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Skylanders: Swap-Force announced! (Fall 2013): New dev, new 2-part figures,...

why do people always think the wii u gamepad NFC can be used for skylanders? IT CAN NOT ;) you'll need a portal for that, because data is always interchaning between the skylander and the portal, if you would use the NFC in the gamepad you'd have to use a wiimote to play ;)

Oh I understand that, but I imagine they will take advantage of the NFC somehow (power-up cards?).
 

Pooya

Member
I think Activision should consider licensed properties before Disney enters the market, they should go after the likes of Dreamworks. It'd be pretty sad if Disney rips off their idea and steals their market :| they did really good with these.
 

DarkPanda

Member
Oh God, my wallet... forget the PS3, I'm going to need two jobs just to keep up with Skylanders!

I have to say though, I'm not too crazy about the new character designs they've showed off so far. They feel somehow "off" compared to the characters from the first two games.
 

Lan_97

Member
Not feeling the new character designs and the two-player local coop is a huge disappointment. I had hoped that by now the series would have expanded into a whole suite of online coop and competitive modes. The swap mechanic is neat, but feels tacked on at this point. Hopefully this is just a stopgap before some real evolution in the series (though I thought Giants was that stopgap).
 
I get that it's a yearly franchise but why would they announce this 4 months after Giants, and especially in such detail? It's going to confuse the masses and get kids excited for something coming much later than they expect.

marketing war against Disney Infinity.
 

BuzzJive

Member
I get that it's a yearly franchise but why would they announce this 4 months after Giants, and especially in such detail? It's going to confuse the masses and get kids excited for something coming much later than they expect.

Giants was announced last year at the toy fair - so it's the same timeline as before. I'm going to assume that since it didn't kill off Skylanders 1 momentum, this announcement won't kill off Skylanders 2 momentum. The amount of detail seems only barely more than last year, but probably to get you prepped for buying a new portal (though buying a new portal for Giants was still a better deal than buying the upgrade pack).

My kid is going to love this. The swap stuff and the in game jump both add some freshness to the series.
 

Shiv47

Member
My daughter just bought herself Giants, and might end up wanting Swap Force, but they're pushing it as far as the sheer volume of stuff they're pumping out. I've told my daughter she's paying for any further figures herself (I stumped up for a couple of the Giants ones), as we already spent a ton getting most of the first game's figures. The game is pretty much the same anyway. My son was bored playing the new one after one level ("it's just the same thing," he said). Couldn't argue with his reaction. The re-sculpts of previous characters is what annoys me the most, as it's just lazy and milking the audience.

What Disney should have done is a Marvel game using this tech, although not the Superhero Squad crap. That seems like a goldmine waiting to happen.
 

RooMHM

Member
UvsyfFv.jpg
This... is a revolution.
 

Stage On

Member
Aw man the best part of Giants was that it only had 16 new characters to get.

32 again is going to be super tough especially with how hard some of them are to get a hold of :(
 

wildfire

Banned
New portal? It's definitely nice that they're improving the game, but at the same time, that is still really annoying and definitely means I'll have to put this off, especially with how much else they'll is I'll be wanting this year and how tight my funds will likely be.

Something else that's disappointing is sticking with only 2-player local co-op. I mean, I can kind of understand their reasoning for not having online co-op. But if they were going to redesign the portal anyway, couldn't they have at least added support for 4-player local co-op? I mean, I have no use for it personally, but this seems to be the perfect kind of game to have the whole family able to play at once or to let a kid play with several of their friends at once, instead of just one.


They don't want to incorporate four characters because it would be harder to create levels. Considering how crappy the level design is in Skylanders this would make sense if the original devs were making it. But we have a different team and I wish they were cinfident and competent enough to do that.
 

P90

Member
The way Activision takes their dear sweet time rolling out new Skylanders leaves my kids and I less than impressed. Case in point: where is Ninjini and Eyebrawl? Not out in stores around us.
 

BooJoh

Member
I posted this and a little more in the Giants community topic, but this is how I feel about this announcement:

With 32 brand new characters (16 of which will no doubt have a higher MSRP,) plus a required new portal, we're looking at another $400+ just for the new characters, plus they announce Series 3 figures, which you know will be better ingame than Series 2, thus some of us will end up with 3-4 copies of one character, one of which is the definitive "best" version.

This diehard Skylanders fan is ready to jump off the wagon.

If their model going forward is simply to milk the franchise to make all the cash they can (and honestly the new characters so far don't really grab me) then my plan going forward is to wait until I can inevitably get the game for $60 or less, pick one or two of my favorite brand new characters, and play through it with those and my SA/Giants collection.

To me this announcement represents the loss of the soul of the series.
 

Orca

Member
Aw man the best part of Giants was that it only had 16 new characters to get.

32 again is going to be super tough especially with how hard some of them are to get a hold of :(

Honestly if they don't make it easier to get the characters, rolling them out on a set schedule instead of this arbitrary 'wave' bullshit, then I'll just stop buying them for the kids. Disney Infinity will have a shot to win them away if they can deliver the product to the stores, instead of scalpers.
 
This series had a lot of potential but these guys are gonna run it completely into the ground. At first it was a cool toy, now its something that everyone sees as a blatant cash grab. The parents i know who have kids have already cut off their kids from more Giants figures.
 

Lijik

Member
The new characters seem to have lost most of their charm, not much personality going on there, at least from my perspective.

I feel the opposite.
Hated the original skylanders (sans Gill Grunt and Drobot- THE BEST SKYLANDERS)
But for once in my life my wallet is weeping at skylanders because these new ones look cool as hell and Id actually want to buy them
 

BooJoh

Member
Honestly if they don't make it easier to get the characters, rolling them out on a set schedule instead of this arbitrary 'wave' bullshit, then I'll just stop buying them for the kids. Disney Infinity will have a shot to win them away if they can deliver the product to the stores, instead of scalpers.

I'm sure they'll probably stick with the "wave" releases, and still shoehorn reposes and pvp arenas/magic items into two packs that people only really want for the one new character in it. And they'll probably still give Toys R Us early stock and exclusive figures, which Toys R Us will merrily keep marking up week after week.

I love Skylanders, but my advice to anyone just gaining interest in the series now is stay away, your wallet will thank you.
 
Is there a luckier third party than Activision?

They've harvested and drained Guitar Hero (dragging down a whole sub-genre of games with it), then publish arguably the best-selling FPS of all time, now they've got this hit on their hands. What the hell...

I don't see how Skylanders is lucky. It was a pretty big risk on their part.
 

fernoca

Member
The way Activision takes their dear sweet time rolling out new Skylanders leaves my kids and I less than impressed. Case in point: where is Ninjini and Eyebrawl? Not out in stores around us.
Ninjini hasn't been released yet (only on the Times Square event today, and was given away). Eyebrawl was released recently, but like others (like Hot Dog) in short supply (or demand is too high :p).
 

fernoca

Member
Double post of sorts, but since this is "new"..

Trailer

Shows some more new figures (Stink Bomb looks cool) and gameplay footage (looks more action/adventure kind of game now); with a rollercoaster of sorts level and one flying level too.
 

Mugaaz

Member
I don't see how Skylanders is lucky. It was a pretty big risk on their part.

Well, it's lucky in the sense they took a huge risk and hit it out of the park. Its not lucky in the sense that its undeserved. I have always been interested in this game, but the gameplay always looked to basic + no online coop = no deal. I got friends across the country, I want to be able to play online.
 

P90

Member
Ninjini hasn't been released yet (only on the Times Square event today, and was given away). Eyebrawl was released recently, but like others (like Hot Dog) in short supply (or demand is too high :p).

And that is exactly my point. The game has been played and finished a couple months ago. Interest has severely waned. Giants has little replay value.
 

BooJoh

Member
And that is exactly my point. The game has been played and finished a couple months ago. Interest has severely waned. Giants has little replay value.

That's really the big issue with the release model in general. The games can be easily finished in a few days, and then you get new figures and... there's nothing really to do with them. Warnado was one of my most wanted S:SA figures, but wasn't released until the very end, so I ended up just running him through the last level a few times to level him up and then that was it. Granted I could have used him in Giants but by then I had new figures I wanted to try.

If the gameplay were something more in-depth (not saying it isn't fun, it's a blast, it's just over relatively quick,) even if they added a new randomly generated dungeon mode, it would at least add to the usability of new figures for people who don't take 6+ months to finish the game. I'm still working on Giants, taking my sweet time so I can use new figures when I get them, and the single player arena mode was a nice addition, so it's not impossible that the new game will have stuff to do.

A couple of the other Swap characters in the trailer are a little better, and the magnet guy looks a lot cooler ingame than his figure. Though a lot of them just look ridiculous when you mix their parts.
 
So we know what Project Nova was since the platforms match.

Now I'm very curious about what Toys For Bob is really working on now, I'm pleasantly surprised that Activision is giving them a break from Skylanders.

I have a theory.

Since Vicarious might be making a new Crash (which could be Project Phoenix for Wii, 360, and PS3), perhaps TFB might FINALLY make a real McCoy Spyro, hopefully going back to the classic series but with a facelift as VV is doing with Crash.

And platform-wise, what if Vicarious's Crash game is for Wii, 360, and PS3, but TFB does the Wii U version? And a real TFB Spyro game could be for Wii, 360, and PS3, but VV does the Wii U version ala Giants?

Sounds like an awesome idea. It'd make sense since TFB was supposed to make a real Spyro game, but they ended up with a new IP that had a (horrible looking) Spyro redesign in it as a supporting character. Maybe they'll have a second go and try to make a proper one. Especially after the massive backlash against the new look in Skylanders.

That's my guess.
 
If their model going forward is simply to milk the franchise to make all the cash they can (and honestly the new characters so far don't really grab me) then my plan going forward is to wait until I can inevitably get the game for $60 or less, pick one or two of my favorite brand new characters, and play through it with those and my SA/Giants collection.

To me this announcement represents the loss of the soul of the series.


Well, yea...of course that's their plan. Activision is always about the short term gain. Its why their investors love them and why say, Nintendo investors are annoyed with them. They focus on the bigger, long-term picture. Medium and long term gain.
 

BooJoh

Member
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL02RKkMS5T4gwY_ntuIpqZEkNHsn8yrQ8

Some hands-on videos and offscreen footage demos and interviews.

Some info from these:
The starter pack will most likely come with S3 Stealth Elf, Magna Charge, and Wash Buckler (unconfirmed.)

The symbols on the Swap Force character bases represent their movement abilities. There will be eight of these including Rockets, Speed, Climbing, and I believe he said Digging and Bouncing were two others.

Each of these movement types will have gates in the game that require those abilities, so in addition to one of each of the eight elements and a giant (if they still have Giant areas) you'll need one each of the eight movement types from the 16 Swap Force characters if you want to access every area in the game.

Sadly, it doesn't appear that non-Swap characters will be able to access these segments (speculation on my part here) so for example, Spyro wouldn't be able to enter the flying areas, Drill Dozer wouldn't be able to access the digging areas, and faster characters like Stealth Elf or Fright Rider probably can't access the speed areas.


Overall I'm warming up to the idea of Swap Force, but I'm still trying to keep a conservative outlook as to how much I'll spend on it.

Also most of these characters (Countdown and Magna Charge in particular) look so much cooler ingame than their toys. Magna Charge does not appear to have light core tech either, but who knows, maybe they'll add it for some of the Swap Force characters.
 

rcl66

Member
In other words another hook in the game so you buy at least 8 new figures. Kids may like it but parents (or adults that play it) are likely to say no thanks.
 
I'm missing three Giants and five regular Skylanders from the Giants line and have run out of room for the figures on my shelves. I want these new guys, but damn....where will I display them?

That said, Wii U day one for Swapforce. I never played the first Skylanders but bought the Giants starter pack as a Wii U launch title and fell in love with the series. Me buying the 40 Giants characters is an expression of that love.
 

Katzii

Member
As someone who has been with the series from the beginning, I'm not sure what to think of Swap Force. If Giants felt like it was starting to really milk the series, this is putting the poor cow on overdrive.

Especially with the problems getting figures as well; I thought when I first bought Giants and saw the well-stocked shelves that this had been resolved, but no such luck. I'm having to order online when I can actually find them in stock (just lucked out on GAME.co.uk with Eye-Brawl and Thumpback), which isn't something I like doing because the paint quality has suffered this time around and most of the paintjobs are lousy.

I'll keep an eye on this and maybe my mind will be changed if they can come up with a decent reason/backstory for these new figures, but otherwise I'll probably be bowing out at that point.
 
Katzii, Wave 3 still hasn't officially launched in the UK. It appears GAME got an exclusive window to sell Thumpback and Eyebrawl and now some independents have been stocking them, but as far as I can tell, none of the big players have them yet, Toys R Us, ASDA, Tesco and Argos (although they at least suggest they'll be out on the 12th).
 
wow, i've never been interested in those skylanders figures, but these new ones look better than the ones i've seen in the past.
 

Katzii

Member
Katzii, Wave 3 still hasn't officially launched in the UK. It appears GAME got an exclusive window to sell Thumpback and Eyebrawl and now some independents have been stocking them, but as far as I can tell, none of the big players have them yet, Toys R Us, ASDA, Tesco and Argos (although they at least suggest they'll be out on the 12th).

Is there a site or something that keeps track of things like this? It's getting a bit arduous to try and keep up with what we have and haven't got, and I still don't get why our release schedule is so far behind the US release schedule.
 
Having to get a new portal is gonna hurt sales a bit. At least you had an option with Giants to buy the non portal version to save some money...
 
At least you had an option with Giants to buy the non portal version to save some money...

Only if you don't care about the extra figures, because the price of the Portal Owner`s Pack was too close to the Starter Pack (I got it for US$ 10 more). The Portal Owner`s Pack is a turd.
 
Looks awful. Swap figures by the waist? Worst idea ever, they should have gone the accesories/powerups route.

DI will destroy this.
 

BooJoh

Member
Having to get a new portal is gonna hurt sales a bit. At least you had an option with Giants to buy the non portal version to save some money...

I'm more concerned that with a new portal, a core figure and two swap characters we may be paying $80 for the starter pack this time.

Was that the voice actor from Invader Zim in the trailer?

Yes, Kaos is voiced by the same actor as Zim.

DI will destroy this.
Skylanders already has a huge install base. Disney has the Disney name and a long history of mostly terrible games in their portfolio. I'd say the two are on even ground right about now.
 

Einbroch

Banned
I won't get it, but the gameplay and graphics look so much better. And the idea is cool. This is an awesome toy and seems like what fast were going for all along.
 
I just read something interesting and hopefully someone can back this up, but Spyro Wikia claims that Toys For Bob sees this Spyro as NOT the one we know and love but a different character meant for the younger crowd in Skylanders.

Anyone know where this is from?

So there may be hope that if they ever make a proper Spyro game again, it won't be the Skylanders one.
 

rcl66

Member
Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's the base and the way the figures are designed to be interchangeable, but something just feels off with the new characters. The design's are not as unique or the toys look less hand crafted.. am I crazy?
 

Captain N

Junior Member
Activision announces Skylanders SWAP Force for PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, Wii and 3DS, releases on October 13/16 in US & EU. Just thought I'd put that out there.
 
D

Diggeh

Unconfirmed Member
Activision announces Skylanders SWAP Force for PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, Wii and 3DS, releases on October 13/16 in US & EU. Just thought I'd put that out there.

How are they gonna fit all the console versions on one advertisement, let alone a commercial? Goodness.
 
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