Skylanders

A Gamestop employee told my wife that to be able to play all of the areas of the game, you need a character from every element. How Magic the Gathering of them.

Nevin73 wrote:

A Gamestop employee told my wife that to be able to play all of the areas of the game, you need a character from every element. How Magic the Gathering of them.

I was told the same thing, I'm ok with that

Arise! Well Christmas Day is here so my kids finally got their Skylanders stuff. Disappointingly, the Best Buy Mega Pack apparently doesn't have the Volcanic Vault. From what I understand you just need to use it once to activate the zone. Does anyone have one they could ship to us? I'd pay shipping both ways, or maybe we can do a GWJ exchange program to get it on everyone's Skylanders.

My son's head is going to explode. He loves this game.

My son is loving this game. It's pretty undemanding gameplay-wise. He's planning his purchase of characters from a few more elements. Has anyone worked out an optimal 3-pack 2x1-pack purchase to get all the elements?

DudleySmith wrote:

My son is loving this game. It's pretty undemanding gameplay-wise. He's planning his purchase of characters from a few more elements. Has anyone worked out an optimal 3-pack 2x1-pack purchase to get all the elements?

If you got the 360/PS3/Wii/PC version you have Magic/Tech/Water, so the 3-pack with Eruptor, Chop Chop, and Bash will give you Fire/Undead/Earth. Then just pick up a Stump Smash, or Stealth Elf for Life and Sonic Boom, or Whirlwind (if you can find it) for Wind.

If you got the 3DS verison you have Magic/Fire/Life, so the 3-pack with Zap, Hex, and Dino-Rang will give you Water/Undead/Earth. Then grab Trigger Happy, Drobot, Boomer, or Drill Sergeant for Tech and again Sonic Boom, or Whirlwind (if you can find it) for Wind.

If your planning on buying either/both of the adventure packs (that are available now) though, you would end up with an extra Earth (Terrafin from the Pirate Seas) or Undead (Ghost Roaster from Darklight Crypt).

Also note, all of the figures are not out yet. There are 9 I belive that are still coming as well as 2 more adventure packs. I also do not recommend buying them at Toys R Us as they raised the prices a couple days before Christmas to $9.99 singles ($7.99 retail) and $24.99 3 packs/adventure packs ($19.99 retail).

Patrick Warburton for the win!

This is easily my son's favorite gift this year. Everything seems to be so well thought out regarding this product. And it is genuinely fun.

My 8-year old son just got the Wii starter pack today using a gift card & cash he got for Christmas. I'm watching him play as I type this. He's really enjoy it. Seems to like Trigger Happy the best so far.

I've been playing the 360 version of this for a few weeks and quite enjoying it (yes, me; I have no kids).

Someone else made the comment that this game feels like the kind of game that classic Rare made, and I agree. It's reasonably simplistic so it's kid-friendly, but there's also a reasonable amount of exploration and occasionally some decent challenges to be had (particularly if you play the optional challenge levels).

I'm not sucked into the collecting aspect but I can see where it would be a lot of fun if you want to spend the time and money on it. I picked up a couple extra packs so I have at least one of each element, but doubt I'll pick up more than that.

The early stages of the game are rather small and simplistic, but once you start getting several chapters in, the level layouts get a lot larger, so the game has a lot more content than it may seem at first, fortunately.

In short, it's cute, it's fun, and the game itself is definitely not a cheap cash-in attempt - the devs clearly took their time in crafting a well-made video game.

Hmmm, got a gamestop giftcard for xmas, I might get the 360 version of this, if my wife is ever finished with AC:R or FO:NV.....

It's a blast with my 4 y/o. And when he is not playing, he carries the figures around. He has about 15 and he knows all their names already. Bring on the sequel and more characters!

Demonicmaster wrote:

So is this going to be the catch all as well for the game?

Seems like it.

My son got this for the PS3 for Christmas, and he is totally in love. He actually got the 3DS version because it was the only way to get a Fire and Life type at the local Toys-R-Us, and I am the only one in the house with a 3DS. He said he doesn't mind sharing with me, since I can level up his guys, nice, huh?

So is this going to be the catch all as well for the game?

I got my kids the Mega Pack from Bestbuy which had the game, original 3 Skylanders, a second set of 3 (Wrecking Ball, Stealth Elf, Sonic Boom), and the Pirate Ship Expansion which comes with Terrafin. On top of that my son upon seeing the one commercial with Boomer wanted him so bad I had to pick him up piece meal. When I went to get Boomer I saw Hex just sitting there in all her undead glory and thought that would be perfect for my daughter since she is really into the Monster High Dolls from Mattel so add Hex to the collection as well. So to tally it all up we have a nice collection of 12 and much to my surprise (I really wasn't paying attention to it) all the elements represented.

So far my son and I on different saves have been making our own progress through the game and there are a few things that I find irritating about how linear it is but I can deal with that given all the other features. I like how simplistic the game is with the controls and upgrades. Also being able to specialize with your upgrades is a neat little feature. For the upgrades I am having fun trying to find all the 'winged sapphires' that allow you to upgrade your skills for less gold. I think with how fast my son and I are going through I may have missed one and am wondering if anyone else has had the same issue. I will spoiler tag it so people can have fun finding for themselves. I asked a friend of mine how far in the game he was and how many he had collected and I was one less with being further than him. So I did a little research and found that

Spoiler:

Once you collect the Essence of Water a NPC called Arbo appears from the hole next to the elemental totem pole and sends you on Chapter 6 to get the Seeds of Life and later Essence of Life. But after the Chapter 6 there is now a rock on top of the hole he came out of and it is from this hole that you should get the 6th Winged Sapphire. My only issue is I didn't know that and went further in the game and now when I hit the rock gold appears instead of the Sapphire.

The Giant Bomb folks gave out an award for "Skylanders of the year".

http://www.giantbomb.com/news/giant-bombs-2011-game-of-the-year-awards-day-two/3864/

The Wife and I picked this up when it was ten bucks off the day after Christmas. We have 9 Skylanders, and every element other than Life and Air. So far we are really enjoying it. My wife really likes Spyro so far, I think my favorites are between Gill Grunt and Dinorang.

I like Trigger Happy because he's. Maniacal and fires his guns like Yosemite Sam.

It's also pretty funny when he screams "Mine! Mine! Mine!" when he picks up loot.

nivek wrote:

It's also pretty funny when he screams "Mine! Mine! Mine!" when he picks up loot.

Oh, I didn't hear him over the sound of me shouting "Mine! Mine! Mine!"

So far my favorites are VooDood (I like big axes) and Terrafin. But I do have to give Sonic Boom some props for the egg/young gryphon attack.

nivek wrote:

It's also pretty funny when he screams "Mine! Mine! Mine!" when he picks up loot.

Oh yeah. That too. Trigger Happy is the best.

I can't seem to get a handle on what the gameplay is. Are you just fighting?

Fighting and puzzlesolving (various types, including timing-based puzzles), with some platforming/dodging thrown in for variety.

we have 9 guys now, and doing a couple puzzles co-op with my 7 year old we ran out of guys...his first response was, we have to go get some more guys!

I want some undead characters. me loves the deads.

Have 7 figures right now. Ran out today after much kid asking, and Target, Best Buy, and Gamestop are all out of character packs. My kids were crushed. Apparently, it's selling very well.

The only downside is that I'm giving Bobby Kotick money.

lostlobster wrote:

I can't seem to get a handle on what the gameplay is. Are you just fighting?

60% Gauntlet: Legends, 20% Pokemon, 10% Mild Platformer (more Frogger than Mario so far), and 10% puzzles

And 10% simple RPG. You shop for improved powers and collect hats, ugh, I guess "hattes" in the goodjacular.

LiquidMantis wrote:

And 10% simple RPG. You shop for improved powers and collect hats, ugh, I guess "hattes" in the goodjacular.

Pssh, that's in the Pokemon part silly! And that makes 110% anyways. Come back after you've learned some maths.

After all the positive comments, I convinced my sons to use their Christmas money on the mega pack of Skylanders. That portal thing is very slick - you can swap out characters at any time, and they love it. They are already figuring out what elements they have and which ones they are missing. Finally, the co-op is seamless, which is great. A win so far!

Let me just leave this here:

IMAGE(http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a391/zerox101/PC070227.jpg)

That's not my photo, but one I came across looking for storage solutions. It's a Plano Stowaway Pro-Latch 3730. Amazon has them for $9, but you might be able to find them at Wal-Mart or local sporting goods store for less. They work brilliantly.