains and creating Skylanders is fun, but... the game gives you no reason NOT to use them. With Giants, this isn’t the case. There’s a risk reward system going on. Giants can pick up boulders to deal loads of damage to things (protip; use the secondary attack button to hit things directly in front of you while holding a boulder instead of trying to aim), crash through cracked spots in the ground, or perform feats of strength to make shortcuts or find treasure. However, the downside is that they are much slower at turning around and have much bigger hitboxes. This means you have to think before playing as a Giant, bringing a layer of strategy to the table that other gimmicks don’t do as well.

Roster of Characters: Giants introduced 16 new characters. Not much, but like much of this game, it really feels like they went for quality over quantity. Most of the characters are really cool, like Chill (haha puns), Thumpback, Ninjini, Bouncer, Hot Head and Hot Dog. The characters I used in my playthrough were Fright Rider, Jet Vac and Tree Rex. Fright Rider is pretty fun, but has a fatal flaw on his spear combo path. You could be attacking with your spear, but then need to get away, so you try to boost, but end up comboing, leaving you vulnerable. Jet Vac is absolutely terrible, unless you’re in a crowd of slow attacking enemies. Then you can vaccum everything. Meaning that either he sucks, or he sucks. Tree Rex is probably one of the best characters in this game. He has great damage output on all his attacks, but I suggest going for the charging path for that sweet sweet elbow drop.

Figures: THEY LIGHT UP OH MY GOD THIS IS AMAZING AAAAHHHH but seriously other than that, not much stands out with the figures. I’ve found that my Bouncer’s paint isn’t great, my Swarm’s forehead is sort of separated from the face, and Chill and Fright Rider are fragile. So... not good.

Portal of Power: It’s literally the same as the SSA portal, but better. It’s wired, so it doesn’t need batteries. The base glows the same colour as the portal instead of green, which looks better. The portal even glows brighter. The main flaws are the wire (which you could trip over if you aren’t careful) and the runes don’t glow. That’s about it. Pretty much a massive improvement.

How Well The Game Supports Older Skylanders: The way I do this is by picking some of my favourite characters from previous games, and going to the final level and seeing how they do. The ones I picked were Prism Break, Sunburn and Drobot. They were... pretty good. They can clearly fight by themselves well.

Ok, that’s it. Overall, this is even better than SSA and I would play this again. The story is a mess though, but at least the characters are interesting enough to make it a fun mess.

Giants>SSA>SSA3DS

Time for Giants 3DS. Yep, this was a short game.
Gameplay: Remember how fast paced the first 3DS game was? Well this one is... slower. Much slower. There are multiple long stretches of lamd that make the game drag on. It’s less of a problem in later levels, but I felt like I was barely making any progress in certain parts. It feels like the developers tried to make the game more combat oriented, despite the fact that this game is clearly built to be a faster paced game than the console version. Speaking of combat, it’s both easy and unfair. Most fights last like 5 seconds, but I’ve taken multiple hits from enemies that should not have hit me.

Boss Fights: Honestly theres nothing special here. Fight enemies, dodge hazards, hit the boss multiple times, you win. Easy. The final fight is a bit more interesting though. Frightbeard uses his sword to create elemental hazards to avoid while fighting enemies. Otherwise, not much.

Story: The plot here is that Captain Frightbeard is looking for the Chest of Exile, so you have to gather clues to find out where it is before him. The fact that this isn’t just a grocery list for the Core of Light and that it isn’t riddled with plotholes makes it by default the best story so far. Not saying much, and it’ll probably change in the next review anyway.

Characters: Hugo amd Cali are basically the same as in SSA and Giants respectively, Flynn is stupider and more annoying, Frightbeard... doesn’t get enough screentime for me to say anything about him. Everyone else is forgettable.

Level Design: As I said earlier, the levels have long segments of just running in a straight line that make the game feel slow. The game is better when you’re doing platforming on really small platforms, and it reaches it’s peak in the levels with a slide (like the waterslides in the Tunnel of Love)

Presentation: Look. I like the Wilikin Village music, I really do. But why use it for like 4 levels out of 19 and this random area in the hub lets you see your collection which, for some reason, needs a loading screen? The other main issue I have with the game is the framerate. There have been multiple instances where the framerate goes down so much that combat becomes tedious.

Side Content: You can play the levels again. Also the adventure packs from SSA. Have fun. At least the elemental gates were decent and looked cool.

Gimmick: Giants can break down certain walls to get to new areas. That’s about it. Major letdown, seeing how much they could do in the console version.

Roster of Skylanders: Pop Fizz is hard to use, mostly because his potions are awkward to aim. Sprocket (btw I used Sprocket) is similar to her playstyle in the console version: throwing mines is her most viable solution for everything. Swarm is just.... kinda broken to be honest. Usually a three hit combo with his blades takes out everything.

Portal of Power: It’s basically the same as the SSA one. It’s just a matter of if you prefer a green base or a grey base that lights up blue.

How Well The Game Supports Old Skylanders: The three I used to test this were the same in the console version (Drobot, Prism Break, Sunburn) were all overpowered, even in the final level. Though I guess they were level 15, so they were as OP as they could get. Oh well, they can clearly work in this game.

Wow, this review was short. I guess there just isn’t much to say about this game. I would mostly recommend this game to people who want Punch Pop Fizz.

Also I just want to ask if you are enjoying my reviews or have any criticism. It’ll be a while before the next review, so I would appreciate feedback to help improve.

The reviews are pretty enjoyable! It's nice to revisit those games.

god take me back to 2012

So I guess that scene is a meme now? Cool.

Quote: HeyitsHotDog

What's the highest level Imaginators can be?

Quote: emeraldzoroark

Well there’s 44 senseis (including variants) so 15 (base level) + 44 = 59. Unless I miscounted or have some wrong info.

Wrong, max level is 64.

Whew, it was a while I posted here.

To celebrate my Semi-Return, I tried to completely redesign the Skylanders version of Spyro. (just a try)

Looks pretty nice! Just in time for the 20th Spyro anniversary too.

the flynn... is.. weird

here's a weird thought

after that simon belmont reveal for smash, i'd like to think that boom bloom is a member of some skylanders version of the belmont clan

I'm unsure if this is the right place to ask, but I don't think the question deserved it's own topic, so here goes nothing:

Is everything Skylanders Imaginators released? Like, every Sensei/Villain/Creation Crystal/etc.?
I know Heartbreaker Buckshot wasn't released, but what about all the Crystals? I have trouble finding some of them online, and I don't know if they are just super rare, or not released (yet?) at all.

Pretty sure some of the crystals got Thrillipede'd, but that's about it. The postrelease levels are rare but they did release in a mostly normal way before the plug was pulled.

I could have sworn a few of the crystals never got released.

Ding dong this franchise is gone
I really wish Superchargers was the last game instead of Imaginators. The story was a perfect sendoff for the franchise while also having a gimmick that showed how Activision had hit rock bottom with the franchise.

Ring of Heroes is still here, isn't it? Instead of patting yourselves in the back for finding just this perfect date, wait for the damn actual last game to come out.

Not that I wanted Imaginators to be the last game though. I'll take SC's ending or Ring of Heroes' beta ending any day, as well as Skylanders Academy's. "Hey guys here's a story YOU'RE NEVER LISTENING TO" is pretty bad by comparison.

What it there is a story but we have to do 100 of those side quests to continue the game?

Quote: emeraldzoroark

What it there is a story but we have to do 100 of those side quests to continue the game?

Is it any different from Imaginators' "do these 6 pointless missions to get to Abandoned Amusement Park"? At least it comes with the territory in RoH and you don't take the pacing to a screeching halt since you do your 5 daily boss missions per level/mode out of habit.

Jeez, looking back, Imaginators had a LOT of things wrong with it. The story, the pre AAP mission thing, I don’t even remember why you had to go to the second level in the first place, “Skylanders always win, LOOK HOW META WE ARE...”

It’ll be interesting to review. Speaking of which I should probably do the SSF review soon. I’ve just had so many other games taking up my time.

Lost Imaginite Mines had a better and more cohesive story than literally the entire rest of the game. (With maybe the exception of Cursed Tiki Temple, I don't know because I don't have that level).

Just to be clear, the crystals that are marked with red underneath, did they ever come out?
I can't find them online anywhere.