Skylanders: Spryo's Adventure is a Spyro game in name only. Skylanders is developed by Vicarious Visions, who is known for working on some of the Guitar Hero games, and Toys for Bob. The premise behind Skylanders is to get you to buy more Skylanders. With the Starter Pack you get three of the 30 some Skylanders. Each skylander has a type and this plays a role in the game. The thing that makes Skylanders interesting is the fact that each skylander you have is a physical item. The figures are about three inches big and have,what is probably, an RFID chip in them so when you place them on the Portal of Power get transferred in to the game.
Skylanders is in the game boat as the Pixar movies as they are mainly marketed at children, but they have a charm to them that anyone could enjoy. I believe that kids would love the collecting aspect of getting the figures, which if the overall game was bad would be a horrendous move on Activision part. The basic gameplay in Skylanders is of an action-adventure genre. Each skylander has two moves that fit with the character model that Toys for Bob have masterfully created. With the starter pack you get Spyro, a magic type, Gill Grunt, a water type, and Trigger Happy, a tech type. Spyro is the only one of the group that is more of a melee character which makes him the worst of the three.
The story is pretty basic; Kaos (voiced by the guy who did Invader Zim) destroyed Enos who was the last portal master. All the skylanders were banished to Earth in the form of toys. The character player comes along and is the new portal master which allows the Skylanders to come back to the skylands one at a time. As the skylander you must go around and find the elemental sources that bring the skylands back to form and defeat Kaos once and for all. Through out you meet characters that are related to the element that they will help you find.
Now just dismissing Skylanders as a kids game is doing the game a huge disservice. While, as mentioned earlier, Skylanders is mainly marketed at kids, but is a really fun game overall. The basic gameplay is really simple and can be picked up by almost anyone. Going through the first level there are a load of tutorials and it starts out pretty easy. The difficulty ramps up towards the end, and unless you go out and buy more skylanders you will end up restarting a few chapters over a couple times. The way death works is when a skylander runs out of health that skylander needs to “take a rest”. When all of your skylanders have lost their health you have to restart the chapter over again, unless you run out and by more skylanders. While using the skylanders they will gain experience points and money; the former works towards levels giving more health and just better stats, while the latter allows you to buy upgrades. The upgrades modify the skylanders two attacks give them more power or duration depending on the skylander.
Going back to the Pixar comparison; the visuals and voice acting is incredible. The graphic style is very cartoony keeping up with how the Spyro games have looked in the past. The voice acting has a certain saturday-morning cartoon feel to it. With most of the voices sounding like a lot of the same person doing different voices, they are very charming. Playing the one of the first characters to meet is Patrick Warburton who is does many voices for animated characters like Kronk from the Emperor's New Grove and Joe Swanson from family guy.
There are 22 chapters all that are pretty much based around the elemental source they are working towards. Each chapter has the chance for you to work towards a three-star rating for each chapter. You will get at least one-star by completing the level and there are different objectives for each of extra stars. The second star is mostly for completing the level with out losing a skylander and completing the level under a certain time. The third star is for collecting everything and finding all the areas. You will not get all three stars on any of the levels with out buying extra skylanders which is where any kind would go bug their parents to buy them more skylanders. Hidden throughout the game are Soul Gems, which when collected give you the ability to give the skylander a special move, along with a preview movie giving you a look at the other skylanders.
Skylanders:Spyro's Adventure is a game that could be looked at as a cash-grab by Activision which is known for their love of money. With the hooks in the game itself that make you want to run out and buy every single skylander out there it is pretty diabolical. With the game itself being pretty good make the cash-grab nature of skylanders kind of okay. Playing through the game with out buying any extra skylanders will net you around 540gs, but with the purchase of just a few more skylanders the full 1000gs is pretty easy. Skylanders is a game that almost anyone can enjoy and is a game I recommend you pick up when the crazy video game season is over.
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