Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure

Some may yell “blasphemy!” when I tell them Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure (Xbox 360) is the first Spyro game I have ever played, but not all of us can keep up on gaming cred with a market full of wonderful games. I typically favor handhelds for gaming, but when I walked by a store display of Skylanders, my curiosity was aroused. My first thought was this is an amazing marketing idea to kids. The display doesn’t relay much about the story of the game, but that isn’t the focus anyways. The big concept is the USB accessory called the “Portal” where you place a figurine to be scanned into the game as a character to play. There are over 30 figurines to collect, most being $8.99 apiece. This seems like a reasonable price if a kid were to ask for a new character at the grocery store, or even put a few on a birthday wishlist. This display revealed to me the concept as Pokemon on crack.

I purchased the Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure Starter Pack (Xbox 360) because it contained the game, the Portal, and three characters to get me started. I was immediately delighted when I plugged the Portal into the Xbox 360 because the Portal base lights up in various colors. I fired up the game and was immediately pleased with the materialization of my figurine on the Portal into the game. Starting out with Spyro seemed the most fitting, and quickly recognized one of the quest givers voice as Kronk from “Emperor’s New Groove”, or more recently “Joe” from Family Guy. Later on in the game his character becomes annoying for those who don’t enjoy loud peppiness all the time.

The game does a decent job throwing you into the story from the start, but you will quickly find it’s the same task, different level template. From a kid’s point of view, the game does a great job introducing you to the fighting mechanics, as well as leveling up your character. The tasks are never too hard to complete, and the boss fights are always a good challenge, but never too tough. I did find one of the boss fights sort of confusing to figure out, and when I was about to finish off the boss my last Skylander died. I had a choice: restart the entire fight, or go get a new Skylander. This is the beauty and genius of the game. When your Skylander is defeated, you have to let them rest (and in a boss situation, resting is the entire fight) and choose a fresh Skylander to continue the battle in the same spot. Three Skylanders can be considered “roughing it”, and in certain levels you can only use certain types of Skylanders (there are eight total). I decided I didn’t want to do the whole battle over again, and could use a few more elements to my collection, so I promptly went to the store and purchased three new characters. This is where the money making comes in! Not only is there a desire to collect them all, but it gives you a major advantage when fighting tough battles.