Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure

Template:Game Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, formerly known by its test title as Spyro's Kingdom, is an upcoming spin-off game for the Spyro the Dragon series and the first game of the Skylanders series, set to be published by Activision, and developed by Toys for Bob for the Wii release. It will also be developed by a Taiwanese company known as XPEC Entertainment for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 releases, and will be developed by Vicarious Visions for the 3DS release. Square Enix will be publishing the Japanese release of the game.

Hans Zimmer will also be composing the music of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure.

Skylanders is the second reboot that takes place in the Spyro series, the first being the Legend of Spyro series.

Story Summary

In Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, players take on the role of a powerful Portal Master, who can control over 30 different characters, including the beloved purple dragon, Spyro. Each of these heroes is a protector of an amazing, mysterious world, but they have been ejected from their world by the sinister Portal Master known as Kaos, and now, they are frozen in our world as toys. Only the players of Skylanders Spyro's Adventure can get them back into their world, by embarking on a fantastical journey where they will explore mythical lands, battle menacing, outlandish creatures, collect treasures, and solve challenging puzzles as a part of the quest to save their world.

Features

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure changes the way others look at toys and video games, as well as how they interact with them by introducing action figures that become interaction figures and remember all of their dynamic experiences created in the game. For the first time ever, players can personally customize and power-up their toys, as well as bring them to life on a friend’s Portal of Power for co-op play and player-versus-player arena battles. Additionally, with the freedom to change characters whenever they like, Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure allows kids to utilize different interaction figures and strategies each time they play.

Version Differences

3DS Version

This version of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is more of an action platformer than the console versions. Players have to complete levels by gathering crystals, which lets you unlock more levels. Each level is littered with crystals, obtained by going towards the end of the level, or by doing a variety of tasks (like defeating an x amount of enemies, or finding five items). Whenever you find a crystal, an enemy awakens and a time limit starts. They have to defeat enemies, and use rockets to ward off the chasing enemy. In this version, the game is set in a different realm in Skylands called the Radiant Isles, and a different force of darkness is faced under the command of Hektore.

Unlike other versions, characters can make a jump, and a double jump. There is also an exclusive mode called Tag-Team. In it, you bring two characters into the game whenever you want and switch between them. This allows you to create over 600 combinations of teams using the toys favorites.

The 3DS Starter Pack bundle will also have different figures from the console versions. While the consoles versions of the Starter Pack bundle will contain Spyro, Trigger Happy and Gill Grunt, the 3DS bundle will have Dark Spyro, Ignitor and Stealth Elf.

Gameplay

Characters each have a primary attack, and a secondary attack. They gain experience points by defeating monsters, and leveling up will result in the possibility of getting upgrades. Each character has its own special abilities that differ from each other, as well as assigned elements. This provides some replayability, as each character faces the world in different ways.

Treasures, such as gems, rings, and coins, can be found all over the worlds either laying on the ground, or hiding inside breakable containers. Orbs come from defeated enemies, and it reveals that it gives the characters experience points. Devouring food recovers some of the character's health. With two players on hand, they can cooperatively play the game together, or against each other in a variety of arenas to choose from, each having its own appearance, and obstacles within it.

Exploration

As the tale unfolds, players will encounter a variety of vivid environments, each with its own unique look and feel, and each providing different challenges, puzzles, and the discovery of secret areas, rewards and mini-games.

Elements

Each character has his or her own element. They are classified by eight, elemental classes: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Life, Undead, Magic, and Tech; each has their own heroic challenges that are unlocked as more characters are collected. Players can collect and then strategically select their favorite characters within the different element types to go up against certain enemies, obstacles, and puzzles as well as access new areas within the different levels of the game.

Co-Operative Play

Players can join forces with friends and drop in and out of each level with as many different interaction figures as they like. Different strategies can come into play as players can select their favorite characters to tag-team against certain obstacles, hazards and/or enemies within the different levels of the game.

Player vs. Player

A classic battle mode provides a selection of different game modes and arena maps for players to face off against each other. Each unique arena map contains a variety of obstacles, hazards and power-ups. Players will want to make sure they build up their army of different characters and level them all up to battle their friends on equal ground.

Collectibles

Toys and collectible cards will be sold separately that can be synchronized with the game and will be used to unlock powers and items. Each toy will act as the player's character and there will be a total of 32 toys, one of which being Spyro. Multiple players will be able to play cooperatively or against one another.

Levels

• Sky Schooner Docks
• Perilious Pastures
• Leviathan Lagoon
• Crystal Eye Castle
• Cadaverous Crypt
• Darklight Crypt
• Falling Forest
• Pirate Seas
• Stormy Stronghold
• Battlefield
• Arkeyan Armory
• Creepy Citadel
• Stone Town
• Troll Warehouse
• Lava Lakes Railway
• Molekin Mine
• Shattered Island

Development

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure was was originally going to be a mature Spyro game that included blood, but the developers of Toys for Bob lost their enthusiasm and felt that this direction didn't feel like 'Spyro', before saying that making a dark game isn't what their passion was about. They spent six months on a variety of different directions with Spyro, and with the time and budget given by Activision, Toys for Bob eventually came upon the idea of Skylanders.

Toys R Us has partnered with Activision and will help launch Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure this fall with a number of unnamed exclusives. The game and toys were developed by Toys for Bob. The game's main story was penned by Alek Sokolow and Joel Cohen who both worked on Pixar's original Toy Story film. This game was also originally revealed to be exclusive for Nintendo consoles (Wii and Nintendo 3DS), but when this game was revealed on February, it was announced that this game will be also be released for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and even for Microsoft Windows.

Reception

Even though this game is still in development, it has received a large amount of negative criticism from the majority of the Spyro fanbase. Common complaints include Spyro's different character design, the game's younger target audience (compared to Legend of Spyro), the absence of popular characters from the Original series and the Legend of Spyro series (such as Sparx, Hunter, Ignitus, etc..), the concept of using toys in order to play the game, the recommendation of having to buy all 32 toys in order to see the game's full experience which will cost the players a rather large amount of money for the toys alone, and for being another continuity reboot. The negative critism on the game also involves some fans claiming that Skylanders will 'fail' upon its public release based on what they strongly dislike about the game so far in development. Several fans have also been sending hate mail and even death threats to both Activision and Toys for Bob in the hopes of trying to get them to cancel Skylanders, but both gaming companies are ignoring the demands of the fans and are more focused on Skylanders' younger target audience.

The executive producer of Skylanders, Jeff Poffenbarger, noted that he is aware of the negative reaction of the game from long-time Spyro fans and hard-core gamers, and acknowledged the issue that the negativity is not the demographic as they are aiming to take Spyro and introduce him to kids, the new target audience who have no idea who Spyro is.

Praises include the excellent-looking graphics, music and gameplay, and it should be noted that most professional reviews for this game have been positive. How well the interactive toys are liked seems to vary greatly from person to person, but as these are optional, they are generally not considered a major flaw.

According to the Sterne Agee analyst, Arvind Bathia, Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is testing apparently very well with kids, who are the game's target audience.

Gallery

• Updated PS3 Cover of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure
  Updated PS3 Cover of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure
• Updated Xbox 360 Game Cover of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure
  Updated Xbox 360 Game Cover of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure
• Updated Wii Cover of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure
  Updated Wii Cover of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure
• Updated PC Cover of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure
  Updated PC Cover of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure
• Updated 3DS Cover of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure
  Updated 3DS Cover of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure
• Pirate Seas Adventure Pack
  Pirate Seas Adventure Pack
• Darklight Crypt Adventure Pack
  Darklight Crypt Adventure Pack
• A Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure Carrying Case
  A Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure Carrying Case
• Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure Tower Case
  Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure Tower Case
• File:PTRU1-10990313dt.jpg

References

• Official website: http://www.skylanders.com/
• Reveal Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QigXoK6HSbU
• E3 2011 Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie0jLFZLzmg
• Game Story and Features Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q24JGjPsyc
• Official Toys R Us Skylanders page: http://www.toysrus.com/shop/index.jsp?categoryId=11202423
• Official Blow it Up Skylanders Commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwXJ7p1NxSM
• BoomTime Skylanders Commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rtz_5tRTQ6Q

Trivia

• Skylanders is the first Spyro game to be on the 3DS.
• The game was originally going to be a darker Spyro game that included blood, but Toys for Bob removed the concept when they felt that the idea didn't feel like 'Spyro' and it wasn't what their passion was about.
• Skylanders is the first Spyro game that doesn't include the ability to jump in the console versions, since the jump button is exclusive in the 3DS version.
• One of the two producers who worked on The Legend of Spyro series, Michael Graham, is currently in charge of the Spyro series. This would explain why Spyro has qualities from both the Legend and Classic Spyro in Skylanders, as shown in his character biography.
• Although considered that the game of Skylanders is to be based on the original Spyro from his PlayStation days, Spyro in Skylanders isn't truly either the classic Spyro nor the Spyro from The Legend of Spyro, but has the qualities of both Spyros combined.
• Skylanders is the first Spyro game to not include Sparx.
• This is the first game since Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy to be released in Japan, where it will be published by Square Enix.