Skylanders Imaginators – Wii U Reviews

My daughter and I have been playing Skylanders together since Giants, and a few months ago I even picked up an old copy of Spyro’s Adventure just to complete the whole series. We have several shoeboxes full of figures. I bought the Imaginators Dark Edition locally the day after it dropped.

Activision has a problem. My daughter’s 11 now, and I think she’s outgrown the game. That seems to be a general issue for the toys-to-life genre. Younger kids may still enjoy it if they’re just getting into it, but for most of the core audience the novelty has worn off. Lackluster sales figures from the previous Skylanders game (Superchargers) and Disney’s decision to cancel its Disney Infinity line support that theory. Activision seems to have responded by cutting back on development costs, avoiding innovation, and just pushing another game out the door with minimum effort to milk whatever cash is left in the Skylanders franchise. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the last Skylanders game.

Imaginators does depart sharply from Skylanders tradition in one way: you don’t actually have to use any of the new toys to play through the main story. You could earn all three completion stars on every chapter with a Series 1 Spyro toy if you wanted to. That said, the Imaginator gimmick is definitely fun, and both my daughter and I have enjoyed creating characters (the Dark Edition comes with three Creation Crystals). The overworld map also has elementally locked "Sensei Realms" that require a Sensei toy of the corresponding element to unlock, but these mini-levels are not part of the main story. The Senseis can also ring Battle Gongs scattered around the main levels, but that just sends out a fresh crop of enemies for a standard Skylanders-style arena battle.

Speaking of arena battles, I hope you like them. They’re the main attraction throughout the game. The level design is incredibly lazy, with nothing you haven’t seen repeatedly in earlier games. All of the non-player characters, and most of the enemies, are also recycled directly from earlier games. There are no new mechanics or themes anywhere. Walk up a couple of platforms into a circular area, battle a bunch of enemies you’ve seen before to open a gate, then platform over to the next battle. Occasionally you’ll encounter a ridiculously simple block puzzle, or a puzzle lock, or a NPC offering a game of Skystones lifted directly from Giants. At the end of the level you’ll face a three-phase boss fight that plays out exactly like every previous boss fight. The bosses don’t even have names. They’re all just "Doomlander, X Class."

The plot is uninspired even by the minimal standards of the series. Kaos is trying to take over Skylands. He gets ahold of a new weapon ("Mind Magic"), enlists a new ally (a disembodied brain with three tentacles), and deploys his minions. Eventually you fight your way through all of the minions and underbosses and face Kaos. That final boss fight is just a remake of the one from Spyro’s Adventure. Cali, Flynn, Hugo, Eon, and all the the other folks you’ve seen before offer periodic guidance, but you’ll also see classic Skylanders as NPCs this time around, presumably as a tie-in for the new Skylander Academy TV series.

All this fan service and nostalgia makes me think this is Activision’s half-hearted farewell card for the series. I could be wrong, but it’s hard to see where they could take it from here. Our Skylanders and portals will soon go down to the basement, and eventually to gather dust on a thrift store shelf somewhere.

To paraphrase Peter, Paul, and Mary:

A dragon lives forever but not so little tykes
Painted wings and battle rings make way for Facebook likes
One grey night it happened, Jackie Gamer came no more
And Spyro that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar

I have been playing Skylanders since the first game and I’ve bought every character released so far. I feel that the series peaked with Swap Force. The 2 games after that were just okay. So that led me to going ito this game with caution. I had originally planned to just buy everything around the holiday sales. However, with good reviews and anticipation, I caved in. I haven’t had this much fun with the series since Swap Force. The game looks good, there’s a nice new group of characters, and the replay value is great. Making your own Skylanders is so much fun and adds to the experience. The creation crystals that you use to make a character cannot have the battle class reset. However, this isn’t such a big deal to me as I was only going to buy one of each element, which is 10 and just do one battle class per element. The characters look, powers, and name can all be completely changed. To me it isn’t too big of a deal. Can’t wait to put more time into this game and grab some more figures. What a great refreshing entry into the series.

Okay, where to start? First off, this game is pretty basic, meaning you won’t find "gimmicks" like Swap Force, Trap Team, or Superchargers. That’s not a bad thing; this game is packed with everything, and even has online racing (even if you don’t have vehicles from Superchargers, you can still play with the digital vehicles). The game has gorgeous graphics, although I feel for Wii U, they kept the graphics a little lower than for the PS4 and XBO, which is unfair seeing as the Wii U has the capabilities to show smoother graphics. The game’s map is large, but there are only 10 levels, and you get 2 more with adventure packs, and 1 more with Crash Bandicoot. Still, the map is large, and has many "doors" to mini-levels that can confuse you when traveling around, so it can get confusing, but it’s a fun way to get around Skylands. In later levels, things can get extremely confusing with the too many enemies on the screen, and if you play on Hard from the start, this can cause you to lose Skylanders easily since you cannot even see which enemy is attacking or from where. Another note to take into consideration (and the reason I don’t give this 5 Stars) is that the old Skylanders feel like they have been nerfed (weakened) for this game! Only the Eon’s Elite Skylanders seem to retain a bit of power, and it’s not as much as in older games. All in all, this is a great 6th Skylander game, and worth picking up and playing.