The Sky’s the Limit When Swapping

Media by Miles Priester

Written and Media by Miles Priester.

Welcome to the world of Skylands, home to great heroes know as the Skylanders.

Media by www.destructoid.com
Media by www.destructoid.com

Skylanders is a game series that started in 2011 that features the ability to use figurines of the Skylanders to bring them to life into the video game. With their new title Skylanders: Swap Force it has the ability of not just including the toys into the game, but also mixing and matching different combinations with a certain group of Skylanders called the Swap Force.

How this works is this group has the ability to switch top and bottom halves of each other. This gives you a range of many combinations and ways of fighting. There are 16 Swap Force characters that give you a total of 256 combinations.

The story takes place in a place called the Cloudbreak Islands where a magical volcano erupts every hundred years to replenish the magic in Skylands. This magic gives life and light to all those who need it, because without it everything could die. The main antagonist of the series, Kaos (voice by Richard Steven Horvitz), wants to infect the volcano with darkness so when the eruption happens all of Skylands will be filled with darkness and he will be able to rule all of Skylands. That’s where you, “The Portal Master,” and your Skylanders come in to protect the natural order of the volcano.

Media By www.nintendolife.com
Media By www.nintendolife.com

The gameplay is a bit similar to the last two games with the addition of the ability to jump, which makes all the Skylander fans happy. There are a few new things to this game like, for starters, duel elemental zones. Like regular elemental zones, they are extra areas that can only be opened with a Skylander of a particular element, but with two elements. This can be opened with either a Swap Force character with both elements or two Skylanders that have the required elements combined. Along with that, there is the addition of Swap Zones, which is a special type of mini game that can only be played with a Swap Force Character with a special type of legs. Going through these different areas will give you different rewards wether it’s money or hats or extra missions or even soul gems.

The story itself consist of 17 chapters with an addition of 2 extra adventures that have to be purchased in stores. Now even though the story is short, the levels themselves are long, which in my book makes the fun last longer. Even if you finish the story you have so much more to do. You can either do the extra missions that you find in the story or even play the story again on Nightmare Mode, Time Attack, or Score Mode, not to mention buying upgrades for your Skylanders and leveling them up.

The game consists of 32 new characters (16 Swap Force, 16 Normal Characters) with returning favorites from the previous games and they are sold separately. The game comes with 3 characters (Wash Buckler, Blast Zone, Ninja Stealth Elf), the new portal of power, three trading cards, stickers, and a poster of all of the figures for this game.

Media By toychaser.wordpress.com
Media By toychaser.wordpress.com

My feelings for this game are right where they need to be for this game to get a positive review. I think the creators of the game (Toys for Bob, Activision) have really out done themselves with this title. They have a new graphics engine that makes the movement of the game come out much nicer. Along with that note they did a good job making much to do in the game for a good long while. Now there are some bugs I discover here and there, but I think that it’s just with the Wii version. In all honesty I have no problems with this game other then glitches here and there on my version, but they’re not really bad or serious.

This game is a good 8.5/10.

The game is rated E-10 and is available on the Wii, Wii U, Xbox, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, and 3DS.

 

2 COMMENTS

Leave a Reply to Kristen Cancel reply

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here