darkSpyro

I've seen glimpses of the majority of everyone's opinions about VV so I was wondering what everyone thinks of them and the games they've developed (Skylanders games that is) and if you dislike them that's fine it's your opinion. But please don't be like Alpha Ambush and just crap on them just because they aren't TFB. Either way, let me know!

The only game from VV I've fully played, from what I can remember, was Crash Nitro Kart. I played bits of The Huge Adventure and N. Sane Trilogy too, but that's about it. I guess it's a good company, makes nice games and the Bala Brothers being out of it opens the opportunity for nice RP. Can't give a opinion on the Skylanders games made by them, never played those. But the characters sure look fun to play.

Great quality, misguided. While we've yet to see the full extent of VV without the Bala brothers, before, you could tell the dev team is full of talented people who work hard to make the game stand out, but it felt like they made choices without a second thought or care about what they were barging into.

SF - from the CONCEPT SKETCHES you can tell they had no idea the previous games were in any way loved and just shoved TFB's design out of the window. I don't like the game and that's the fundamental issue with it for sure, aside from all the childish writing, Skylanders that all look the same, and horrible sound design. However, credit where credit is due, it's still very impressive looking and they tried good ideas, even with the wrong goal.

SC - Once again, misguided in that they decided to make the entire game revolve around one concept they didn't even explore properly, but you can tell they learned. The art direction and writing especially - everything feels much more like a Skylanders game, the story is great, the characters are kept exactly as they should be. Blessed be the day David A Rodriguez comes back to the franchise, because with this game and the comics, it's pretty obvious he discovered exactly what to explore with the lore and how to make compelling plot.

I still think the bigger issue with them is still the character design - SC improved greatly and I know from Dave Philips' blog that he can do much better than stocky guys with thin limbs, but someone in the art direction keeps forcing very boring body shapes on Skylanders and making characters that aren't interesting visually, with some exceptions(mostly villains). Less furries(no offense to them, just the abundance) and robots, more that cool scrapped yarn Skylander and Nightfall.

VV games to me focus on the mechanics less than the game itself. I want to love SF as much as everyone else, because it is a long game with lots of replayability but I tried to play it again recently and by the end of the second chapter I had, had enough. I personally don't like the visuals in that game and it seemed to lose so much of what I loved from the earlier TFB games.

I've tried to imagine what it would have been like if the VV games came first, would I have loved those and then not liked the TFB games because of their differences, but I don't think I would have. I think I wouldn't have really gotten into the game at all if VV had made the first one. In fairness I find TT really hard to play again too.

SC was just a stupid idea. Not sure whose idea it was but vehicles is just stupid. Skylanders was and always should have been predominantly a dungeon crawler style of game. To make the battles focus more on the vehicles than the characters was a mistake. And all of that is a shame because I really liked the story, the lore and some of the levels and variety were a real standout. If the game had more on foot levels to explore and more fighting it could have been a really great entry.

I love VV, I love their Skylander games and KNOW they can make more incredible ones, but they do need to be more like TfB, while having their own identity. I love the long length of their bulky levels, I love their current VV+TfB art style and love their characters designs. That being said, the character designs HAVE GOT to be like how they have the concept sketches and designs. Some of them are SO GOOD. Some of which blow TfB out of the water. I own both Strata and Clutch and every time I look in them, I get so amazed by the designs, but saddened that they tend to stick to a more familiar hero archetype. I assumed they went with those because they're cheaper to model, but that's just my guess. They need less Riptides (As much as I love him, he's one of my all time faves) and need more Slobbertooths,, Pop Thorns, Spitfires, Dive-Clopses. On top of that, less bulky, big chins. At one point Spitfire had one and it looked hideous. Follow TfB's design path, but make it their own. Give us more out there ideas and make designs hardly similar to each other. Make give them a Wham-Shell/Slobbertooth/High Volt "not using the Elements signature color".


As the others have said, carefully evaluate on ideas. I like how vehicles are in Skylanders and I think they DO fit within the Skylanders world, but the execution of their game-play was a down right horrible flaw of SSC. SSC should have been the Skylanders game that introduced larger, wider, Super Mario Oddessy- like levels, where you drove the vehicle around, more so for land ones. I know there's great vehicle play some how for Skylanders, but this was not it.


Upgrades, sometimes VV characters have excellent paths (Riptide, Countdown, Roller Brawl) and sometimes they hardly feel different from their base "form". Again, like TfB, make their paths more like TfB. Button combos (Nearly every TfB melee character), more charge up attacks (You guys are good on this, but we need more). New moves that can be activated by holding a button (Slobbertooth's head charge) and even model changes like armour enhancements (Give us the option to change the appearance or not, while keeping the stat boost intact).


As for what they do great.

Game-play. This is more so for SF than SSC. Replicate the gameplay of SF and expand on it. More knock mechanics, GIVE US ACTUAL BUTTON COMBOS, and other great stuff. Maybe cancelling in a fighting game, where they attack, then immediately can use a different attack. Could work great is knock mechanics.


Story. I like SF's story, but SSC is where they shined and they need to make it this kind of quality again. We don't always need a high stakes story, but something smart, funny and even where the characters develop, and maybe character's get new roles (Namely Kaos at the end of SSC, which was RUINED in Imaginators. SO much potential killed. Look at Skylanders Academy on Netflix, this goes for TfB as well. Imaginator's story was the worst in the series.


Levels. love how long and bulky they can be, but they need to be less linear and more open. I know they can totally make great levels that have more to explore, or at least multiple alternate paths.

I still think focusing on airships on SSC only would've allowed the game to keep more Skylanders identity. Someone even made a concept for that for a fanmade uni project years before, and yeah, there'd be no need to put all the nonsensical techy aesthetic in the game if it was about air transportation that has plenty of themed locales in older games.

Now I'm thinking of a revisit to Sky Schooner Docks to compete vehicles rather than the horrid Ridepocalypse aesthetic and I'm making myself sad.

Quote: Bifrost

I still think focusing on airships on SSC only would've allowed the game to keep more Skylanders identity. Someone even made a concept for that for a fanmade uni project years before, and yeah, there'd be no need to put all the nonsensical techy aesthetic in the game if it was about air transportation that has plenty of themed locales in older games.

Now I'm thinking of a revisit to Sky Schooner Docks to compete vehicles rather than the horrid Ridepocalypse aesthetic and I'm making myself sad.

Gotta any more info on the Fan Uni Project?


ALSO. VV is great at level variety starting with SSC, Some of the best in the series.

Make sure the music is at max volume if you do.

Quote: HeyitsHotDog

Gotta any more info on the Fan Uni Project?


ALSO. VV is great at level variety starting with SSC, Some of the best in the series.

https://www.behance.net/galler...rs-Zone-Raiders
Here it is. It's a vehicle project more than the several "design a Skylander" projects I've seen around, but this guy got to SC's idea a year ahead : P

Level variety is indeed great, but Bandit Train and Ridepocalypse are easily the weakest. The former is actually a ghost ship that was scrapped halfway through development but for some reason several assets are still there but brown, and the latter is just a dirty looking attempt to do Mad Max aesthetics that falls flat.

I think they are good developers that pick their areas of focus poorly. Swap Force's levels are too friggin long and boring. The side content (while plentiful in nature) is also dull and boring. I agree with Bifrost in that everything feels too heavy on the generic fantasy side. Skylanders is way more diverse of a franchise than that.

Also, I think VV hasn't a vendetta against the traditional Skylanders gameplay because they really LOVE to insert their own random crap that usually sucks the fun out of the hack and slash dungeon crawler game I spent thousands of dollars on.

I have to say, their cinematic animation is *mwah* perfection! Just wish they used their time more to better develop the gameplay elements and level designs, now we are talking!

VV's cinematic animation is absolutely wonderful. Perfect for Skylanders IMO.

VV is able to make a much better game in a short period of time than TFB is, i also think VV has much better character designs. *cough* rocky roll *cough*

EDIT: i do admit many of VV's Skylanders look a bit off though, but TFB has worse ones like Barbella etc. (sorry barbella lovers)

TFB's character designs is just like their overall game quality. I feel that the heart in them makes you care about things for better or worse, and the characters either you really like or you really dislike. A lot from VV feels "eh, it's good enough I guess".

They really like anthro animals.

Quote: ZapNorris

They really like anthro animals.

TfB does too. Hmmm...

TFB does a lot more unusual animal designs tho. Compare Rattle Shake to Pit Boss; the latter has none of the snake cliches in the design itself, and has a triangle shape that doesn't show his tail.

True, true on that.

the biggest mistake vv did was to put microstransaction in a game that already was very expensive. and doing it after the game was released, that was very sneaky. it could have been a fun thing and kept people playing online with upgrading and unlocking parts for the vehicles in superchargers. but instead it was totally ruined and become a boring grind and a waste of time.

VV was told to add them by Activision. It's almost always the publisher, not the developpers that make the decision to have microtransactions in a game.

Quote: CountMoneyBone

the biggest mistake vv did was to put microstransaction in a game that already was very expensive. and doing it after the game was released, that was very sneaky. it could have been a fun thing and kept people playing online with upgrading and unlocking parts for the vehicles in superchargers. but instead it was totally ruined and become a boring grind and a waste of time.

Imaginators has microtransactions nobody bats an eye. Superchargers has microtransactions everyone loses their minds.


In all seriousness that's not something to be mad at VV about that was Acti's doing not theirs. VV was told to put those in there and I'm pretty sure they weren't to excited doing that

In the Acti souless scale, Skylanders' microtransactions are very low. It's all cosmetic, in fact neither are necessary, and the DLC itself is already physical so there's something that won't get lost when the servers shut down. Even in Battlecast you could make a deck worth a damn without spending a single penny in a month.

Quote: Flame58

VV was told to add them by Activision. It's almost always the publisher, not the developpers that make the decision to have microtransactions in a game.

and vv didnt bat an eye, when they was asked to put the microtransactions in there.. so there is no reason to excuse vv for this..

Quote: CountMoneyBone

Quote: Flame58

VV was told to add them by Activision. It's almost always the publisher, not the developpers that make the decision to have microtransactions in a game.

and vv didnt bat an eye, when they was asked to put the microtransactions in there.. so there is no reason to excuse vv for this..

they kinda have to listen to their high up.....

Quote: SkyFan91

Quote: CountMoneyBone

the biggest mistake vv did was to put microstransaction in a game that already was very expensive. and doing it after the game was released, that was very sneaky. it could have been a fun thing and kept people playing online with upgrading and unlocking parts for the vehicles in superchargers. but instead it was totally ruined and become a boring grind and a waste of time.

Imaginators has microtransactions nobody bats an eye. Superchargers has microtransactions everyone loses their minds.


In all seriousness that's not something to be mad at VV about that was Acti's doing not theirs. VV was told to put those in there and I'm pretty sure they weren't to excited doing that

because it was not put in the game after it was released, and you could easily get the parts without paying. so the microtransactions was doa and useless. that is why no one lost their mind with imaginators.

You can easily get the imaginator parts without paying, what's your point? Chests are even more useless since the cheaper equivalents take longer than a Well run.

Quote: HeyitsHotDog

Quote: CountMoneyBone

Quote: Flame58

VV was told to add them by Activision. It's almost always the publisher, not the developpers that make the decision to have microtransactions in a game.

and vv didnt bat an eye, when they was asked to put the microtransactions in there.. so there is no reason to excuse vv for this..

they kinda have to listen to their high up.....

also there is something called having a back bone and putting the foot down, and saying no.. when they think something is not good.

Quote: CountMoneyBone

Quote: HeyitsHotDog

Quote: CountMoneyBone

and vv didnt bat an eye, when they was asked to put the microtransactions in there.. so there is no reason to excuse vv for this..

they kinda have to listen to their high up.....

also there is something called having a back bone and putting the foot down, and saying no.. when they think something is not good.

It's Activision. They'll easily fire em if they don't listen. Has TFB put the foot down? Nope.

The DLC has a physical aspect, not the microtransactions. Those will very much go poof when SC's servers die, which is a shame because unlike Imaginators' postgame content, you can feel the devs had ample time to mess with cool color schemes+effects and tiny cute assets without having to JUST hack existing models together.

Quote: CountMoneyBone

Quote: HeyitsHotDog

Quote: CountMoneyBone

and vv didnt bat an eye, when they was asked to put the microtransactions in there.. so there is no reason to excuse vv for this..

they kinda have to listen to their high up.....

also there is something called having a back bone and putting the foot down, and saying no.. when they think something is not good.

You CLEARLY don't know how game development and the relation between developpers and publisher work...

Quote: Flame58

Quote: CountMoneyBone

Quote: HeyitsHotDog

they kinda have to listen to their high up.....

also there is something called having a back bone and putting the foot down, and saying no.. when they think something is not good.

You CLEARLY don't know how game development and the relation between developpers and publisher work...

i know it very well, and as a worker you are not a slave and a yes man, it maybe cost you your job or less payment. but there is not anything wrong with saying no when you know what is right and wrong. and when it comes to superchargers and the added microtransaction that did come as an update later to download, it was clearly very wrong to do.

That's cute. Tell that to your boss once he replaces you with a kiddo straight out of college that does the same job for a smaller sallary since a lot of people get into game development without knowing the current state of the AAA industry. Or even the entire dev team for another one that has been doing shovelware for years and would love to get their hands on a real IP.

People have been laid off for less. It's infuriating how you pretend to know.

On topic that's not fantasy, I also think that their marketing team seems to get more involved unlike TFB's, but their campaigns are also way duller and repetitve. Even moving aside Guha Bala and behicle fantasy, they downplay so many cool things on their games and only a fan will really notice what's in press gameplay at the most. TFB and Paul Reiche usually take time to show a few extra minigames other than their main spotlight(for example, talking about Egg Game and Creation Clash, or villain quests which to VV would be an afterthought).

Quote: Drawdler

Quote: Bifrost

In the Acti souless scale, Skylanders' microtransactions are very low. It's all cosmetic, in fact neither are necessary, and the DLC itself is already physical so there's something that won't get lost when the servers shut down. Even in Battlecast you could make a deck worth a damn without spending a single penny in a month.

Wait, what? Imaginators microtransactions are no problem, don't even exist altogether in the Switch version, but I'm pretty sure you need to be connected to the net to actually modify vehicle mods. That's a huge problem if you enjoy resetting vehicles and could potentially lose the feature in a few years, or if you're like me and actually never unlocked them all, so they're probably going to be lost to you unless you rush and grind for the rest before the servers go. And there's just no goddamn good reason for it.

The one time they add content to SC and it's garbage that expands on the worst part of the game and doesn't even fully work offline. And why the **** couldn't you buy them with Stardust it becomes so stupidly useless

Mind you though we're going to lose the games as a whole in a couple decades unless someone puts good effort into emulating them or somehow otherwise figuring out how to replace toys, so maybe it isn't even worth getting in a huff over, these games were never going to last forever and I doubt anyone with the skill to do it is interested or brave enough to actually get these games emulated/preserved properly :[

So sorry, why are we going to lose these games in a couple of decades? Is it because the consoles will no longer be around with no way to repair/replace them? Or do you think the chips in the toys themselves will stop working? Really curious how you see the demise coming about.

Quote: Drawdler

The chips will die. The kind of NFC tags Skylanders use have an expected lifespan of 20 years.

That's actually kind of sad....in 20+ years the Skylanders won't be playable anymore outside of Imaginators and Instant Skylanders.

there is methods to back up the figures data with the skylander tool, and you can replace the chips.. so no worries...

//forum.darkspyro.net/spyro/viewposts.php?topic=90643

also in 20+ years you will be able to play the skylanders games on a emulator on your pc..

Quote: Drawdler

^ It does NOT clone or copy figures

I've never used it but AFAIK that tool only copies the RAM portion of the figure, which stores things like their upgrades and level.

The ROM portion is what makes the characters work, it says what character is there, it's essentially the "key", from what I've heard long ago it's encrypted and I believe not saved with that tool.

It's like backing up a save game VS backing up the game the save is for.

ok, after a google i found out that you can use the maxlander...

https://chaosgamez.com/threads/maxlander-review.957/

as i said we dont need to worry about the skylanders, there is way to preserve...

Quote: Drawdler

The chips will die. The kind of NFC tags Skylanders use have an expected lifespan of 20 years.

So, without heading down the hacker path of destruction, you're saying that if I have a Skylander, still in its box, keep in an environment where it's not too hot, not too cold, doesn't get bumped or shaken, that the chip will still eventually stop working?

How would that happen?

Not saying you're wrong I know NOTHING about it. Just really curious, seeing as it's a game I was hoping to one day play with my grand children.

Quote: kaosmumishot

Quote: Drawdler

The chips will die. The kind of NFC tags Skylanders use have an expected lifespan of 20 years.

So, without heading down the hacker path of destruction, you're saying that if I have a Skylander, still in its box, keep in an environment where it's not too hot, not too cold, doesn't get bumped or shaken, that the chip will still eventually stop working?

How would that happen?

Not saying you're wrong I know NOTHING about it. Just really curious, seeing as it's a game I was hoping to one day play with my grand children.

This sadly happens with any modern tech, including film and tape. It simply decays, especially if it's got moving parts like a hard drive (or an electronic drive of any kind). Even video game discs perfectly preserved will suffer the passage of time. This is of course assuming that the tech required to run Skylanders themselves like the portals, emulators and machines to support them work or haven't surpassed them, the latter rapidly becoming more common. And if it's digital, you can forget it.

I recommend watching the video Drawdler posted. Pat the NES Punk has spoken at length about this in the CU Podcast, usually when it comes to SEGA games warping.

So is this even a thread about VV anymore? Lol

Quote: SkyFan91

So is this even a thread about VV anymore? Lol

For the sake of getting us back on track I'll give my second opinion on VV from a similar thread.

I think Vicarious Visions are great game developers, but when it comes to understanding an IP they struggle to capture the essence of what it is they're working on. They're a publisher's developer, a team that forgoes creativity for whatever makes Activision more dough. This can be seen with Doom cubed, Tony Hawk's Underground and the Crash Bandicoot GBA games. While fantastic games in their own rights (you won't see me complain about SWAP Force) their games are often made with the cynical purpose of appealing to what's popular.

If I'm making it sound like they're corporate drones, they're not. But they are under Activision's fetid wing: they're in the same situation as Bioware, as Raven, as Visceral are - they're useful.... until they're not. When movie tie-ins and the N. Sane Trilogies run out, so too will their contract. I can only hope such competent coders and technicians move onto projects with a creative, motivated lead.

TL; DR - They have the muscle to pull off a good game, but don't have a single creative bone in their body. Except with SWAP Force. Now that was brilliant.

^THIS.

They're good at reproducing things that have been done before, but with a lack of essence. It happened with Crash games, it happened with Marvel Ultimate Alliance... they do really good games of such franchises, but there's always something that isn't there at all.

Skylanders is only an exception to this partially. They added a lot of originality in both character desing, style and concept, but they totally discard the original essence and style of the franchise in the process.

That seems to be a management problem more than the team lacking the actual creativity though - seeing the developers' portfolios shows a lot of amazing looking things that never go anywhere or aren't Activision related.

Quote: Bifrost

That seems to be a management problem more than the team lacking the actual creativity though - seeing the developers' portfolios shows a lot of amazing looking things that never go anywhere or aren't Activision related.

Kind of disagree. Those amazing things aren't close to Skylander's original essence and style either.

I don't mean the Skylanders concepts, I mean stuff like Dave's other concept art or the lighting artists' testing on Superchargers.