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January 30, 2014

Warning: This review contains mild spoilers.

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Spyro has been rebooted yet again, much to the dismay of many fans. However, despite being someone who loved the original three Spyro games on Playstation 1, I can understand Spyro’s reboot or eventual disappearance as something inevitable.

It has been many long years since Spyro has been owned by his original creators, Insomniac. But fans need to realize that it was Insomniac themselves that made the decision to leave the Spyro series. Fans need to realize that Spyro was just an Indie game to get Insomniac started, and that Insomniac wanted to create bigger and better projects. Being a quadruped meant Spyro was limited in the amount of tasks he could perform. And the Insomniac crew stated that they felt they had reached the limit of Spyro’s potential, which is why they ended the series.

Insomniac was respectful towards the series and laid Spyro’s legacy to rest. It was the fans who demanded more, and thus sparked the ‘abomination’ of Spyro series they all clamor about hating. Though in my opinion, the flaws in those games were to be expected. After all, Spyro’s new owners can’t just make the same game over and over again. The series was honestly getting stale by the third installment, Spyro: Year of the Dragon, so even if the recreation had been exactly what fans wanted, it still wouldn’t feel like an entirely brand new game.

Now on to the actual review. I just wanted to get this bit of history out of the way first to give some context. Context in that I judge each new reboot of Spyro by its own merits, and not the merits of its predecessors.


Story (2/5):

The story to Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure is a fairly simple one. Spyro stories were never all that deep, and Skylanders is no exception. This is a game that is made for and marketed towards children, so I will be reviewing it as such.

The protectors of the world of Skylands, known as “Skylanders”, are going about their peaceful lives when a villain known as Kaos (pronounced “chaos”) invades Skylands. No motivation is really given for his invasion, other than the fact that “he doesn’t like the light”. So he has come out of his outlying lands of darkness, to destroy the light of Skylands.

The light of Skylands, known as The Core of Light, is a single building structure that apparently keeps the outlying dark realms from engulfing and swallowing Skylands. In one fell swoop, Kaos somehow summons a giant army of trolls, goblins, and other standard fantasy creatures to attack Skylands, and Kaos himself uses his flying castle to obliterate The Core of Light.

Doing so apparently causes such a massive shockwave that all of the Skylanders are not only blasted off of their own world, but to also shrink, turn into plastic figurines, and land on Earth, where they are eventually picked up by “kids like us”, who can temporarily send their spirits back to their own world to fight for Skylands and rebuild The Core of Light.

That’s the simplified version of this already simple story, but I feel as if it doesn’t really need much more explanation than that. Right off the bat, Skylanders sets itself up as something not to be taken seriously, so I won’t nitpick its story in my review quite as much as I would a game that genuinely wanted to be taken seriously. Though there are plenty of things I could point out about it.

The story by itself wasn’t really something I invested much of my attention in. Mainly because there wasn’t much of a story to invest in anyways. I already summarized about eighty percent of it already. Kaos destroys the Core of Light, the Skylanders have to rebuild The Core of Light, and ‘spoilers’, the Skylanders defeat Kaos and the world is peaceful again. That’s it.

While I suppose you can’t really have a story too complicated in a game for children, I’ve also seen way better.


Characters (1/5):

As with a simple story, the characters themselves are fairly bland as well. Everyone is assigned a stereotypical role, and they stay in it. The Skylanders themselves being the least developed characters, never actually saying anything in regards to the story or giving any sort of input other than “yes” or “no” to the question “are you ready to start this quest”.

Actually, what bothers me most about the characters is that most of them don’t even have a reason to exist. Hugo, Eon, and Kaos are the only characters that actually play any sort of part in the story. Eon to serve as the tutorial voiceover, Kaos to be the villain, and Hugo to give the orders of where to go next. That’s about it.

There are other characters, but they barely get any coverage in the game. You see them in maybe the first two or three stages, but then they don’t do anything after. Which is a shame, because they were all the most interesting characters.

It felt like Skylanders was maybe rushed to get done in terms of story and characters. After all, plenty of characters were introduced to get invested in, but were then dropped really early in the game. Flynn and Cali were my favorites, and yet I barely saw anything of them, despite them supposedly being primary characters in the story.

Also, I just could not take Kaos seriously as a villain. He might as well have been Zim from Invader Zim, reincarnated into another universe, but without any source of the irony that made Zim’s character enjoyable. No seriously, it’s even the same voice actor playing the character. Invader Zim’s stupid humor worked because it was based entirely on irony and deeper, hidden metaphysical meanings. The Skylanders world had none of that irony, and so such a character such as Kaos felt stupid and unfunny.


Gameplay (3/5):

Despite being a standard action collect-a-thon, Skylanders’ gameplay is what sets it apart from most other games of the same genre (asides from Disney Infinity which would later copy and rip off the series, in the usually Disney fashion). Mainly in that you need to buy and collect little plastic figures in order to use more characters in the game.

The concept is simple. The game comes with a glowing portal that you sync or connect to your game console, you place one of the figurines on the portal, and then you get to use that specific character in the game. The character’s stats are also saved into the figurines themselves, and are interchangeable between consoles. So if you wanted to play with a friend, you could use your exact characters just by bringing over your toys, regardless of what console your friend has.

The bad news about this comes in terms of the price. Skylanders figurines can run you anywhere from $3-10 each, and there are 32 different characters in total, not counting special releases. You will also need at least 8 characters in order to complete the game 100%, as there are specific areas in the game that can only be accessed with a Skylander of the corresponding element. So if you want to fully complete the game, be prepared to buy at least five more figures than what the game came with.

Speaking of elements, they don’t really seem to do much inside the game, other than unlock aforementioned element-specific areas. You do get a small bonus for using a character that matches the element of that area, but said area elements change every five to ten minutes, and the game is so easy already that a bonus isn’t really necessary. Well, at least for the main portion of the game. The final boss is an entirely different story, and I will address that later.

Each Skylander is supposedly unique, but I didn’t find that much variance between them. Most Skylanders use powerful projectile attacks, so little to no strategy is needed. Even making it to the end of the game with only the three figures the game with comes with is no challenge at all. Especially considering that all of your enemies are slow, and might as well be broadcasting their attacks with a neon sign.

I know that this game is for kids, and therefore strategy shouldn’t account for too much of the gameplay, but Skylanders feels overly simple. It has nowhere near the depth of something like Pokémon, or even Spectrobes. Both of which are aimed at kids too.

I also would have liked for there to be a digital purchase option for the individual Skylanders. As someone with limited living space already, I really don’t need a bunch of Skylanders toys all over the place. The option to buy a digital version would have worked just as well with me. Even more so now that the figurines are becoming hard to find.

After all, it takes no more effort to press select and enter a menu to change out a Skylander, than it does to have figurines scattered all over your desk, that you need to stop playing the game just to swap out. I’d be okay with this option even if the hypothetical digital versions weren’t discounted. The lack of clutter in my gaming space is worth it. Asides from Cynder, who had a home atop my purple Gamecube long before I played the game.

The good news about the figures is that they’re usable across Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure, Skylanders: Giants, and Skylanders: Swap Force. So don’t let your children fool you. All of their old figures will work with those games.

And if you’re new to the game and can’t find Spyro’s Adventure figurines, most of the figurines from Giants will work with the old game too. Just be sure to read the packages before purchasing them, as not all figures are compatible.

Be sure to keep AA batteries on hand too, as that portal will run dry in just a few days. And make sure to assist you child in putting it together, as it will require a screwdriver just to replace said batteries. You get an achievement in the game just for placing a Skylander on the portal for the first time, but I think it should say something more along the lines of "congratulations on assembling this thing". Even a Gameboy Color used a simple tab to open the battery cover, so it makes me wonder what the creators were thinking by making the portal require a screw each time you want to replace the batteries.


Visuals (3/5):

Despite running at a maximum of 720p for Playstation 3, this game was obviously made for and ported from the Nintendo Wii. Even some of the controls, such as wiggling the right analog stick, were brought over from the Wii version, in place of shaking the Wiimote. Why we couldn’t just press the “action button” (triangle for PS3 users) for the non-Wii versions, I have no idea.

It honestly looks like a game from the sixth generation of consoles, rather than the seventh. Which I guess works, but also makes me wonder if less value was put on this game, just because the designers and publishers figured that they shouldn’t waste their time on a game marketed towards younger audiences. In my opinion, this is not a good mentality to have. Ever. Perhaps I will write another segment on this in the future, but this isn’t the place to do so.

The graphics have a strange oily and shimmery look to them, which again makes me believe the game was rushed.

Aesthetically, the world of Skylanders looked like it could have been unique and vibrant, but the constant overhead camera keeps you from seeing any of it. You always find yourself having a very narrow view, and I feel like this can subtract from your ability to fully enjoy the world. Though I suppose it’s not needed, as Skylanders’ stage maps are very simple, and you will almost always know where you are at any given time. Just head north, and you’ll probably be fine.

Despite the Wii having a maximum output of 480p, while the Playstation 3 version of the game outputs at 720p, you really won’t notice a difference with this game.


Music/Sound (2/5):

If I could only use one word to describe the music in Skylanders, it would be “basic”. Many of the tracks are actually the same tune, just remixed a little bit. So there’s not a lot of variety.

As for voice acting, while a few character voices are recognizable, most fell somewhere between “annoying” and “tolerable” for me. Though I suppose it’s not surprising for mediocre characters to have mediocre voice work.


Enjoyment (2/5):

My enjoyment of this game could only be described as a downward slope. While simple, it started off somewhat promising. Actually kind of reminding me of the old Spyro games. But I think it set up more than it delivered, because each level felt less and less enjoyable as I went along.

Which brings me back to the final boss. The final boss in this game was a marketing sham. He is far stronger and much longer than anything else in the game, to a ridiculous degree. The entire game was easy until this moment, at which point it now becomes incredibly frustrating.

And here’s why. The game wants you to buy most of the figures in order to defeat the final boss. You will go through a lot of Skylanders in this fight, and eight are simple not enough. The final boss can wipe you out in one or two hits, and his health depletes incredibly slow.

And for those that say “it can’t be that hard, because there’s a trophy for beating the final boss with only one Skylander”, let me just say that said trophy still requires you to have a lot of Skylanders. Let me explain.

When Skylanders level up after gaining a set amount of EXP, only their HP increases. Things like strength and defense stay the same. To increase strength, defense, ext., you need to complete special challenges. Challenges that are only unlocked by activating more Skylanders to your game. In other words, one Skylander equals only one attribute increase. And most of my Skylanders didn’t offer the attribute increase challenges that I needed.

So yeah, while it is possible to beat the final boss with just one Skylander, that’s because said Skylander has bonus stat increases, that I just am not willing to pay money for.

I’ll be honest. I didn’t finish this game for that very reason. The game started out fun, but just felt like a marketing tool in the end. A game’s completion should not hinder on how much merchandise you’ve purchased. To me, that’s not a game. That’s a “he who has the most toys wins” contest.

So I quit at the final boss and just watched the ending on YouTube, hosted by someone who owned way more of the little figures than I would ever be willing to buy.


Other:

I played this game with the Skylanders:
* Spyro (magic)
* Trigger Happy (tech)
* Gill Grunt (water)
* Cynder (undead)
* Sonic Boom (air)
* Sunburn (fire)
* Steal Elf (life)
* Dino Rang (earth)
* Wrecking Ball (magic)

My trophy completion score was: 66%.


Conclusion:

Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure earns a final score of 2/5.

It was a neat little idea that could have had a lot going for it, but in the end didn’t really deliver. There is currently a lot of hype towards Skylanders, but I honestly think that’s based more on media portrayal than actual merit.

Is this a game that I would buy for my own younger family members? I kind of already did, but looking back on it, it probably wasn’t my wisest purchase. Especially considering you can get much better gameplay and longevity from games like Pokémon, for way cheaper.

If you’re looking to buy a similar Wii game for your child, try Spectrobes: Origins. It’s a monster battling game very similar to Skylanders, but has more to offer, and won’t break your bank.

If you’re looking for similar Playstation 3 games, try downloading the original Spyro series off of the Playstation Network’s classic section. They’ll cost about $5 each, and will last much longer.

If you’re looking for a similar Nintendo DS or 3DS game, try just about anything in the Pokémon series.

So no, I wouldn’t really recommend buying Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure for your children, or for yourself.

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is available on Playstation 3, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, Nintendo 3DS, iOS, Mac, and PC.


Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuRQMmjLc5A