Santa Claus brought my son Skylanders; Spyro’s Adventures for Christmas (much to his excitement). I am pleased to report that it has seen more than its fair share of play since Christmas day.
On the surface, it looks like Skylanders is just a devious marketing ploy. The game only comes stock with three of the thirty two playable characters and each level contains a “soul gem” which is little more than a trailer for another character (that is sold separately for about eight bucks). It has a very “Pokemon” feeling to it all.
It turns out that all that “shifty marketing” doesn’t really hurt the game at all. Sure. I know that every character costs money. I know that it would cost me a couple hundred dollars to build the entire collection. But, none of that takes away from the game play.
I’ve been telling everyone that will listen to me that the game plays like Gauntlet with Pokemon and I’ll repeat it until I die. Skylanders has proven itself to be simple enough to pick up that my five year old can pick it up and enjoy himself, but there is enough depth in the game play to keep me interested.
The bottom line here folks: This thing is the truth. Don’t let everyone barking about it being a “devious marketing scheme” stop you from experiencing this game (especially if you have younger kids). Period.
