darkSpyro

Quote: Bifrost

Wow I don't get the point of Mirror Cup at all. Change some branches,change the sides of a gimmick's power, that's it?

It's exactly how MK has it's mirror cup. Just flip the course around.

The course doesn't flip here though. It's just a few pieces, sometimes nothing at all. Mystic Vault looks nearly the same.

So I just finished the game and wanted to give my opinions on it.

Story: The story was by far the best this year. It was dramatic, it was exciting & it was enjoyable. It had its good humor and the NPCs all had a their own personality. It also had an ultimately evil villian and Kaos was less annoying then before. Though after Monstrous Isles it was mostly stretched out. Saving Glumshanks and saving Mags were short chapters, but it didn't had anything to do with the story. The Boss Fights were both good and the Darkness did kill of three of my best Superchargers (finally Hex, once again, saved the world).

Gameplay: The gameplay was very good. I like that each chapter has a personality, an own atmosphere and it's own ideas, they really gave the chapters a heart and a soul. Some chapters even changed the gameplay in general (overpowered, different perspective, scary bunnys *shudders* etc.). The chapters weren't too long and collectables were easier to find as you can just jump to a part of the chapter. As for the falling method, well, I have twisted feelings about that. At first, I thought it was nice, as it felt more realistic, but it became so annoying in the last two chapters (most of my Skylanders died just because of that).

Characters: It has some good characters (Splat, Nightfal & Smash Hit... yes, that's all). As said, it doesn't have enough amazing characters like Trap Team or Swap Force. But, just like Swap Force, every character has something likeable about them. I also noticed that it's smarter to use quick characters than strong ones. The roster is okay but not great, it has it's jewels and... rocks.

Overall, it isn't the best Skylanders game but it isn't the worst either. Actually, it's my third favorite, so it's exactly in the middle. I really hated it when it was revealed, but after 5 months I finally learned to respect and love it.

You never play Mario Kart Bifrost? That's how it's like there, except it's usually more difficult that 150cc.

Quote: Bionichute

You never play Mario Kart Bifrost? That's how it's like there, except it's usually more difficult that 150cc.

Haven't played in some time and never touched 8(gotta have priorities, namely Bayonetta 2 and Nightfall, for the console :U), just let's plays of 200cc, but I assumed it was literally the entire map flipped.

Thanks to PortalpowerTV, I have seen what Dino-Rang looks like!



It's not the best image but he looks pretty cool!

I thought the Boss Pursuits would be a bit harder. They probably should have made it if your vehicle gets nuked you should have to start it again.

So, I was reading the guide and I think I found something... We all kind of knew it was coming, but it pretty much confirms Double Dare will be in the Land Pack.

His SuperCharger challenge uses The After Party. Gill Grunt's uses The Golden Temple. Astroblast's uses The Clock Rock. Those tracks are all unlocked by Trophies, and all the other SuperCharger challenges use the default tracks.

Quote: Spellslamzer75

So, I was reading the guide and I think I found something... We all kind of knew it was coming, but it pretty much confirms Double Dare will be in the Land Pack.

His SuperCharger challenge uses The After Party. Gill Grunt's uses The Golden Temple. Astroblast's uses The Clock Rock. Those tracks are all unlocked by Trophies, and all the other SuperCharger challenges use the default tracks.

Nooooo--I already called that a while ago because he's the only one with a Land vehicle that hasn't been shown with a single or combo pack.
I still think it fits nothing to the theme,at least Astroblast fit space and Gills gets a golden sub when Supercharged. Moneybone's probably living under a bridge after his fortune and reputation got blown sky high,unless Kaos paid him to keep the prisioners.

Ooooh, so we have yet another dumb marketing choice.
It's fascinating how they got almost everything wrong, in terms of toys and collectables.

Well... I guess I will have to buy that Trophy on eBay as well... Thanks marketing guy.
This Portal Master won't give you his money for yet another Trigger Happy.

kNEW IT! If he WASN'T in the land pack I would be surprised. But he is.

Nope. They count as new characters since they play differently; they just have the same name is all.

Gameplay wise new characters, but considering how good some movesets are,c'mon,they could've been given to someone else. Considering their sucess it's not going away anytime soon, but even if I was given the choice of a Hex gimmick-repose and a new spooky character,I'd choose the latter.

Looks like this is our exclusive dark trailer that was said to be posted last month.

Amazing, a whole month late. But considering it straight up puts the Darkness' face in it,no wonder.

Quote: TrapShadowFan

Nope. They count as new characters since they play differently; they just have the same name is all.

And same character model under the new outfits.
And same personality.
And same backstory.

I'm happy a lot of you can look at Lava Lance Eruptor and honestly tell themselves "I'm looking at something brand new".
Unfortunately I can't.

Amazing trailer! Some could probably confuse it for a high-quality movie trailer!

Quote: TrapShadowFan

Amazing trailer! Some could probably confuse it for a high-quality movie trailer!

Maybe, but I doubt it. While it IS high quality the graphics look nothing like an animated movie, like Dreamworks or Pixar.

But seriously, I'd love to see a Skylanders movie! I'm guessing the animation would look like these beauties! This is how I picture how Skylands TRULY looks.

Quote: TrapShadowFan

Amazing trailer! Some could probably confuse it for a high-quality movie trailer!

That's what cinematic trailers are for :U

But seriously, it hugely spoilers the game, especially since they don't even try to hide hallucination Glumshanks or The Darkness' regular form. The editing however is fantastic,would totally show this to someone just getting into the franchise.

I BEG that they make a Skylanders movie! I would be filled with amazing emotions. PLEAAAAASEEEE

Quote: Buuzer

Am I the only one who consider the """reposes""" as new characters?

I consider the SuperCharged reposes new characters even though I don't want to.

Huh, there wasn't one with the black hole decoration, so thought the Vault wasn't any different.

Quote: Drek95

Quote: TrapShadowFan

Nope. They count as new characters since they play differently; they just have the same name is all.

And same character model under the new outfits.
And same personality.
And same backstory.

I'm happy a lot of you can look at Lava Lance Eruptor and honestly tell themselves "I'm looking at something brand new".
Unfortunately I can't.

I don't think people are seeing them as " brand new " . It's more of a second option.

But Let's face it , character personalities, looks and back stories are barely incorporated into the games at all. They practically only make up 10 % of an actual characters design. We'd all like them to be more involved, but they're not. Functional aspects like different stats and upgrades are wat really defines a character in these games . Which these reposes actually have.

There's only soo many unique functional character designs you can make without infringing too much on others.

Do you really want skylanders to end up like Pokemon where a lot of their new Pokemon are almost exactly the same functionally as old ones but just have a different skins/ bio's ?

The way skylanders is doing it is much better. Giving you an functionnally different charscter that still have Similarities with the original ( e.g. gill grunt and deep dive gill grunts water jet backpack ) without trying to trick you into calling it something completely different.

Sure they're trying to trick you into buying the reposes, but it probably a lot to do with trying to convince people this year that reposes are actually worth it this time .

I forgot to say "and same catchphrase", however.

Devs do count them as brand new (they say it everywhere) to the point they even gave them new Soul Gems and replaced potentially new faces with them and that is unacceptable to me.

Well of course you already have characters which act in a similar way than others but in this case they act in the exact same way.
I don't agree, to me personality and backstories do count as much as looks (don't understand how you can say that is not important... I would have never got sucked into this series if all the characters were bland lookalikes) and overall are what makes a certain character what he/she is.

And we already have similar designs (think about Stealth Elf and Flameslinger, or Doom Stone and Rubble Rouser) but personalities in that case are exactly what makes them unique, character-wise.
Powers still play the biggest part gameplay-wise, of course.

As I already said that would mean running out of good ideas, because as Bifrost likes to remember us, and I thank her for that, you can't effectively run out of ideas, just good ones, and wouldn't absolutely be a good sign for the franchise.
I'd rather prefer them to stop than keep coming up with new skins for old characters (or I would simply buy the Starter Pack and no Skylanders if the games keep up with the quality).
Not to mention Pokémons' looks and personalities come in play only when fighting and so do their powers... It's not a fair comparison in my opinion.
They were just sprites until a couple games ago.

They could have created another gillman and another forest elf with different features and I wouldn't have said nothing.
It's the fact they gave us those overused characters once again which really bothers me.
That means "lazyness" in my book.

Reposes will never be worth to me simply because I have to make decisions.
Even if they make a Gill Grunt so awesome, so fun to play as and so cool look-wise I absolutely want to get him... I would still not buy him because I already own his first version and my money would go to something new which wouldn't look like a copy-paste with some new features among my collection.
There are people who buy every single character out (revamps, Minis, variants, chase variants, Lightcores, even exclusives, employeers' variants, factory errors)... I couldn't and luckily don't want to.
New characters is what I want and unfortunately SuperChargers only comes with 10 of them.

Better luck next year, I hope.

Quote: Drek95

I forgot to say "and same catchphrase", however.

Devs do count them as brand new (they say it everywhere) to the point they even gave them new Soul Gems and replaced potentially new faces with them and that is unacceptable to me.

Well of course you already have characters which act in a similar way than others but in this case they act in the exact same way.
I don't agree, to me personality and backstories do count as much as looks (don't understand how you can say that is not important... I would have never got sucked into this series if all the characters were bland lookalikes) and overall are what makes a certain character what he/she is.

And we already have similar designs (think about Stealth Elf and Flameslinger, or Doom Stone and Rubble Rouser) but personalities in that case are exactly what makes them unique, character-wise.
Powers still play the biggest part gameplay-wise, of course.

As I already said that would mean running out of good ideas, because as Bifrost likes to remember us, and I thank her for that, you can't effectively run out of ideas, just good ones, and wouldn't absolutely be a good sign for the franchise.
I'd rather prefer them to stop than keep coming up with new skins for old characters (or I would simply buy the Starter Pack and no Skylanders if the games keep up with the quality).
Not to mention Pokémons' looks and personalities come in play only when fighting and so do their powers... It's not a fair comparison in my opinion.
They were just sprites until a couple games ago.

They could have created another gillman and another forest elf with different features and I wouldn't have said nothing.
It's the fact they gave us those overused characters once again which really bothers me.
That means "lazyness" in my book.

Reposes will never be worth to me simply because I have to make decisions.
Even if they make a Gill Grunt so awesome, so fun to play as and so cool look-wise I absolutely want to get him... I would still not buy him because I already own his first version and my money would go to something new which wouldn't look like a copy-paste with some new features among my collection.
There are people who buy every single character out (revamps, Minis, variants, chase variants, Lightcores, even exclusives, employeers' variants, factory errors)... I couldn't and luckily don't want to.
New characters is what I want and unfortunately SuperChargers only comes with 10 of them.

Better luck next year, I hope.

*12
The guest stars have new movesets and have never been in a Skylanders game before.

Ok, this stopped being about spoiler discussion long ago. Unless you think the toy movesets are spoilers which is greatly questionable.

Here's a discussion that'd be interesting - just what in the world is The Darkness' dimension?
You take several glimpses into it in the boss battle,and it's just a giant purple void with nothing to be seen. Even The Darkness himself doesn't fit it at all,since the book pages and his semi-complete form don't even match in color or textures,since he's dark-purple smoke and rock. It's also described as a 'forbidden place', so someone knew about it before.

I thought that the boss fight took place in a portal, since it looks exactly like the one at the beginning.

Most of it,but the racing track section and the final hit show the other side of that rift since it's where you're supposed to be pushing The Darkness into.

Speaking of racing tracks,found The After Party bigger preview on iTunes. All the violin.

Quote: Bifrost

Here's a discussion that'd be interesting - just what in the world is The Darkness' dimension?You take several glimpses into it in the boss battle,and it's just a giant purple void with nothing to be seen. Even The Darkness himself doesn't fit it at all,since the book pages and his semi-complete form don't even match in color or textures,since he's dark-purple smoke and rock. It's also described as a 'forbidden place', so someone knew about it before.

Hmm...actually i thought about the same thing with The Darkness. Well someone told me he could be from some "certain dimension"...but i don't think so.

I thought that it'd be something like the Old Ones, out there in another dimensions Until The Stars Are Right or something, but the weird thing is that the dimension just seems vacant. If it was really his place he'd probably have altered it to his wishes,unless his wishes were just turning it into a void, but then he wasn't done destroying the chemicals making it purple.

Maybe the Darkness, used to be some sort "harmless force" that later it got corrupted, so they seal them in a dimension after all The Darkness true origin is still a mystery.

Quote: KeybasHedKey

Maybe the Darkness, used to be some sort "harmless force" that later it got corrupted, so they seal them in a dimension after all The Darkness true origin is still a mystery.

It seems like I remember hearing or reading The Darkness's backstory that was similar to that. Or maybe I have no idea what I was thinking about.

All backstories are 'it's speculated the Ancients unleashed or created it by experimenting with Magic' and now we know it's the former with the latter being help from Spell Punks.

My personal headcanon is that The Darkness exists in a pocket dimension similar to Skylands, where every universe connects to, but instead of an actual world, it's just a void where all evil acts and thoughts go to, and The Darkness is formed from them, but he also influences those effects on other dimensions as well, creating all evil and villainous acts everywhere, in a kind of weird cycle of feeding.

Quote: Buuzer

Am I the only one who consider the """reposes""" as new characters?

They're not even called reposes that's the thing, they're called returning characters.

Just finished the game yesterday, amazing
ALso am I the only one who thought the kaos fight was WAY too easy?
I mean its on medium but come on, at least have the power to take out 2-3 Skylanders
Or does it proove that ddgg is op, I think not

Quote: Dark Snap Shot

Just finished the game yesterday, amazing
ALso am I the only one who thought the kaos fight was WAY too easy?
I mean its on medium but come on, at least have the power to take out 2-3 Skylanders
Or does it proove that ddgg is op, I think not

I agree, was on Medium as well and was definitely a walk in the park.
Used my maxed out Trigger Happy (official Final Boss destroyer) and rarelly got hit.

Might have been a simple task to prepare you for the real big battle... But I didn't find that difficult either.
It might become a nightmare on... Nightmare, but... Was expecting a lot more both in terms of gameplay and difficulty.
Awesome theme, though.

Quote: Drek95

Quote: Dark Snap Shot

Just finished the game yesterday, amazing
ALso am I the only one who thought the kaos fight was WAY too easy?
I mean its on medium but come on, at least have the power to take out 2-3 Skylanders
Or does it proove that ddgg is op, I think not

I agree, was on Medium as well and was definitely a walk in the park.
Used my maxed out Trigger Happy (official Final Boss destroyer) and rarelly got hit.

Might have been a simple task to prepare you for the real big battle... But I didn't find that difficult either.
It might become a nightmare on... Nightmare, but... Was expecting a lot more both in terms of gameplay and difficulty.
Awesome theme, though.

I got Kaos down to about 1/3 health with a level one Krypt King on Nightmare, and probably could have defeated him if I hadn't messed up my timing for a couple of jumps. (It was taking forever though, so I don't advise it)

I think the thing with Kaos is that it's very easy to dodge his attacks, and the attack patterns don't seem to change with the increase in difficulty. I really like the Kaos battle - I'm not great at dodging (Sky section of spell punk library is oh so frustrating) but had a lot of fun the first time I battled him (on Difficult), probably because it the attacks were so easy to read. But you'd think Nightmare mode would have a bit more to dodge, or have the hazards move a bit faster... I couldn't tell the difference from Difficult mode.

(The battle with the Darkness is a way different story, though!)

Kaos is supposed to be a fake final boss,usually those are pushovers even in hard games. That said, his dodging windows are way too fair; the only attack that ever gave me any trouble are the spiky blocks coming from the center and even then he has huge blind spots. If they sped up the frames just a bit it'd definately be a challenge without being frustrating.

I'm not done with the game yet, I progress very slowly. I play co op with my brother or my girl friend but only when they are ready. I just wish they brought back pvp...

Wow, I forgot this topic existed. I ended up just going to General for anything.

Quote: Bifrost

Wow, I forgot this topic existed. I ended up just going to General for anything.

Me to, lol.

Hmm... Replaying SSA today, I never noticed that Arbo's introduction has him say that he remembers the Core of Light being rebuilt before. It could just be the sentences before having a coincidental order, but unless he's talking about the very first time the Core was built, maybe Hugo isn't so right that it can't possibly be rebuilt this time around? Sure, there's no need, but a lot else could be done with a light beam cannon around.

(also because the bottom half of it is still very much in place, if a bit singed)

More findings while rereading stuff, from Kaos' last story scroll in SC(which is why it's here and not general) :

Quote:

Okay, it's been seven hours and fifteen days since I fired Glumshanks and I still regret NOTHING!

How in the WORLD did the game take over 15 days?! The Sky Eater doesn't even move that slow if it sneak up on the Academy!

Well... You never know when The Darkness might return.
After all, if I remember correctly, he was simply sent back to his own dimension (at least I think comics imply it).
Sorry, would like to have a better memory but University has required a lot of free space in my brain, lately.

I'm strongly convinced that the Core of Light can be rebuilt (didn't remember that Arbo line, though) but only if its components are intact.
We've all seen Glumshanks being somehow teleported to somewhere else when sucked inside the Sky Eater's vortex but I'm still not sure if that was a Kaos' idea or if it's simply what it normally does; chances are the Core of Light's parts are safe and sound if that's the case.

I sincerely wouldn't mind some extra tasks to retrieve those parts and rebuilt the Core of Light, in the next game: they could work as some kind of articulated Heroics and could grant stats boosts.
Really curious to see the next hub, since another version of the Academy would be quite redundant at this point.

He was sealed away in his dimension,and the Dark Rift Engine went with its own rift. Unless someone reverse engineered that he ain't coming back.

Considering the show, we'll probably get the Academy again - but Battlecast has a new branch in another dimension for it,maybe we'll get one of those. Say, one that's an actual airship, or in some faraway region for special training.

Quote: Bifrost

He was sealed away in his dimension,and the Dark Rift Engine went with its own rift. Unless someone reverse engineered that he ain't coming back.

Considering the show, we'll probably get the Academy again - but Battlecast has a new branch in another dimension for it,maybe we'll get one of those. Say, one that's an actual airship, or in some faraway region for special training.

Is Battlecast canon or does it take place in an alt reality?

Quote: Bifrost

Quote:

Okay, it's been seven hours and fifteen days since I fired Glumshanks and I still regret NOTHING!

How in the WORLD did the game take over 15 days?! The Sky Eater doesn't even move that slow if it sneak up on the Academy!

Yeah, that sky eater must get terrible gas milage or something.

I mean, I guess the academy was moving or something (because it was strapped to sharp fin's ship, right?), but even then, why in the world couldn't Kaos/the Darkness ruin some other islands that are important in that amount of time?

Mmmmh... The mere fact such a powerful and destructive enemy were simply defeated and not destroyed makes me think some villain might end up finding a way to bring him back, maybe at the cost of his physic form.

I think both Kaos and The Darkness were too busy enojying destruction and slavery to rush to the Academy: classical villain understimation of his enemies.

Battlecast introduces new dimensions?
Wow, I must take a look at its lore then!
Sounds like it adds a lot to what we alread know.
Sincerely hoping for a giant fully explorable island as the next hub, as unique and full of little secrets as the Ruins were.

Even better, they could attach the Academy to the Ruins and remake them with the "long time has passed" excuse.