Skylanders Swap Force is due to be the biggest Skylanders thus far, featuring the story (single player and two player co-op support), the return of battle mode and the survivor arenas, as well as twenty new bonus missions you can unlock.
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But of course the biggest addition and the real draw to Swap Force are the new toys and the unique ability of sixteen of those toys. Swap Force is bringing thirty-two new Skylanders to the table, sixteen “core” toys, and sixteen “swap” toys. You can mix the top and bottom halves of the swap toys, yielding a total of 256 possible combinations. For the swap characters, a well-built magnet system holds the top and bottom halves of these toys together. You can easily pop them apart and mix them. Several examples were demonstrated, such as taking Night Shift — a new undead element character that is actually a vampire who can box and teleport short distances — and mixing him with Stink Bomb, a ninja skunk. Doing so allowed this swap character to be invisible thanks to the top-half of Stink Bomb’s ability, and also teleport thanks to the lower half skill of Night Shift.
The separate halves and their corresponding powers are upgradeable, too. Furthermore, there are eight new gameplay mechanics that require certain swaps — these include abilities to climb, dig, teleport, and bounce. Opening these paths yield quick mini-games seamlessly integrated into thenormal gameplay.Just to name-drop, expect to see Blast Zone (I think I got that name right), Star Strike, and Freeze Blade as new toys for Swap Force in addition to Night Shift and Stink Bomb. They also mentioned that Tessa, a previous NPC is back, along with Kaos, who is trying to evilize all of the creatures in the land with Petrified Darkness.
One other new major feature? The Skylanders can jump now. This was the most requested feature and the team is making it happen this time. This in turn allows for new platforming gameplay that was not previously implemented. Also, there are zones or “puzzles” requiring dual elements — meaning you can either have two core characters to get through, or, ideally, use the swap ability to give a single Skylander both elemental powers.
Finally, we were told Vicarious Visions did a lot of work on the graphics, moving them to 1080p 60fps. Animations and colors looked excellent. This will be a launch title game for Xbox One and PS4, too. I came away very impressed with Skylanders Swap Force. I think their new gameplay elements and mechanics make a lot of sense and it’s great that they not only maintained the gameplay and modes that the previous two laid out, but they added to them in several significant ways. I missed out on Skylanders Giants, but Swap Force looks like something I’d be very inclined to get later this year.
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