Now, I know what a lot of people tend to think when this game series is brought up - I've received a lot of hate and scorn for my love for it, I should know, lol - Skylanders? That dopey game that ruined Spyro and practically steals your money? However, I'm hoping the Empire community is a bit more accepting and doesn't mind me bringing up the toys-come-to-life genre of gaming that's popped up in the recent years. And before we start, I'm 16 years old. I am not a brainless little child who indulges in these games of my parents money, I usually pay for my own characters. For those that read that and are utterly confused - Skylanders is a video game franchise developed by Activision that began in 2011 with the game Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. The game has a peripheral device called the "Portal of Power" that you place an action figure on to play as the character depicted in the game. All of the games have been released on just about any platform you can think of - Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Wii U, 3DS, Xbox One, PS4, and the first game was even released on PC. Anyway, I wanted to bring this game up because after 5 years of being involved in it, I've come to realize how big an impact it has had on me. When I first played the game Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, the first game in the series, I was 11. So yes, I was pretty easily hooked. Not only were these sweet toys, but they could be played in the game itself! And the gameplay of these games, to make a tangential comment, is... varied. That's the only word I can describe it. You can have levels full of beating up enemies (which is vastly different depending on which character you're using), puzzles you complete by moving blocks or beams of light, card games, and the list goes on and on. And in the fifth game, racing was introduced, and in the sixth game, tons of minigames were incorporated into the gameplay. The first game was a dungeon crawler with... 28 levels, I believe? And there were 32 characters you could play as (though you could complete the game 100%, save a certain set of challenges, with just 8 characters - 1 of each element). The main villain of every game so far has been Kaos, a human who sports the same voice actor as Zim of the Nickelodeon TV show Invader Zim. Many would argue that over time the games have lost momentum (in fact, I only played SuperChargers for a short while before putting it down until Imaginators released) but with the latest game, Imaginators, I think the game has made a fantastic comeback. In the newest game, Skylanders: Imaginators you use crystal figures to place on your portal, and create a Skylander using a menu in-game. Anyway, the games themselves are only half of the fun with this series, I'd like to think. Along with having a bunch of figurines, all of these characters have a short, paragraph-long history that goes with them (which is usually found in books released for the games separately, but you can find them all on the wiki on any character's page), and all have voice actors, phrases they say throughout the game, and their own individual attacks. Why is that so important? I think that Skylanders, beyond being an innovative game, is very imaginative. It makes you think - or at least, it makes me think. At least whenever I am playing it, I am paying attention to each character's words, their attacks, and the way they're animated. This can bring a lot of personality into each character, and can leave tons of room open for imaginative thought. And aside from all of that, it can be fun to purely collect the figures. While some collect matchbox cars or postage stamps, Skylanders has a collector's game out of its figures as well. Many figurines have rare or "chase" variants that can either be advertised as store specific (legendary figures work this way, always being specific to Toys R Us only) or being less obvious, randomly inserted into normal character packs. Most variants are just differently colored versions of the original character, most of which show up in the game, though some (aforementioned randomly inserted figures, or "chase" variants) do not (but the game will still recognize it as a variant by giving it a subtitle of "special" when you place it on the Portal). Even if you aren't all that into Skylanders, perhaps you know of some of the other, similar game franchises that have popped up since? Amiibo and Disney Infinity are examples, though I'm sure there have been more since I last checked on similar games (fun fact: Amiibo and Skylanders have actually teamed up to create half-Amiibo, half-Skylander figurines - Bowser and Donkey Kong being examples of which).
Skyrim? Nah JK Honestly I rather enjoyed the concept of this game, but with all of the new characters, updates, and game types it was too much money to spend on it. The leveling system was weird and the levels seemed reminiscent of newer Mario games (which I don't hate but don't particularly like). Good game, not for me.
I got giants when it come out, I never completed it since it became a boring chore instead of a fun game...
I do understand that it can get too expensive for some people - believe me, I had to drop it for a while during SuperChargers, and the only way I keep up with it really is to hit up GameStop's used section - in fact, I found an incredibly rare figure there that way, for very cheap. GameStop often can't get rid of all the used Skylanders they get, and they'll sell them as cheaply as $2, and often have buy 2, get 3 free deals going on. And the leveling system was changed in the third game, I believe - the first and second, all leveling up did was increase the character's health, while the heroic challenges that Cali offered increased the character's specific stats (though I'll admit the game did a poor, poor job at explaining what the stats were or what they did). Anyway, I went off on a bit there. ^^; Huh, this is interesting to me, at least. Maybe I'm glorifying it because to be fair I first played Giants when I was twelve or thirteen. But I remember Giants as being one of the more enjoyable installments in the series... Anyway, sorry to hear that one was boring for you!
Even though it isn't about going to the store and buying some collectable to be able to play as in game, it's a game that's pretty nice. If you are ever interested in a free to play game that aint tearing at your shoes, try realm of the mad god, a dungeon crawler, bullet hell, roguelike, multiplayer, class based, top down, skill based, game in which you start from scratch and soon begin to unlock more classes as you learn the mechanics of the game like how certain buffs and debuffs work, how to get stronger, how to get better gear, how stuff works, and how to git gud. The only free to play elements are to unlock classes early (pointless and actually manages to fuel your impatience and potentially ruin you), purchase high end gear (once again it's more beneficial if you don't in the long run), buy character slots (so your able to use 2 different classes without killing the one you got to make free space), or buy vaults (you get one for free when you first start but you are able to buy more so you could store more items). All around a nice game and is worth checking out.
