darkSpyro

Last year I bought trap team, bought loads of traps and had even had some stuff left from Swap Force. But then we eventually decided to just invest in Disney Infinity. However I know this year they have the digital Portal Owners Pack. And I am very tempted to pick it up but I don't even own a portal anymore so I would only be able to use Hot Streak.

My main question is: Can I complete the game, do online racing, play Skystones and basically do everything this year except of course Elemental Gates, Air and Water racing and the challenges for the individual characters with JUST Hot Streak and his vehicle?

Last year I felt like the previous Skylanders had virtually no role and I beat the Kaos Doom Challenge with one character. So that is why I am thinking maybe I just see how far I can get with just the software.

Yes, you can complete story mode with just Spitfire and Hot Streak, and you should be able to race online as well.

It is a Portal Owner Pack. You need a Portal to play the game.

Quote: newkill

It is a Portal Owner Pack. You need a Portal to play the game.

No, you don't. It is called the digital portal owner's pack, and in it, you get Spitfire and Hot Streak as digital content, already in the game, with no need for a portal. Essentially, it makes the game completely self contained, you only need a portal if you want to use anything beyond Spitfire and Hot Streak.

We'll see but I am pretty sure I am right on this one...

All you need for 100% is a vehicle of each terrain type.

Mainly I want to be able to collect all the Skystones for online play. Now it might be that to get certain Skystones you need to complete the character challenges, or it could be like last year where you get them all through bosses.

Quote: xboxfanuk

Mainly I want to be able to collect all the Skystones for online play. Now it might be that to get certain Skystones you need to complete the character challenges, or it could be like last year where you get them all through bosses.

Supercharger Challenges seem to unlock only Portal Rank stars, from the look of things you'll get Skystones like in Giants where you can buy or win from other players - or you can get a good part of the collection by scanning your villains in traps ahead of time.

Quote: newkill

We'll see but I am pretty sure I am right on this one...

I, personally, dislike regurtitating internet clichés, but Google is your friend. This is copy/pasted from the Activision support page:

"Will my current portal be compatible with the new game?

Yes! Fans of the franchise can choose to purchase the digital Portal Owner’s Pack and use a Portal they already own to play Skylanders SuperChargers or Players can purchase the digital Portal Owners Pack via connected consoles for or select iPads. They can download the full AAA game and complete the mainline game with Instant Spitfire SuperCharger and Instant Hot Streak vehicle.

You can also use one of the older model Portals from Skylanders Trap Team or Skylanders SWAP Force to enjoy the full game experience with physical toys from the new Skylanders SuperChargers as well as their existing collections."

If you buy the game digitally, via XBOX Live, PSN, or the Nintendo eShop, it includes Instant Spitfire and Instant Hot Streak, a character and vehicle both permanently available in the game, so you don't need a portal to play at all. This information has been widely available for months, and you are just wrong. I am not being rude, but you are completely incorrect, and information is widely available to prove it.

Quote: xboxfanuk

My main question is: Can I complete the game, do online racing, play Skystones and basically do everything this year except of course Elemental Gates, Air and Water racing and the challenges for the individual characters with JUST Hot Streak and his vehicle?

There are no elemental gates this time around, just SuperCharger gates (which instant Spitfire will be able to open), so the only thing you'll miss out on are the Sky and Sea sections and the individual character challenges.

Quote: Muffin Man

Quote: xboxfanuk

My main question is: Can I complete the game, do online racing, play Skystones and basically do everything this year except of course Elemental Gates, Air and Water racing and the challenges for the individual characters with JUST Hot Streak and his vehicle?

There are no elemental gates this time around, just SuperCharger gates (which instant Spitfire will be able to open), so the only thing you'll miss out on are the Sky and Sea sections and the individual character challenges.

Which some estimate is 35% (sea/sky) of the game (~15% for land vehicle).

At SkyLanders Academy, there are Vehicle Elemental Gates, just came across one, "Only Vehicles of the Undead Element can open this gate." exclaims a character. Another one was found for a Fire Vehicle.

Quote: Portal___Master

At SkyLanders Academy, there are Vehicle Elemental Gates, just came across one, "Only Vehicles of the Undead Element can open this gate." exclaims a character. Another one was found for a Fire Vehicle.

Aren't those areas just daily missions,though? I don't recall exactly where I heard it but the vehicle elemental zones are some extra mission thing,not exactly too needed.

Quote: Portal___Master

At SkyLanders Academy, there are Vehicle Elemental Gates, just came across one, "Only Vehicles of the Undead Element can open this gate." exclaims a character. Another one was found for a Fire Vehicle.

Unless it unlocks some serious content, that isn't much. But it is a strong shift apart from what we've known for a while.

If anyone who gets the game today could tell us for sure about vehicle gates and what you can and cannot do with just spitfire and hot streak.

Quote: Portal___Master

At SkyLanders Academy, there are Vehicle Elemental Gates, just came across one, "Only Vehicles of the Undead Element can open this gate." exclaims a character. Another one was found for a Fire Vehicle.

Quote: Bifrost

Quote: Portal___Master

At SkyLanders Academy, there are Vehicle Elemental Gates, just came across one, "Only Vehicles of the Undead Element can open this gate." exclaims a character. Another one was found for a Fire Vehicle.

Aren't those areas just daily missions,though? I don't recall exactly where I heard it but the vehicle elemental zones are some extra mission thing,not exactly too needed.

Skylanders Academy doesn't have vehicle elemental zones, those are practice areas for your vehicles

The whole TM elemental zones in TT hit sore spots due to their lackluster content and yet hiding soul stones for key characters. In order for me to fully enjoy blackout, I'm REQUIRED to also purchase Knight Mare. The purchasing in that game was far more layered then anything else we've seen.

Swap Force had ways around much of their "hook" content as well as providing a plethora of stuff for things you purchased for that game and stuff from the past (helped increased your rank faster for having a stockade of Skylanders, though no where near the level of ever "needing" much of that stuff). You didn't need an earth swapper to get into a dual elemental zone, just a second skylander of the earth element. This made your ability to purchase what you really wanted vs what you needed exetremely flexible.

Having to have a specific vehicle or a vehicle of that element for small extra tid bits is fine. Needing 10 vehicles WITH the driver to be able to experience much of the game would be a devastating blow to the series and start to clock much of the waning fan base out.

Quote: xboxfanuk

If anyone who gets the game today could tell us for sure about vehicle gates and what you can and cannot do with just spitfire and hot streak.

i hope someone could answer this too.

Quote: LordElohim

Quote: newkill

We'll see but I am pretty sure I am right on this one...

I, personally, dislike regurtitating internet clichés, but Google is your friend. This is copy/pasted from the Activision support page:

"Will my current portal be compatible with the new game?

Yes! Fans of the franchise can choose to purchase the digital Portal Owner’s Pack and use a Portal they already own to play Skylanders SuperChargers or Players can purchase the digital Portal Owners Pack via connected consoles for or select iPads. They can download the full AAA game and complete the mainline game with Instant Spitfire SuperCharger and Instant Hot Streak vehicle.

You can also use one of the older model Portals from Skylanders Trap Team or Skylanders SWAP Force to enjoy the full game experience with physical toys from the new Skylanders SuperChargers as well as their existing collections."

If you buy the game digitally, via XBOX Live, PSN, or the Nintendo eShop, it includes Instant Spitfire and Instant Hot Streak, a character and vehicle both permanently available in the game, so you don't need a portal to play at all. This information has been widely available for months, and you are just wrong. I am not being rude, but you are completely incorrect, and information is widely available to prove it.

I am speaking about the game on console in case this was not clear. No actual proof or text says that you can play the digital version without a Portal. My "we'll see" still stands. We'll also see if you are able to admit you were wrong if a Portal is required.

I played the game for a few hours last night, and so far you could open all the areas in levels with just a vehicle on land, water, and air. Any supercharger can pilot any vehicle, so it looks to me like they really cut back on what you have to buy if you simply want to see all the areas. There are vehicle elemental gates in the hub, but I don't know how unique those areas are to each element. The one I did was a fire gate and all it had me do was drive along a race track in a time limit. If it had been a earth area, I don't know if it would have been a unique track. Maybe it would have just looked visually different. It might be a while before anyone can confirm how this works, because there are only a handful of vehicles available.

It sounds like Vicarious Visions is treating it a bit like Swap Force where you get the special challenges where you can earn more stars and maybe a hat or something. Honestly I can live without every hat and/or trinket. I also understand I am cutting out the Sea and Air sections which again that's fine. If the game holds up and I get hooked I might pick up a copy of Trap Team cheap and get the air and sea vehicles down the road. But right now the plan is, see how much I can do and what Portal Master Rank I can get too with simply Hot Streak and Spitfire.

I have to say, it is really nice that you can unlock all the gates in the story levels with just three vehicles in your collection.

This is a game of diminishing returns as far as content goes for the more you have. This is a good thing and bad thing. If everyone turns out to be fairly stingy and only buys a sea and air vehicle aside from the starter game, you unlock most of the game, but sales will hurt.

If you go a modest route and get the racing packs in addition to the game, you'll get an optimized amount of content and keep the budget for the game reasonable, with more to do then what that much cash would normally yield out of games these days.

Going for one vehicle of every element will cement all special track requirements in the hub, but there are too many of these. While still more content with every single figure aside from just being able to use the figure itself, bang for the user buck sharply declines, much in the way it did with Giants with just getting Heroic Challanges. This obviously keeps the game profitable though and a major success.

For staunch collectors, the cost is always steep. The overall cost is more akin to Giants though then Trap Team if you are patient and shop sales as well as get consolidated figures. You'll be rewarded with minor amounts of extra content through getting extra Challanges for each supercharger "combo". You'll also be rewarded if you were extremely thorough with the traps to be able to easily snag all the extra skystone cards. As mentioned before, there is a stark decline in content for money spent at this point BUT it is actually still at a higher level then Swap Force (and by extension, Trap Team which had horrid content to money spent ratio post trap per element and master per element).

Overall, those on a tight budget SHOULDNT fear this game in the least, and the Completionists should rest easy that the game will be around the price range of Giants and continue to reward you until the end with new levels, yet nothing significant that those with just a handful of figures will lose sleep over missing.

There are no Elemental gates, only SuperCharger gates that ALL SuperChargers can open,

All you need for Story mode 100% is One SuperCharger, and one vehicle of each terrain ( Land, Sky, Sea )
All you need to complete story mode levels is one vehicle and any Skylander

You can get pretty far in story with just the starter pack, but anything outside of story mode you basically can't play without buying extra

Heroic/SuperCharger challenges require both the supercharger+vehicle pair to play

pretty sure you need the 3 action packs to play as the different terrains of villains from Trap Team plus some returning/new ones
Kaos trap from the Dark edition starter is required to play as Kaos
Traps give elemental bonuses/more vehicle powers and depending on the villain inside, it gives you Skystones

No adventure packs, but the Action packs include trophies to race as villains

Adventure items from previous games let you customize the academy

Quote:

There are no Elemental gates, only SuperCharger gates that ALL SuperChargers can open,

All you need for Story mode 100% is One SuperCharger, and one vehicle of each terrain ( Land, Sky, Sea )
All you need to complete story mode levels is one vehicle and any Skylander

You can get pretty far in story with just the starter pack, but anything outside of story mode you basically can't play without buying extra

Heroic/SuperCharger challenges require both the supercharger+vehicle pair to play

pretty sure you need the 3 action packs to play as the different terrains of villains from Trap Team plus some returning/new ones
Kaos trap from the Dark edition starter is required to play as Kaos
Traps give elemental bonuses/more vehicle powers and depending on the villain inside, it gives you Skystones

No adventure packs, but the Action packs include trophies to race as villains

Adventure items from previous games let you customize the academy

Sounds good man. I think for my purposes I can enjoy the game with just the digital starter pack. Like I said we are focusing on Disney Infinity and I have 46 figures and all the playsets for that game. So I cannot afford to fund two toys-to-life games, but really enjoy Skylanders gameplay and the racing looks awesome.

^Awesome, have fun then!