Skylanders: Swap Force Review

Skylanders Swap Force

I avoided the Skylanders series for a long time. I didn’t want to get sucked into buying a bunch of plastic. But now that I’ve dipped my toes into Swap Force, I finally understand the appeal. Yeah, you can think of the characters as nothing more than expensive DLC, and if you’re not careful, you could wind up spending hundreds of dollars on this thing. For collectors at heart, however, it’s fun to have a tangible version of an in-game character. The tech behind these games—how the toy and game sync up—really is impressive. Swap Force is particularly cool, because you can interchange the top and bottom halves of the characters, which works seamlessly and creates some interesting combos.

You do have to level up the characters a little bit, though, before they’re actually fun to use. And if you’re not willing to spend the money on extra figurines, you’ll be annoyed at just how much of the game is locked away. While you can still play the full story mode and discover a lot of secrets with the three pack-in characters, there are many more doors that only Skylanders with certain attributes can enter. The upsell is obvious, but I’ll admit that it worked on me, and I ended up buying three more characters. I drew the line there, though, because I know all I’m really missing out on are a few more mini-games and treasure chests. Still, Swap Force’s “swappable” nature does make it harder to resist…

As for the game itself, it’s a decent, kid-oriented action game that plays very similarly to the LEGO games. In fact, I think the game itself would be better off without the toy gimmick, if all of the character swapping was digital and instantaneous. But then Skylanders would be a rather forgettable experience. The cutscenes are annoying, the in-game puzzles are way too easy, and the platforming/jumping mechanics are barely functional. It’s mainly the combat that holds it together. Some of the characters’ abilities are a lot of fun to use. Which, again, makes Swap Force stand out from other games in the series, since you have a little more customization at your fingertips. Now if a future Skylanders adds interchangeable arms and legs, then I’m in trouble!

Reviewer

Clark
I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.

Published by

Clark

I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.