Skylanders : Spyro's Adventure (PS3 - 10)
Welcome to the new year everyone! Now, by complete honest chance, I landed on starting the year off with a Spyro game (technically). I didn't mean for it to happen, but it rings a bit harmonious that the blog started with a Spyro review, and he now makes an appearance in the first review for 2017. For Christmas, I ended up with a few GameStop gift cards, and while in the store spending them, I noticed the Skylanders section and I figured what the hell...let's finally give these games a shot. So...three games, one portal, and two trips later to end up with over a dozen different figurines...here we are. Let's see how it is.
Once in the game, you begin in the home hub area where you are tasked with assisting other characters by either rescuing them or helping them with an issue in each of the games levels. From the home hub, and by naturally playing the story, you will unlock each level in turn, making the level progression itself very linear meaning there's no way to get to level 4 without playing and beating levels 1, 2, and 3.
Before talking about the story and levels, the one thing to be mentioned is the characters. Each figure unlocks that specific character for you to control, and each one belongs to a specific element of which there are eight in the game. These are : Life, Undead, Water, Fire, Tech, Magic, Earth and Air. I will, however, go into more detail about the characters and their respective elements in this section as it is relevant.
The story progresses through the levels, where you are brought to an area and given a task to complete in that area. These range from collecting certain items and returning them to where they belong, defeating a specific enemy (usually when there is a boss for a level), freeing natives to the area who are being held captive, or (in the earlier levels) obtaining a part for whichever character's vehicle is transporting you to the levels.
Within the levels is where the game opens up a bit more for some exploration, but it's more of a guided exploration instead of a free-roam. You have your start point, and your end goal, and only one path to get from Point A to Point B, with branching paths appearing throughout. However, each branch has it's own end point that will teleport you back to the main path once you've finished what was needed, or will occur in a sort of loop that brings you back naturally.
The levels also hold some keys to utilizing all of the different elements in the games. First, the levels are broken up into different areas. Most areas will give a boost to a specific element. Now, you are not required to use that element in that area, but if you do it will make fighting any enemies in your way a lot easier. The other key is with the branching paths I mentioned above. These come in the form of Elemental Gates, which can only be unlocked by a Skylander of that element. (Tech unlocks Tech Gates, Undead unlocks Undead Gates, etc.). Once the gate is unlocked, though, it is the same as with the area-boosts. You aren't required to play through the area with that elemental creature, they are only needed to unlock it.
Other than the story objective in each level, you are given two additional lists of things to complete. The first is a completion list, which includes objectives like discovering all the areas in a level, defeating all of a certain enemy, complete the level without losing a life, and completing it in under a specific amount of time. The second list is for collections, which includes finding all of the soul gems, treasure chests, hats, a legendary treasure, and a story scroll. These two lists are completely optional to complete, but locating the soul gems will unlock a powerful move for one of the Skylanders, and the hats offer stat boosts to whoever wears the hat.
Your Skylanders can unlock additional moves by collecting gold and treasures throughout the levels, and upgrading with the fairy in the home hub. These include two more powerful versions of each attack, the one flying move for each character, and the move which is unlocked through finding the resective Soul Gem. You can also earn discounts on the upgrades by locating a number of butterflies in the home hub, each butterfly gets you a 2% discount.
The last thing your figurines can do is unlock a heroic challenge. These are short levels with a time limit and an objective, either defeating a certain number of enemies or reaching a certain point by the end of the time limit. Once unlocked you can play each challenge with whichever Skylander you like, and completing them will permanently boost a specific stat.
Throughout the game, there are a wide variety of enemies, with each level introducing at least two or three new ones. Each one has their own type of attack, making each type of enemy unique. There are ones that can shoot projectiles at you, some of which are far ranged, and some that are close ranged. Some enemies will just charge at you, or get in close for some animated fisticuffs. You'll also be dealing with a number of bosses, generally doing the dirty work for Kaos. These guys come with their own health bars, and the fights typically play out in phases each time you deplete a quarter of their health.
Skylanders : Spyro's Adventure is a pretty fun game, but how difficult is it?
The main objective you face in each level ranges from easy to moderate. The easier side of the spectrum are the levels where you just have to collect a few certain items or free a handful of people, things that you just naturally do through the course of the level. On the more moderate side of the scale are the levels that require you to defeat the bosses in that area.
Normal enemies are also between easy and moderate. As I mentioned above, there are a huge variety of enemies you'll have to face throughout this game. A decent amount of these are pretty easy, especially with more leveled up Skylanders, they can generally go down in only a couple of hits. There are certain areas in some of the levels where you are faced with a "kill everyone before you can leave" trap, and you'll be dealing with a few different types of enemies and in a decent sized grouping, with all hands on deck to take you down. It's these gauntlet-type areas that will test you the most.
Bosses can be a moderate challenge. These guys are big, they're tough, and they can be tricky to get around their moves to deal damage to them. One level in particular ends with you facing off against three separate mini-bosses. At first you face them one-on-one, but at the end you face them all again at the same time. Another level pits you against a big golem creature who hurls rocks through the stage that bounce around the walls like a pinball. But to deal damange to him you have to get in close (your ranged attacks will only go so far) but getting too close causes him to just stomp on you.
The puzzles in this game are pretty easy. For the most part all you have to do for them is just move big blocks or giant turtles around (yes, I said giant turtles). The blocks and turtles will have glowing arrows appear on top of them, indicating which direction they can be pushed, but it's virtually impossible to get yourself stuck in these puzzles as the solutions are pretty easy to see once you see which way you can move stuff. There are also some rotating puzzles where you are given a box with a ball inside and some small blocks, and you must rotate the block around to move the ball along the available barriers to hit certain glowing spaces that will unlock the puzzles. But again, you can't get yourself stuck on these and even just flipping the box around randomly will result in you solving the puzzle.
Lastly, there's the area of the completion and collection objective lists. These are either extremely easy, or impossible, and that's dependent on the players level of dedication to the game. If you posses at least one character for each element then you won't have a problem at all completing these, as this will gain you access to the Elemental Gates. However, if you only want to own and use a couple, then you won't be able to do these at all. The areas that the gates unlock count towards the "All Areas Located" objective, and these areas also have their own treasure chests, hats, and can also contain either the Soul Gem, legendary treasure, or story scroll. The hardest of all these objectives though will always be the speed run for the completion, because the slightest misstep could cost you the few precious seconds you need to finish everything, and even moreso if you have to speed run a level that ends with a boss fight.
So in the end, Skylanders : Spyro's Adventure can be a bit of a challenge, but nothing that will ever be overwhelming to the player. Before we lay down a verdict on our first game of 2017, let's look at the good and bad sides of it.
Universal Skylanders (and sort of Portals) - The portals themselves work on just about all of the consoles, the only ones that are different are the Xbox 360 and Xbox One from the rest. But if you have a portal for PS3, then it also works on PS4 as well as Wii and Wii U. What's more is the figurines themselves work on any portal, regardless of which console the portal is connected to. So I could take one of mine that I'm using on PS3, and drop it onto a buddy's portal for one of the Xbox consoles and all the stats and moves will travel with it.
Kaos - Once you hear him in one of the cutscenes you'll recognize the voice almost immediately : it's the voice of Zim from the Invader Zim cartoon! He even over-emphasizes some of the same words that Zim did so this one alone is a really cool nostalgic throwback to an amazing cartoon.
On The Fence
Spryo - This one I'll admit is a bit of personal feeling, but I've also heard it mentioned by others too so I figured I'd put it in here. First off, I love that Spyro is in this game, and that his two attacks are the same as in the original games, his charge and his fireball. The thing I don't like though is how much they changed him. It feels like Spyro, but it just doesn't look like him. They updated him and give him a more realistic scaley look, but at the same time they completely changed his face around. Again, it might sound a bit nit-picky, but growing up with the Spyro games and character, it's a pretty big change, especially for the main character and main draw of the Skylanders series.
Now, though, I can say this game is most definitely worth it. The fact that the figures and portals work on multiple consoles is an amazing touch. And the thing that lends a hand the most to this games playing value is how cheap everything has become. The portals are only a few bucks, the same goes with the figurines. There are different variations of the figurines that can be more expensive (legendary versions, glow in the dark, crystal clear, alternate colors, etc.) but it's not by much. The generic figures are around $3 apiece with the variations being no more than $8 (all GameStop prices). The prices of the games themselves is pretty low too, I was able to get the first three games in the series (Spyro's Adventure, Giants, and Swap Force) all for $5 total.
With all that said, you could walk into GameStop with $10 and walk out with this specific game, the portal, and probably two figures to use for playing. And this game definitely gives you more than that in gameplay. My fiancee and I picked up one of each element (and split them up so we each control four) and it still gives a great value and we're able to 100% everything. So if you like puzzle and platforming games, give this thing a shot. It's fun, you get a decent amount of hours from it as long as you try to do everything, but it's fun enough that going for the completion isn't tiring. And hey, the figures look cool as hell too.
Lastly, I can definitely say that once my fiancee and I get through the PS3 games, we'll be adding the Skylanders streams to The Honest Gamer Channel, but I'll announce that when we get closer.
Hope you enjoy this review, please feel free to comment any thoughts on this, as well as any suggestions for games you'd like to see me review on here! Here's to an awesome and Honest 2017!
The Story
In the world of Skyland, the land is kept under guard by Portal Masters, protecting the creatures and the lands themselves. The last good Portal Master, Master Eon, was using his Skylanders to protect the Core of Light when the evil Master Kaos ejected the Skylanders from their world, trapping them in ours as toys. The player takes on the key role of a new Portal Master, using the Skylander toys (figures) to bring the creatures back into their world, in hopes of regaining control of their world from Kaos and saving themselves from his clutches.The Controls
Skylanders controls are quite simple. The key control is with the Portal of Power which connects to whichever system you are playing on, and the Skylander figures that work with the Portal by being placed upon them. Inside the game, all the controls are the same regardless of which figure you are using. Movement is controlled by either the left joystick or D-Pad, X is your Attack 1 button, while □ is your Attack 2 button. R1 and R2 are also secondary controls for your second attack. Lastly, O uses your characters flying maneuver once it is purchased in the game.The Gameplay
At it's core, Skylanders : Spyro's Adventure is a puzzle platforming game, with fixed camera angles throughout. The main gameplay element comes from the peripherals that are required to play the game : The Portal of Power and at least one Skylanders figure.Once in the game, you begin in the home hub area where you are tasked with assisting other characters by either rescuing them or helping them with an issue in each of the games levels. From the home hub, and by naturally playing the story, you will unlock each level in turn, making the level progression itself very linear meaning there's no way to get to level 4 without playing and beating levels 1, 2, and 3.
Before talking about the story and levels, the one thing to be mentioned is the characters. Each figure unlocks that specific character for you to control, and each one belongs to a specific element of which there are eight in the game. These are : Life, Undead, Water, Fire, Tech, Magic, Earth and Air. I will, however, go into more detail about the characters and their respective elements in this section as it is relevant.
The story progresses through the levels, where you are brought to an area and given a task to complete in that area. These range from collecting certain items and returning them to where they belong, defeating a specific enemy (usually when there is a boss for a level), freeing natives to the area who are being held captive, or (in the earlier levels) obtaining a part for whichever character's vehicle is transporting you to the levels.
Within the levels is where the game opens up a bit more for some exploration, but it's more of a guided exploration instead of a free-roam. You have your start point, and your end goal, and only one path to get from Point A to Point B, with branching paths appearing throughout. However, each branch has it's own end point that will teleport you back to the main path once you've finished what was needed, or will occur in a sort of loop that brings you back naturally.
The levels also hold some keys to utilizing all of the different elements in the games. First, the levels are broken up into different areas. Most areas will give a boost to a specific element. Now, you are not required to use that element in that area, but if you do it will make fighting any enemies in your way a lot easier. The other key is with the branching paths I mentioned above. These come in the form of Elemental Gates, which can only be unlocked by a Skylander of that element. (Tech unlocks Tech Gates, Undead unlocks Undead Gates, etc.). Once the gate is unlocked, though, it is the same as with the area-boosts. You aren't required to play through the area with that elemental creature, they are only needed to unlock it.
Other than the story objective in each level, you are given two additional lists of things to complete. The first is a completion list, which includes objectives like discovering all the areas in a level, defeating all of a certain enemy, complete the level without losing a life, and completing it in under a specific amount of time. The second list is for collections, which includes finding all of the soul gems, treasure chests, hats, a legendary treasure, and a story scroll. These two lists are completely optional to complete, but locating the soul gems will unlock a powerful move for one of the Skylanders, and the hats offer stat boosts to whoever wears the hat.
Your Skylanders can unlock additional moves by collecting gold and treasures throughout the levels, and upgrading with the fairy in the home hub. These include two more powerful versions of each attack, the one flying move for each character, and the move which is unlocked through finding the resective Soul Gem. You can also earn discounts on the upgrades by locating a number of butterflies in the home hub, each butterfly gets you a 2% discount.
The last thing your figurines can do is unlock a heroic challenge. These are short levels with a time limit and an objective, either defeating a certain number of enemies or reaching a certain point by the end of the time limit. Once unlocked you can play each challenge with whichever Skylander you like, and completing them will permanently boost a specific stat.
Throughout the game, there are a wide variety of enemies, with each level introducing at least two or three new ones. Each one has their own type of attack, making each type of enemy unique. There are ones that can shoot projectiles at you, some of which are far ranged, and some that are close ranged. Some enemies will just charge at you, or get in close for some animated fisticuffs. You'll also be dealing with a number of bosses, generally doing the dirty work for Kaos. These guys come with their own health bars, and the fights typically play out in phases each time you deplete a quarter of their health.
Skylanders : Spyro's Adventure is a pretty fun game, but how difficult is it?
The Challenge (or lack thereof?)
While playing this game, there a number of areas that you'll have to experience that may offer some level of challenge to you. From the objectives and the puzzles, to the enemies and bosses, and even the completion and collection objective lists, there's a good amount of ground to cover for this one.The main objective you face in each level ranges from easy to moderate. The easier side of the spectrum are the levels where you just have to collect a few certain items or free a handful of people, things that you just naturally do through the course of the level. On the more moderate side of the scale are the levels that require you to defeat the bosses in that area.
Normal enemies are also between easy and moderate. As I mentioned above, there are a huge variety of enemies you'll have to face throughout this game. A decent amount of these are pretty easy, especially with more leveled up Skylanders, they can generally go down in only a couple of hits. There are certain areas in some of the levels where you are faced with a "kill everyone before you can leave" trap, and you'll be dealing with a few different types of enemies and in a decent sized grouping, with all hands on deck to take you down. It's these gauntlet-type areas that will test you the most.
Bosses can be a moderate challenge. These guys are big, they're tough, and they can be tricky to get around their moves to deal damage to them. One level in particular ends with you facing off against three separate mini-bosses. At first you face them one-on-one, but at the end you face them all again at the same time. Another level pits you against a big golem creature who hurls rocks through the stage that bounce around the walls like a pinball. But to deal damange to him you have to get in close (your ranged attacks will only go so far) but getting too close causes him to just stomp on you.
The puzzles in this game are pretty easy. For the most part all you have to do for them is just move big blocks or giant turtles around (yes, I said giant turtles). The blocks and turtles will have glowing arrows appear on top of them, indicating which direction they can be pushed, but it's virtually impossible to get yourself stuck in these puzzles as the solutions are pretty easy to see once you see which way you can move stuff. There are also some rotating puzzles where you are given a box with a ball inside and some small blocks, and you must rotate the block around to move the ball along the available barriers to hit certain glowing spaces that will unlock the puzzles. But again, you can't get yourself stuck on these and even just flipping the box around randomly will result in you solving the puzzle.
Lastly, there's the area of the completion and collection objective lists. These are either extremely easy, or impossible, and that's dependent on the players level of dedication to the game. If you posses at least one character for each element then you won't have a problem at all completing these, as this will gain you access to the Elemental Gates. However, if you only want to own and use a couple, then you won't be able to do these at all. The areas that the gates unlock count towards the "All Areas Located" objective, and these areas also have their own treasure chests, hats, and can also contain either the Soul Gem, legendary treasure, or story scroll. The hardest of all these objectives though will always be the speed run for the completion, because the slightest misstep could cost you the few precious seconds you need to finish everything, and even moreso if you have to speed run a level that ends with a boss fight.
So in the end, Skylanders : Spyro's Adventure can be a bit of a challenge, but nothing that will ever be overwhelming to the player. Before we lay down a verdict on our first game of 2017, let's look at the good and bad sides of it.
PROS
You Are The Character - This is feature in games that I really enjoy. It's a minor fourth-wall break that occurs, but it's not blatant where they're constantly talking to and interacting with you, but it's enough so you know and feel like you're a crucial part to the experience.Universal Skylanders (and sort of Portals) - The portals themselves work on just about all of the consoles, the only ones that are different are the Xbox 360 and Xbox One from the rest. But if you have a portal for PS3, then it also works on PS4 as well as Wii and Wii U. What's more is the figurines themselves work on any portal, regardless of which console the portal is connected to. So I could take one of mine that I'm using on PS3, and drop it onto a buddy's portal for one of the Xbox consoles and all the stats and moves will travel with it.
Kaos - Once you hear him in one of the cutscenes you'll recognize the voice almost immediately : it's the voice of Zim from the Invader Zim cartoon! He even over-emphasizes some of the same words that Zim did so this one alone is a really cool nostalgic throwback to an amazing cartoon.
On The Fence
Spryo - This one I'll admit is a bit of personal feeling, but I've also heard it mentioned by others too so I figured I'd put it in here. First off, I love that Spyro is in this game, and that his two attacks are the same as in the original games, his charge and his fireball. The thing I don't like though is how much they changed him. It feels like Spyro, but it just doesn't look like him. They updated him and give him a more realistic scaley look, but at the same time they completely changed his face around. Again, it might sound a bit nit-picky, but growing up with the Spyro games and character, it's a pretty big change, especially for the main character and main draw of the Skylanders series.
CONS
Extremely Short Levels - This game has a lot to offer for the number of levels, coming in at 26, but they're all pretty short, especially so if you're not concerned with completing everything and just beating the story. Considering the nature of the game, it's not that surprising, but some of these levels are extremely well done and look completely amazing, and seeing them end so quickly is a little heartbreaking.Final Verdict
So, before I lay down my verdict on this one, I just wanna say that before picking this up, I assumed that this franchise would be a waste of time, money, and a complete rip off in the sense of gaming. I also figured that making the figures required to play the game was just some scheme to rake in extra money. However, I will loudly and proudly admit how wrong I was. As I said you don't need ALL of the figures, just one really, although technically you're better off with a couple just in case one of your team members dies.Now, though, I can say this game is most definitely worth it. The fact that the figures and portals work on multiple consoles is an amazing touch. And the thing that lends a hand the most to this games playing value is how cheap everything has become. The portals are only a few bucks, the same goes with the figurines. There are different variations of the figurines that can be more expensive (legendary versions, glow in the dark, crystal clear, alternate colors, etc.) but it's not by much. The generic figures are around $3 apiece with the variations being no more than $8 (all GameStop prices). The prices of the games themselves is pretty low too, I was able to get the first three games in the series (Spyro's Adventure, Giants, and Swap Force) all for $5 total.
With all that said, you could walk into GameStop with $10 and walk out with this specific game, the portal, and probably two figures to use for playing. And this game definitely gives you more than that in gameplay. My fiancee and I picked up one of each element (and split them up so we each control four) and it still gives a great value and we're able to 100% everything. So if you like puzzle and platforming games, give this thing a shot. It's fun, you get a decent amount of hours from it as long as you try to do everything, but it's fun enough that going for the completion isn't tiring. And hey, the figures look cool as hell too.
Lastly, I can definitely say that once my fiancee and I get through the PS3 games, we'll be adding the Skylanders streams to The Honest Gamer Channel, but I'll announce that when we get closer.
Hope you enjoy this review, please feel free to comment any thoughts on this, as well as any suggestions for games you'd like to see me review on here! Here's to an awesome and Honest 2017!
