Skylanders Imaginators; Finally, Bring Your Own Creations to Life
There are many who might suggest that the toys-to-life video game genre has not only passed its peak, but is on the decline to the point of being obsolete. I’d almost be inclined to agree with the fairly recent news of Disney Interactive abandoning the once thriving Disney Infinity brand. However, to argue the contrary we’ve seen a very strong reception from the LEGO Dimensions brand since its debut last year. Not content to fade away and let the competition run off with the prize, Activision is back with another installment in the Skylanders franchise, Skylanders Imaginators to prove that toys-to-life is still a thriving genre.
Probably one of the single most requested features made by fans is the ability to create your own Skylanders characters and finally, Activision has put the power in the hands of the player. For the first time ever you’ll be able to create your very own Skylanders in Skylanders Imaginators. We were provided the opportunity to sit behind closed doors at E3 2016 to get a look at the new game, the character creation system, and some of the new Skylanders Sensei toys too.
First things first, creating your own Skylander is perhaps the freshest idea to the franchise since the swappable characters in Swap Force. Both Trap Team and Superchargers brought new characters and mechanics to the game, but really seemed to fall flat. By adding custom characters there is a new level of attachment to the game, and a much more personal one at that. The character creation system is about as robust as any we’ve ever seen, perhaps even more in depth than even a few of the most hardcore RPGs.
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“…Â creating your own Skylander is perhaps the freshest idea to the franchise since the swappable characters in Swap Force.”
Everything from the head to the feet is pretty much customizable. Add in the gear, the color themes and the aura and you’ve got over 100 points of customization right from the get go. That’s fairly impressive in and of itself, but it really only scratches the surface. Some of the other customization items are the weapons and powers you assign to the Skylander, its voice, its catchphrase, and even its fight music. It all starts with picking your Battle Class (Knight, Sorcerer, Brawler, Archer etc) and you’re off to the races.
After you’ve done all the hard work of creating your very own Skylander you save it in to what is called the Creation Crystal, a cool looking vial that pulses with its own heartbeat on the portal. The character is uniquely saved to this crystal and allows players to take their crystals with them to play their Skylanders wherever they’d like.
Playing through the game offers you plenty of chances to unlock new abilities, voices, character creator pieces and more. They are easily swappable on the fly, so if you get a really killer new head for example, you can quickly enter the character creator and edit up your Skylander.
When you add new Sensei Skylanders to your collection (Ember and Kingpen are included in the starter pack) they collectively up the ability levels of your other Skylanders in the game. They also open up new Imaginator Weapons and secret abilities, too. This adds that ‘gotta get ‘em all’ feeling to the game, and with 20 new characters plus 11 reformed bad guys to purchase this’ll bleed wallets dry (enthusiastically might I add) for some time to come. Probably the biggest surprise is the addition of gaming favorite Crash Bandicoot as a Sensei Skylander to be exclusively offered with the PlayStation 4 Starter Pack.
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“Imagination is a wonderful thing, and a powerful tool. Skylanders Imaginators may have tapped into something really special here.”
Watching the Sensie Skylanders unleash their powerful Sky-Chi attacks (they build up kind of like a rage meter) is a real treat. As an example, Wolfgang being crowd surfed over the enemies by skeleton hands while dealing massive musical damage is pretty awesome. If it can make an old fart like me smile, there’s no doubt that the little ones will eat it up.
Kaos is obviously back as well and he’s bringing his own Frankenstein’s Monster creations to Skylands as well, called Doomlanders. Epic boss fights against Doomlanders result in a ton of gear being added to the character creation options. As you fight and knock off pieces of armor from your target, they get added to your collection. Completionists are going to have a long road in front of them to get absolutely everything in the game.
From what I managed to take in, I think that Skylanders Imaginators has the opportunity to reinvigorate the franchise much more so than Trap Team or Superchargers did. Letting your child’s imagination run wild in the character creator process will give them a much more attached feeling to the game. No longer are they restricted to pre-designated characters, and it’s far from a superficial addition. Coming from a father of a child who spends countless hours letting his imagination take him to wonderful places in Minecraft, this could be just the game to pry him away.
Imagination is a wonderful thing, and a powerful tool. Skylanders Imaginators may have tapped into something really special here.
