darkSpyro

Ive talked to so many people who have said that they thought Skylanders would die off and not be popular at all. I guess I don't really care because its all about what we enjoy and we buy them as a collection for fun!

Pokemon is popular because it was one of the first "monster battling" franchises and it continued to throw out new content. Games, TV shows, merchandise, trading cards... Skylanders is definitely trying to get there, but I don't see anything taking Pokemon from the top spot.

I think Skylanders will end after 4. Then years later Activision will bring it back.

I still think there's only going to be 3 games simply because it is starting to die out due to the fact unlike pokemon you have to buy basically every figure so far to have them all every year. As interesting as that sounds it's exhausting on the wallet. The fact they only want to do games with it too is something that will kill any ideas in what else to do with it. Pretty much activision is sticking to the main guns on what will make them money which is the figures and games, but even with the near release of swap force how they handle getting you that and the figures is entirely a different story.

The fact the game is shorter than both previous entries doesn't make it a day 1 purchase even and the only way they are attracting people is holding off a LC everyone wants as hostage in order for those to pre order, not exactly building faith there in how the game will shape up. I expect some lower and even bad reviews of swap force's gameplay.

What @dios and @tigerdr said.

Right now, Skylanders is just a mess. Series 1 figures are now "obsolete" from a theoretical competitive standpoint: they lack a unique move(S2s may still be worthwhile since S3 don't seem to have their Wow Pow), and they can't switch paths. They have no niche in battle because they have no advantage to steal from their reposes. This will go on year after year after year. If this doesn't get fixed, it will probably become a headache to people who play competitively without having the money to own every last figure. Then there's also the fact that new characters miss out on some old Heroics(5 SSA-only ones). It isn't a big issue yet- BUT, if they make new characters every game miss out on more and more Heroics and never rectify it- which I really hope that they do this game- they will reach an impass where the oldest characters have near-broken stats and new ones are absolutely, horridly pathetic in comparison. If they overhaul all of this and add online, they could potentially gain an EPIC competitive scene- a thing that always stays fresh if it has an active community- while the main game is still fun for the entire family.

Then, let's not forget, the chapters... I have seen many people who are upset that Giants had less than Adventure, and understandably so. There is a huge cast of characters, and such a small world to explore. While it's still fun to do, the magic of it is wearing off very fast. You can play levels over and over only so many times before they're absolutely mind-numbingly boring, even if you come back to pick up the games after months, you will know where everything is and it becomes almost a chore. Spyro's Adventure had 22, which was actually a good amount. Giants had 16, which was bad since most of them were gimmicky and had too many puzzles, but more excusable since there were half as many characters. Now... Swap Force... Has 272 characters and 12 chapters?!?! That's not right! Even if you include adventure packs, Spyro's Adventure has 26, Giants has 20, and Swap Force has 18 which is less than even Giants, which didn't have its own adventure packs. They CANNOT continue down this path every year and include less and less chapters, argue that they're "longer" all you want, but going through pathetically easy puzzles and getting barely any action when levelling your toys is not fun.

Say that Skylanders is fun now, all you want. It is. But will it be fun in 20 years if each game has the same gameplay that Adventure and Giants had? If they don't seriously fix stuff now? Because the only major wishes that Swap Force seems to have addressed are a "survival mode"(which will get old), and adding jumping. They need to start changing up the dynamics. They don't need to change the entire genre. But Skylanders has to become deeper and meatier if it hopes to survive at all. Even Nightmare mode is a breeze, and the exact same thing. Yes, Adventure had these issues, but it was excusable because it masked them better, by having a longer game, that felt new, despite being a very average dungeon crawler, Giants was a roster update, and Swap Force will, mark my words, be old like Giants is considered by many before March next year!

@SkylandersBoy Wether or not that's the case, to many it's just bad to be paying for toys knowing that a wholly better version will probably come out the following year. As I stated above, besides nostalgic purposes there is literally no advantage to using an S1 figure over S2. Cynder is the only one that I think is an exception, since she cannot dash out of flight if she has her Wow Pow and it does pathetic damage. Let's not forget that S1s don't unlock Heroics in Giants, which is a slimy tactic- and, may I add, is removing value from figures that you had owned before, taking away something that they unlocked.

@kappapopm Aww, the lonely little troll who only knows how to press a space bar that said Swap "Farce" was going to be the last game. Cute.