darkSpyro

I think this is the worst game for MANY reasons.

• No memorable skylanders.
  
• No memorable NPCs except Tessa
  
• Story was OK
  
• Boring Post-game content
  
• Rufus
  
• NO PVP?!?
  
• Enchanted varient line stayed exclusive to this game.
  
• Gave you no reason to buy swappers.
  

Anyone agree?

It had PVP.

While I agree and think that it's the worst in the series, I must disagree with some of your points.

• Memorable Skylanders is my biggest complaint, as I definitely feel there are a lot of them, especially when taken in comparison to Trap Team.
  
• The post game content I 100% agree with, it's super annoying and just a grind to participate in Survival Mode when trying to get 100%, and the Bonus Missions are fun... Once.
  
• Ew Rufus
  
• It actually did have PVP, albeit with much worse arenas than the first two games
  
• As for Enchanted, what Drawdler said
  
• The only gimmick with a reason behind them, and a very cool gimmick at that.
  

Quote: Drawdler

SF is my favorite game in the series and here are my responses to all your points.

• STRONGLY disagree. Zoo Lou, Wind-Up, Smolderdash, Scratch, Dune Bug, Freeze Blade and Fire Kraken are some of my favorites, just scratching the surface. Really the only one I dislike is Star Strike because she's dreadfully overrated and one-note and I infallibly forget Doom Stone exists whenever I try to remember the list of Skylanders.
  
• > then you mention Rufus later (though real response here, these are definitely the flattest NPCs in the series, but I think there are more memorable ones than Tessa. The word you're looking for is probably likeable.)
  
• But yeah the story is bad, even though I personally enjoy it. Still better than Imaginators story tho fo sho.
  
• STRONGLY disagree. Survival alone is more compelling to me than the rest of the series' postgame except MAYBE Imaginators.
  
• Awfully specific, but okay.
  
• Outright wrong.
  
• That should be a point for this game if you like those variants.
  
• Nope. Personally I liked the SWAP Zones as an extra (and those unlock collectables, so that's objectively a reason to buy them, even if it isn't compelling to you) and you get at least one dual-element gate per level. Plus, y'know, they're new characters. And it's better to have gimmicklanders you don't have to buy than really forced gimmicklander usage like TT.

I don't mean to criticise your taste but I feel like you didn't think much about this list before posting it.

I don't mind that criticisim. Also, just to throw this out there, I love SF, but there are just so many points that make it the worst game in the series.

• Then if those characters are so great and memorable, why don't they have a repose?
  
• People remember Tessa because she is in later games, and she's also very awesome. People remember Rufus because they hate him.
  
• Petrified evil? How come it was just sitting there and NO-ONE found it, until Kaos did?
  
• I feel like TT has a better post-game though, due to Kaos Doom Challenges and villain quests.
  
• Yes. Very specific.
  
• I checked, and yeah, it does have PVP, but very poor PVP, compared to previous installments.
  
• But it would have been way cooler to get something like "Enchanted Enigma" or "Enchanted Nightfall" or- well, you get the point.
  
• But at least you have a reason to get gimmick-skylanders in Giants and Trap Team. You only need Swappers if you don't have a second controller or unless you want to 100% the game.
  

It's pretty known I dislike SF a ****ton and after SC I only despise it more, but c'mon, there are better arguments than that.

1-Because TT and after phased out reposes, duh.
2-Tessa has very little in character but has fun lines, she's memorable. Avril has a lot in character,she's likeable. There's a difference.
3-Because every game pulls new plot out of a hat. SF is no different than any other one, including books and comics.
4-Which are two-three hours at the most(except on Nightmare), while SF had hours and hours of content.
6-Very poor PVP? It's the exact same game, they just took out the other modes that no one else plays anyway.
7-You know it's not a real argument against this game or any other one. Variants are whatever the devs want or what Acti demands.
8-There is *no* reason to get gimmicks in TT unless you want the hats. The gates are extremely small and sometimes just 3 seconds to grab collectible and leave. Swappers unlocked bonuses and had minigames which kept you going for a while, as out of place as some of them looked.

Quote: Bifrost

It's pretty known I dislike SF a ****ton and after SC I only despise it more, but c'mon, there are better arguments than that.

1-Because TT and after phased out reposes, duh.
2-Tessa has very little in character but has fun lines, she's memorable. Avril has a lot in character,she's likeable. There's a difference.
3-Because every game pulls new plot out of a hat. SF is no different than any other one, including books and comics.
4-Which are two-three hours at the most(except on Nightmare), while SF had hours and hours of content.
6-Very poor PVP? It's the exact same game, they just took out the other modes that no one else plays anyway.
7-You know it's not a real argument against this game or any other one. Variants are whatever the devs want or what Acti demands.
8-There is *no* reason to get gimmicks in TT unless you want the hats. The gates are extremely small and sometimes just 3 seconds to grab collectible and leave. Swappers unlocked bonuses and had minigames which kept you going for a while, as out of place as some of them looked.

1-But during TT they could have reposed some SF characters instead of adding in new ones, the only SF character I can think of of the top of me head that got a TT repose is Fryno.
2-Avril doesn't appear until later in the game, and after that she doesn't have much of an importance.
3-The plot has way more plot-holes than the other games! (can't say that about SC or I yet)
4-(you skipped 5 ) Those modes were amazing though and they added so many highlights that made the PVP experience better.
5-I admit, this was just me ranting, hoping that a dev on here would see that.
6-But you can't 3-star the first level of TT without getting hyped to buy more! And the first levels are easy to 3-star! In SF, you had to just get a second controller, rendering the swappers useless, except for swap zones, which in my eyes, were probably the best part of the game. But you don't have as much reason to buy a swapper as you do a trap master!

But, these are your opinions, and I'm not gonna bash you on them. But it's good to see someone that doesn't overrate SF.

5 didn't need an answer :U

1-Could've isn't should've. They had only 3 reposes anyway, the rest were minis and those half were already around by Giants.
2-Late character doesn't mean they can't make an impression.
3-I'm talking about that one point, I'm the first to say SF has the most half-baked story+writing but "new source of evil power" is news to no game.
6-I have this thing called self control. TT's been at 40%ish in every save because I won't buy characters I don't want. SF being easy to 100% means I'd do it, but if I have to spend unnecessary money, I won't. Same for Imaginators, where I'm not buying any Senseis for realms even if I like them - I'll at the most borrow from a friend. However, because the Realms are more than 30 seconds of gameplay on average, I do feel more encouraged than TT's gates.

Quote: Bifrost

5 didn't need an answer :U

1-Could've isn't should've. They had only 3 reposes anyway, the rest were minis and those half were already around by Giants.
2-Late character doesn't mean they can't make an impression.
3-I'm talking about that one point, I'm the first to say SF has the most half-baked story+writing but "new source of evil power" is news to no game.
6-I have this thing called self control. TT's been at 40%ish in every save because I won't buy characters I don't want. SF being easy to 100% means I'd do it, but if I have to spend unnecessary money, I won't. Same for Imaginators, where I'm not buying any Senseis for realms even if I like them - I'll at the most borrow from a friend. However, because the Realms are more than 30 seconds of gameplay on average, I do feel more encouraged than TT's gates.

Oh.

1-But instead of pointless, forgotten characters, they could've reposed some of the forgotten skylanders like sunburn or fright rider or heck, even scratch! We didn't need minis as they're weak , pointless and stupid.
2-They can make an impression, but she had no appearance other than that ONE level and in the hub, begging you to play her minigames.
3-Petrified evil was just sitting there for YEARS and Kaos was the only one to come across it?
6-Can't argue with you there, I have similar logic. My logic is, buy the ones you REALLY want when they are full price, and when stores/amazon drops the price down to like, $6, then buy the ones you don't really want all that much, for collecting purposes. But yeah, Acti has poor business strategies.

Quote: TrapGiant

I think this is the worst game for MANY reasons.

• No memorable skylanders.
  
• No memorable NPCs except Tessa
  
• Story was OK
  
• Boring Post-game content
  
• Rufus
  
• NO PVP?!?
  
• Enchanted varient line stayed exclusive to this game.
  
• Gave you no reason to buy swappers.
  

Anyone agree?

This game is one of my favourites...Sure it's not perfect , but better than the games that came after it.

This game had memorable skylanders...Here are a few Riptide , Roller Brawl , Fryno , Wash Buckler , Spy Rise , Wind up , Smolder Dash and More....Heck you can even check out fan art the skylanders from swap force and the Villans from trap team had the most fan art which indicates that they are loved by people.

Because there weren't many main NPCS , But still rufus ( I hate him though ) , Sharp fin , Tessa ( as you mentioned) , Von Shell Shock , Kaos's Mom , The Sheep Mage , Captin Cluck , Avril and The Chieftess are all memorable. ( I may not suppose to count the Villans , but I felt like mentioning them because they are quite popular)

It might be boring in your opinion , but many people seemed to enjoy it.

Discontinuing the line is most likely a descion that activison makes.

Unlike other gimmick landers swap force characters actually had mini games which increase Post gameplay so I don't see the reason behind your complaining .

I respect your opinion , but I also dissagree it seems like you hate swap force and your assuming that most people hate it too.

I also have to disagree that this one is not the worst. Especially on the points of memoriable characters and post-game. There was tons that kept me coming back to replay. Bonus missions, swap zones, etc. I look forward to trying to get 100 percent on this game someday now that the franchise is probably dead.

Rubble Rouser, Boom Jet, Smolderdash, Wash Buckler, Punk Shock, Star Strike, Spy Rise, Wind Up, Bumble Blast, Night Shift, and Grim Creeper.

I'd be more inclined to say this is the best game, or maybe second best behind Imaginators. Basically I agree with everything Drawdler said.

I do actually agree. I could never get behind this one. It had REALLY good characters - that wasn't its problem. I just felt like the story was a bit boring. I felt like the stakes weren't as high as they were in the others. I applaud it for having a great roster, PVP, bonus missions and great AP levels, but I feel like after you beat the game and bonus missions, there wasn't much you could do. It wasn't a game you could pick up and play. The levels were so long that you really had to sit down for about an hour or two if you want to play a few. It was alright and I did enjoy it, but it just wasn't as good as the others for me.

Nowadays the bonus missions are actually the most content in a game we got except HCs(which depend on your collection). Swap Zones also had ratings, while other games straight up encourage you to ignore the gimmick gates to get more stars after the first run.

I think bonus areas were better than heroic challenges because you didn't need to buy every character to play them all. People often complain about the paywalls in the later games but the heroic challenges locked a larger amount of content behind a bigger paywall than any of the future games did. Like, I'd say you're missing out on way more worthwhile content by not buying all 30 skylanders in SSA than you are by not buying 10 Trap Masters in Trap Team, yet Trap Team gets ragged on more often about its paywalls.

I guess, now that I think about it, it's because heroic challenges are more "hidden". You don't see the ones you don't have so you don't feel as much like you're missing out. Whereas the Swap Zones and Traptanium Gates and Sensei Realms are all very much in-your-face (and you'll notice that the vehicle elemental challenges were originally more hidden in Superchargers until they patched in gates into all the levels, again making them more in-your-face).

HCs are also short and the same 4 level layouts over and over. Traptanium Gates are all these cool looking new areas, even if some are laughably short, so while you only need a few SSA guys to see the level editor dungeons, you need all 10 to get a good look at places like the Know It All Island life gate in all of its callback glory.

Heroic challenges had a payback, though. I was obsessed with boosting stats to prepare for my next PVP encounter.

Otherwise, yeah, I guess you guys are right. Some of the chapters were a bit long and I can't stand some of the NPC's.

I'm going to play through it again, but right now I just think it's not as good as the others.

But if I was ordering the games just by roster and nothing else, Swap Force would be the second best, right after Imaginators. It had so many great characters, like Spy Rise, Magna Charge, Wind-Up, Zoo Lou, Stink Bomb, Trap Shadow and many more.

Soundtrack is good but horribly misused. I'll give them **** for putting Iron Jaw Gulch on a 30 second sequence in the following level until the end of time; thank Eon they actually left the soundtrack themes where they should be in Superchargers and toned down the boring remixes(a bit).

To this day I don't know where Pull Your Strings is supposed to be on this game.

That said, I think Swap Force looks pretty good. Might be bias because it's the cheapest of the franchise over here, but I think it seems fun.

Pull Your Strings is in a cutscene. Actual boss battle? Instrumental version with half the instruments.

Quote: Bifrost

Pull Your Strings is in a cutscene. Actual boss battle? Instrumental version with half the instruments.

But which boss?

Quote: Blue Gaudreau

Everything wrong with Swap Force
1. Boring Story
2. Forgettable NPCS with the exception of Tessa and Kaos' Mom
3. All levels felt the same they felt like they were retextured
4. You couldn't attack while jumping
5. Old Skylanders didn't fit in with the environment
6. PvP was missing Skygoals and Skygem Master
7. Heroic Challenges removed for some mediocre bonus levels
8. Swap Zones added nothing to the game
9. Bad boss fights (Kaos' Mom and Kaos and Evil Glumshanks)
10. Horrible redesigns of enemies (Chompies and Spell Punks)
11. Nerfing oh my goodness was it HORRIBLE here, a lot of good Characters like chop chop were now pushovers, the worst one to get nerfed was Wham Shell.
12. Too Long
There is no way I'll ever play this game again it's the worst Skylanders game to come out of the Modern age.
Trap Team was an improvement over this despite it being bad there are things I like from this game

1. Soundtrack to be honest it's weak at points but it's better than Imaginators
2. The New Skylanders they were awesome looking and fun to use, mostly in trap team
I'm giving swap force a 2/10.

Basically this.

Quote: Crash10

Quote: Bifrost

Pull Your Strings is in a cutscene. Actual boss battle? Instrumental version with half the instruments.

But which boss?

Mesmerelda

Did you really forget?

Quote: King-Pen Krazy

Quote: Crash10

Quote: Bifrost

Pull Your Strings is in a cutscene. Actual boss battle? Instrumental version with half the instruments.

But which boss?

Mesmerelda

Did you really forget?

I never played it. I thought Mesmeralda used another song, not Pull Your Strings.

SF is the best in the series, actually.

New rule: You can’t say “PvP was worse” and then prop TT and SI over SF. Those games had NO form of PvP.

PvP was never good technically with the bar balancing and glitches, it was just fun. It doesn't make the game as a whole better or worse

As far as “no rememberable skylanders” goes: Yes and no.

The Corelanders are more rememberable in Swap Force then the ones from Trap Team (exempting the light and dark dragons as they were the only option). I can hardly name one from Trap Team (if I erased my brain hard I could, but it’s difficult). But they had about as much game value as any one else, plus you could do pvp with them, and there was significant enough content to use them plentifully if you beat the campaign.

But there also lies the problem and why too many fans have fallen into the “trap”. Swap Force gave you plenty of value to your old characters so if you didn’t want to snag the new corelanders, you weren’t missing anything (compared to Giants where every new figure have you a unique challenge level). If you wanted to skip them you definitely could. But with the depth of content, lots of fans still went out and snagged these characters eventually to try them. If you didn’t like the game and spent little time in it, you won’t remember them.

The swappers, by design, are going to be forgotten. Do you remember the Skylander “Ice Axe”? No?!? Because that is the skylander on my nephews Crystal. The swappers get blurred as they were designed to be interchangeable, and if you indulged in this gimmick, you aren’t going to remember them as individuals. You only grabbed the legs you needed to go through the special ops zones and not the entire character. This has them loosing their identity. The folks who remember the swappers tended to be the people who shunned the gimmick and just played these fun new characters. This also is the case for folks who played 2 player often versus the one player only folks. You had to swap to get into those zones. With a 2nd player, you didn’t need to.

Now we back to Trap Team. Trappers forced you to use them not only because elemental zones had to be opened by them, but they were just markedly more powerful then anyone else. This forced you to use the new figures, shunning your old ones, and sidelining any new corelanders. Add in the fact you had a plethora of Villians to try out, and the corelanders got lost in the shuffle.

Again, you fell into the “trap” that caused others to resent Trap Team. The writing was on the wall that content, reusability, and minimal purchasing was not something even many fans respected. VV tried AGAIN to make a game where minimal new purchases was possible to enjoy the majority of the game (you buy the air and water racing packs and 95% of the game is at your disposal.....that’s crazy), but there were too many factors going against them (some self inflicted, most not)

I’m out of time and would love to add more lol. Need less to say, not remembering Skylanders is the small price you pay for getting game that doesn’t force you to buy many new toys to play most of it.

Don't blame TT for something that's been complained about before that game was out. SF characters have no variation in their silhouette, and their figures are extremely plain at times compared to SC and other games' much more detailed looks, and unless you like the concept, a lot of them have boring upgrade trees because half of it is "more damage". TT has crazy moves after crazy moves, characters that go from smol dinos to towering knights - but that also applies to SI, SG, SSA, SC(partially, one or two superchargers fall on the same issue as SF).

Like, so many years after, I still frequently forget that Rubble Rouser exists. Because Crusher, Wallop, Tri-Tip, Drill Sarge AND Smash Hit have all done a better job at standing out through shapes, voices or moveset. Yeah, if the character speaks to you he'll stick, but for everyone else? You'd have to pay me to get him.

Swap Force is the largest game in the series by far.

Biggest levels
Most replayability
Fun characters
Great gimmick
It had PVP
Most effort as in terms of content

And many more. Superchargers is still my favourite : P

I’m not blaming Trap Team for Swap Skylanders bland figures. That has far more to do with the gimmick limiting what they could be posed as. Smash hit can’t exactly be a pose for a swapper. Otherwise one character would have two bases and the other none. They had to build them all like two square boxes. Every limb or tail or weapon violating the other box means nothing on any of figures other half can share that space. You’re crossing bullet points from above a bit. I specially said it’s the gimmicklanders that were problematic and unremarkable. And I did mean to include this point but was rushed to posting (lunch break needed to end). But this was only part of actual problem.

The solution became “Make everyone use the gimmick” since, as I showcased, you rarely needed to utilize the swappers during gameplay anyhow. And with them not being markedly better, people stuck with the old or used the better looking core figures. They went back to huge gawky figures since Giants were popular, forced you to buy 10 if you wanted a good chunk of game (which is still wanting) and made the game all about the gimmick.

Thus, the Corelanders were more rememberable from Swap Force for all the reasons explained, and the “made you use them” Trap Masters seem the most rememberable partly due to absolute inclusion. If you could skip them more often, the gap wouldn’t be as large. I’d have left the Dark and Light Trapmasters alone if I could. But I couldn’t. Had to use them to get into elemental gates. Now they are more engrained then those Swappers who I didn’t have to use, or only used the ass of for special stages.

Quote: TrapGiant

I think this is the worst game for MANY reasons.

• No memorable skylanders.

Without naming remakes, I can't tell you who or what was in Superchargers barring a few (I'll always remember Astroblast because of his catchphrase "blast it out your astro"). I definitely can't name any characters from Trap Team off the top of my head (not even my favourite Trap Master, and the one that comes in the box, Snap Shot), and I'd struggle to tell you which new cores were in Giants because I don't have the poster for the character roster. I could however look at a character in SWAP Force and after a short while remember their name, core or SWAPper. Same with Spyro's Adventure or Imaginators.

Quote: TrapGiant

• No memorable NPCs except Tessa

I liked Sharpfin but I felt his motivation was all over the place - was he the "honour amongst thieves" type or did he have an ulterior motive? This seemed to change with every cutscene. Flynn was Flynn, Rufus was the bumbling do-gooder, the Chieftess was the batty old lady and that's really about it. This isn't all that different to Spyro's Adventure where every NPC barring Cali and Flynn had the exact same goals - nobody was selfish, nobody was doing it because they felt either Kaos or the Darkness was more powerful than the other, they all did it because "it's a bad thing, end of". As for Giants, I only wish I could forget the NPCs. Except the pirate wolf, he's cool. "BUT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ME YEAR!" Cardbeard or something.

Quote: TrapGiant

• Story was OK

If we both agree that "OK" is worse than horrendous or glorious (because either one of those has talking points and we can have fun hating/loving it), then yes, I'm with you on this one. All of the Elder Elementals survived and just sat in Woodburrow, which never came under siege apart from in the first act which did not make me feel like the location was threatened because we didn't know that was the hub in the first place. As cool as Kaossandra is, and as awesome as she felt when she was on screen, that immediately vanished when the gameplay happened. Her boss fight was immense though!

Quote: TrapGiant

• Boring Post-game content

I'm not so sure about this one because I'm not too much into endgame content in Skylanders to begin with, unless post-game means something different in which case I can't comment on it. I liked that I had reason to get other SWAPpers or access older dual-element gates, but besides that there wasn't much there for me. The arenas are back, the portal master rank is for those who like levelling (such as myself), and that's all I remember.

Quote: TrapGiant

• Enchanted varient line stayed exclusive to this game.

i can't comment on the previous two as I can't add anything to the discussion about them. Not sure how that makes it the worst game, especially if it's a feature that's so good you'd want it in others....? As far as I can tell there were only two Enchanted characters anyway - Hoot Loop and Star Strike, and I prefer the originals. I guess I just prefer colour to just black and white.

Quote: TrapGiant

• Gave you no reason to buy swappers.

Anyone agree?

When I first bought into SWAP Force I had to stop playing 3 missions in because I had so much fun, I didn't want to be disappointed by the inevitability of feeling like I needed SWAPpers. To this day I still feel like core Skylanders in that game felt almost pointless - they can't open dual-element gates, they can't do the legwork that SWAPpers open up, and they don't change!

Something that Earth_Dragon said here earlier hit a chord with me though; they're all the same shape, maybe barring Spy Rise. You can't have Drill Sergeant or Wham Shell or Shroomboom or any dragon character unless you incorporate centaur-like elements. And I would not say no to a flaming cyber horse SWAPper.

To conclude, based on the parameters you've set, I don't think SWAP Force is the worst game. If it is, it's not for the reasons you've put forward. I don't like that I feel obliged to get the SWAPpers, but without them I don't feel motivated to get figures full stop. I don't find the story boring, I just find the potential it had laid out would've met were it in the hands of a better writer. It's not that the content was boring, but tried to do so much with so little. I'm not sure, this is one of those games I had a great time with but I can't put my finger on what made it so great or so poor.

Definitely

is the best one the lvl were just to long and ruin it