Skylanders Spyro's Adventure
Plastic bombastic
For a decade, Spyro was the fresh prince of platformers. Created by Insomniac Games in 1998, the adventure starring a heroic purple dragon charmed with rich visuals and exotic 3D play. By the turn of critical darling The Year of the Dragon, Spyro was leading the way for a new breed of platformer.
Then Insomniac started work on Ratchet and Clank. The rest is history as far as Insomniac is concerned, but for Spyro this was the beginning of the end. Now in new hands, the franchise became more combat-orientated with the Legend reboot in 2005. This did not meet with approval from the fans. Three years later and declining sales alongside waning enthusiasm for the in-production 3D animated movie saw Spyro retire into the clouds after a productive ten years of service.
The Spyro fans are still out there, though, and their response to seeing his return in Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, something that initially resembles a 90s Mattel advert more than it does a video game, has unsurprisingly been a cynical one. I doubt they're particularly surprised, though, given that Sierra handed Spyro off to Activision back in 2008.
There's a big reason why Activision is such a successful publisher: they have the ability to smell a commercial opportunity from a mile off. So it shouldn't come as any great surprise that, at least at this stage, Skylanders seems to be as much about Spyro as a Pokmon game is about Pikachu. What it most certainly is about is what Californian developer Toys for Bob is calling "a new genre" of gaming: the interactive combination of plastic figures and video games.
There are two components to Skylanders: the actual video game and the plastic figures. By placing the figures onto a small raised platform called the Portal of Power which connects to console or PC, the plastic characters are 'transported' into the Skylanders game as playable characters.
It sounds a little gimmicky, but when one of the little figures is placed nonchalantly onto the Portal of Power and the character then instantaneously appears on screen, it is quite impressive. Obviously a young child is going to be even more impressed by such technological witchcraft, and that's the demographic Skylanders is mainly going for, although Toys for Bob is confident that older gamers will find the game itself to appeal as a reasonably sophisticated dungeon crawler.
After playing the game briefly I found it hard to escape my preconceptions of a 'My First Action Role Playing Game' regards the simplistic nature of elements like combat, dungeon navigation, etc. but I did only play briefly and the release date is a while off yet. Not that that it would be a bad thing if that's what Skylanders was going for. Pokmon has always had a 'My First Japanese RPG' feel to its games, and there are lots of similarities between the Game Freak series and Skylanders.
For example, the game will be comprised of zones, and each time a player enters a zone they'll be prompted with a message indicating which elemental type of hero is most effective. Toys for Bob told me that presently there are eight elemental types. Spyro is Magic type, for example, while Gill Grunt, who looks remarkably like a small Murloc from Warcraft, is Water type. Different elements are variably effective against other elements in a rock-paper-scissors fashion - sound familiar?
It's these combinations in tandem that make Skylanders a game with lucrative potential. There's the cartoonish flourish of the Spyro visuals, the impetus to play more and more that goes hand in hand with dungeon crawlers, and that Pokmon-inspired collect-them-all mentality. There are touches of Warcraft, Diablo, and Pokmon in the Skylanders hotpot, and when you look at it like that the only thing that confuses about the concept is that Nintendo didn't get there first with Pokmon itself.
Toys for Bob confirmed to us that Skylanders can be completed with the three characters that come in the starter box. However, with around thirty other characters out there, some of them with the ability to unlock special areas of the game where rare and special treasures can be discovered, the game will likely be a much more enjoyable experience with the purchase of additional heroes.
It's worth noting that data about each individual character's progress such as loot, level, experience, accessories, etc is stored on the plastic figure peripheral rather than in the game. What this means is that the figure can be placed on another Portal of Power and loaded into someone else's game, but only as long as it's on the same platform; presently 360 figures won't load on the Wii, for example.
The portal can even support two figures for co-op and versus multiplayer. All players have to do is place both of the figures on the Portal of Power, the idea being that a player can bring along their figures to their friend's house and instantly join in that friend's campaign. Toys for Bob are keeping quiet for now about whether or not there will be an online component to the multiplayer.
There are things to be concerned about with the Skylanders model, though. What happens when a young kid loses or damages the figure - and how sturdy are these figures considering the data that will be stored on them? How many hours of play will the game have in total and how will that relate to price point and additional content? How will additional content manifest on different platforms?
There are some potential answers to those questions. Toys for Bob have talked about using a pirate ship figure, for example, as an additional area to be explored and as a new weapon. Regards the all-important price point, although they remain unconfirmed the developer has spoken about $69 for the starter pack; the game, the Portal of Power, and three characters including Spyro. Additional figures will come in at under $10. Is that a touch too dear considering how many are available?
The questions Spyro fans will have is how any of this will relate to them and their high expectations of the series' production values and longstanding storyline. I admit, it's tough at this stage to see how Skylanders will be successfully hit those notes in addition to all the notes it's trying to hit. However, the handing scriptwriting duties to Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow, both Oscar-nominated writers who worked on Toy Story, and composition duties to Hans Zimmer, the acclaimed musical maestro of the cinema, shows that there is some ambition to do the license justice.
While Skylanders isn't looking like it will be the Spyro fans are looking for, although I hope I'm proven wrong on that, it could well be an important, defining game for the industry's future. Or it could be a great big flat note, such is the risk of a such an unusual project. One to watch, certainly.
