With Skylanders Swap Force out today in the US and soon to arrive on other shores, here’s my family first-look review after working through much of the experience with my kids.
While this new Skylanders game offers great visuals and voice acting, as well as oodles of new characters, it was the mixing and matching mechanic that really captured my children’s imagination. Both in the game and on the living room carpet they have spent hours mixing and matching the Wave 1 Swap Force figures to find their favorite combos.
This cross over from physical to virtual play, and back again, is a big part of what makes the value proposition of Swap Force add up. Still, you should work out which figures you will buy before jumping on the latest version to avoid spending more than you planned.
The same is largely true with Swap Force as with the previous versions of Skylanders: the Starter Pack is enough to enable you to access most of the game. Add to this a modest collection of Skylanders from Spyro’s Adventure and Giants and you will have access to all the Element zones. This just leaves the six Swap Zones not included in the Starter Pack that you won’t be able to access out the box.
To get a good idea of my kids’ reaction to the game, as well as the early stages of the experience I’ve put together some videos that aim to capture their first reactions. Now, be warned: there are a few spoilers here, and also a little bit of sibling rivalry – I guess squabbling is a part of the fun playing with brothers and sisters.
Kids Unbox Wave 1 Swap Force Figures
Kids Play Skylanders Swap Force
You can follow all these Swap Force Let’s Play videos on the Swap Force playlist.
As you can tell, although this is more of the same, first impressions are really positive. Swap Force promises to deliver a compelling experience that really ups the stakes for the toy-meets-game genre.
Skylanders Packs
- Starter Pack – Blast Zone & Wash Buckler & Ninja Stealth Elf
- Triple Pack 1 – Lava Bark Eruptor & Slobber Tooth & Super Gulp Pop Fizz
- Triple Pack 2 – Mega Ram Spyro & Blizzard Chill & Zoo Lou
- Fiery Forge Battle Pack – Bumble Blast & Knockout Terrafin
- Tower of Time Adventure Pack – Pop Thorn
Swap Force Skylanders
Light Core Skylanders
- Grim Creeper Light Core
- Smolderdash Light Core
- Star Strike Light Core
- Warnado Light Core
- Flashwing Light Core
New Core Skylanders
- Roller Brawl
- Slobber Tooth (Also available in triple pack.)
- Zoo Lou (Also available in triple pack.)
- Count Down
Series 2/3 Skylanders
- Mega Ram Spyro (Also available in triple pack.)
- Super Gulp Pop Fizz (Also available in triple pack.)
- Lava Barf Eruptor (Also available in triple pack.)
- Blizzard Chill (Also available in triple pack.)
I’ve seen that there is now jumping in the game. I know I frequently get frustrated with platform jumpers… how was it with your kids? I’m worried about our little ones