Admittedly, I had dismissed the whole Skylanders thing. Even though Jeff himself got sucked in, I figured it for some fluky "love a bad game" thing. Well, this Christmas I got my 5 year old the Wii U Skylanders Bundle, and I think I'm kinda hooked.

It seems to be one of those games that gives a lot of rewards. I'm also surprised at the overall quality. It's reminding me of Ratchet & Clank, only without that laser focus on the main characters. (Since you can swap at will.)

With that said, If I wanted to take it a teensy bit more serious, what figures should I target? What we have now is this:

• Wash Buckler
• Blast Zone
• Ninja Stealth Elf
• Rip Tide
• Free Ranger
• Swarm
• Jolly Bumble Blast

How do the exclusive figures work? Do I have to go from store to store to find the ones I want?

@irishdoom:

Drobot, son.

Haha, I forgot about Drobot. :) I still love the "I traded my chip in for a pistol" from Jeff.

the prior Skylanders games never got their hooks into me, but I found myself enjoying this one quite a bit. I guess it was the whole "swapping" thing. If that is part of what hooked you and your son, too, I would recommend doing what I did and getting exactly enough figures to cover all of the elements and all of the movement types. I think I ended up with 8 in all, so that I could keep my expenditure (relatively) low and still see all of the content in the game.

I can see the appeal of Skylanders. My friend is going to let me borrow his when he's done with it. Knack was supposed to be my platformer fix on PS4 but SCREW THAT GAME, lol. I am hoping to get some enjoyment out of the game though I fully expect it to be rather easy.

Double Trouble, mostly for the goofy as fuck noises he makes when he's running around.

This game is an absolute delight. It's almost like a lite version of Diablo where you switch up classes on a regular basis mixed with Ratchet and Clank.

tdavid said:

This. His summons are even better for noise factor.

Double Trouble and Drobot are musts as pointed out. With Swapforce additions and kids you might throw in Zou Lou, Wrecking Ball (hard to find series 2 now) and Pop Thorn (in Time Tower pack) for cuteness factors. The Time Tower package is potentially a must alone for the Sky Diamond. Gathering gold for is almost meaningless after using it on the dummies in Woodberry. Which you can reset everytime you reload Woodberry. (Giants can't seem to take advantage of this though)

I also have had a lot of fun with Magna Charge. Throwing around mobs is a blast.

It's a long dark path if you fall down it but you might also keep in mind there are more seasonal characters coming like the Jolly Bumble Blast. Availability is questionable.

http://skylanderscharacterlist.com/seasonal-skylanders-variants-revealed-and-confirmed/

Magna Charge is cool because his wheel bottom half grants a speed boost. So you can use that on the other swap guys. If find most Skylanders are a little too slow.

I don't have many figures from the most recent set but from the original game I like Gill Grunt and Trigger Happy. Generally I like the ranged powers better than the melee.

I gotta say I love Skylanders. Getting to use all of your previous toys in each new game is really really fun.

The only thing I don't like about the Swapforce game is the levels are too long.

I'll be the odd man out. I'm not a fan of Drobot.

I do really like Roller Brawl, Grim Creeper and Star Strike. As for Swappable characters, my favourite is probably Night Shift. They went super heavy on awesome undead types this time around

Yeah. It was really hard to do a quick play session if you had to dedicate 45 minutes to an hour to completing a level. I know they had checkpoints, but I assumed that did actually persist if you exited the game. Otherwise I thought it was really good.

BTW, has anyone ever seen Trap Shadow? I can't find any indication of when he is supposed to be released or if he is released. I'm also looking for Boom Jet. I had my chance to pick him up, but I blew it