Skylanders: Swap Force | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Vicarious Visions Beenox n-Space (3DS) |
Publisher(s) | Activision |
Director(s) | Jeremy Russo |
Producer(s) | Eric Carter Nick Ruepp Chris Wilson Dawn Pinkney |
Designer(s) | Mike Stout |
Artist(s) | Steven Olds Dave E. Phillips Lee Harker |
Composer(s) | Lorne Balfe [1] |
Series | Skylanders |
Engine | Vicarious Visions Alchemy |
Platform(s) | Nintendo 3DS PlayStation 3 PlayStation 4 Wii Wii U Xbox 360 Xbox One |
Release | Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360PlayStation 4Xbox One
|
Genre(s) | Toys-to-life, role-playing, platform |
Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Skylanders: Swap Force (stylized as Skylanders: SWAP Force) is a 2013 platform game developed by Vicarious Visions and Beenox and published by Activision. It is the third main game in the Skylanders video game and toy franchise, following 2012's Skylanders: Giants , which was a direct sequel to 2011's Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure .
It is the first Skylanders game to be released in North America before other regions, unlike the previous two games where Australia got the installments first. It is also the first Skylanders game not to be owned by Vivendi.
The gameplay of SWAP Force is based on the two previous games, Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure and Skylanders: Giants, but unlike them Skylanders now have the ability to jump. Players use a portal to bring real-life figures into the game; SWAP Force introduces a new Portal of Power that has new technology that makes the SWAP Force characters work correctly. The SWAP Force characters have top and bottom halves that can be separated from each other and recombined with halves from other characters. In total, there are 256 combinations between the top and bottom halves. The SWAP Force characters also have eight distinct ways of moving, which are necessary to enter side areas called "SWAP Zone Challenges". These are Rocket, Spin, Dig, Stealth, Teleportation, Bounce, Speed and Climb.
For years, the SWAP Force protected the volcano that replenishes Skylands' magic every hundred years. However, following a battle, they were caught in the eruption, which blasted them apart, sent them to Earth, and gave them the ability to swap powers. The Skylanders must prevent the Elementals from being evilized, stop Kaos, and save the Skylands.
SWAP Force features sixteen new core characters and sixteen new swappable characters, in addition to sixteen reposed Skylanders from previous games. [2] The sixteen new swappable characters are Wash Buckler, Blast Zone, Free Ranger, Freeze Blade, Night Shift, Magna Charge, Stink Bomb, Rattle Shake, Hoot Loop, Trap Shadow, Grilla Drilla, Spy Rise, Rubble Rouser, Doom Stone, Boom Jet and Fire Kraken. [3] The sixteen new core characters are Bumble Blast, Countdown, Dune Bug, Fryno, Grim Creeper, Pop Thorn, Punk Shock, Rip Tide, Roller Brawl, Scorp, Scratch, Slobber Tooth, Smolderdash, Star Strike, Wind Up, and Zoo Lou. [4]
Every 100 years, the Elementals, a group of four ancient creatures consisting of the Flashfin, the Terrasquid, the Frost Hound, and the Tree Spirit, unite to replenish the Skylands' magic through Mount Cloudbreak. During the last eruption ceremony, Kaos' mother Kaossandra tried to destroy the volcano, but a team of Skylanders defended it. Following the volcano's eruption, they were sent to Earth and gained the ability to swap their tops and bottoms, transforming them into the SWAP Force.
100 years later, Captain Flynn goes to see the eruption and finds a girl named Tessa, who is being pursued by a fleet of monsters called Greebles and explains her home is in danger. Although he succeeds in driving them off with help from the Skylanders, his ship is damaged in the crash. Afterwards, Flynn and Tessa arrive at her home village of Woodburrow and meet the village crier, Rufus. They learn that the chieftess has been captured and Kaos has obtained a device called the Evilizer, which uses Petrified Darkness to turn others into stronger and more aggressive crystal versions of themselves.
The Skylanders rescue the chieftess and bring her back to the village. However, Kaos has learned of the Elemental's whereabouts and plans to evilize one of them, which will cause Mount Cloudbreak to turn evil and spread Darkness across Skylands. Glumshanks begins to doubt Kaos's ability to take over the Skylands, so Kaos evilizes him and sends him to his dig site. Tessa leads the Skylanders to Mudwater Hollow, the location of the Flashfin, to stop Kaos from evilizing it. They make their way to Kaos' dig site and stop the operation; in the process, they defeat Glumshanks and turn him back to normal.
Glumshanks returns to Kaos, who is disappointed by his failure, and is greeted by his mother Kaossandra, who mocks him for his incompetence. The Skylanders attempt to find the Terrasquid and make their way to the town of Motleyville hoping to get help from its baron, Sharpfin. When they arrive, Baron Von Shellshock, a servant of Kaos, evilizes Tessa's bird Whiskers and sends him to attack them. After dealing with Shellshock and turning Whiskers back to normal, Sharpfin promises to help the Skylanders find the Terrasquid and sends his crew to fix Flynn's ship. They arrive at the location of the Terrasquid, where they fight the Fire Viper; afterwards, Kaossandra shows up at Kaos' lair to help him.
Sharpfin takes Flynn and the Skylanders to a small elf village in the tundra, where they meet the frost elf Avril. After helping her deal with a cyclops invasion in her village, she tells them the Frost Hound is located in the Frostfest Mountains. The Skylanders make their way to the Frost Hound, where Kaossandra sends her servant Mesmerelda to attack them, but they defeat her and rescue the Frost Hound.
Kaos then attacks Fantasm Forest, the home of the Tree Spirit, using Petrified Darkness as a fuel source to evilize her and burn down her domain. The Skylanders make their way to the forest and defeat the trolls while capturing Kaos. The eruption ceremony begins as the chieftess names Tessa the new chieftess of Woodburrow and the Elementals go to begin the eruption. However, Kaossandra shows up and takes back Kaos while kidnapping Tessa. Using Flynn's newly repaired ship, the Skylanders, Flynn and Sharpfin make their way to Kaos' fortress and defeat Kaossandra, imprisoning her in a mirror prison and rescuing Tessa. Kaos reveals that he filled the volcano with Petrified Darkness to turn it into a massive Evilizer.
As Flynn, Sharpfin, and Tessa go with the Skylanders into the volcano, Kaos tells Glumshanks to finish the pile of Petrified Darkness. However, after the pile falls down on top of him, he is transformed into a giant Evilized version of himself known as "Super Evil Kaos". The Skylanders defeat him and destroy the crystals on his body, reverting him to normal. They escape the volcano and Kaos and Glumshanks discover they have been swapped. The volcano then erupts, replenishing the magic in Skylands as everyone celebrates.
In another part of Skylands, Hugo, Flynn and Cali visit Flynn's hometown, Boomtown, where the people are celebrating in his honor. The celebration is interrupted when Count Moneybone, the lord of the Undead, attacks, stealing Flynn's statue and turning Cali into an undead. The Skylanders and the Swap Force must stop Moneybone before he turns all of Skylands undead.
As with the previous installments of the game, Skylanders: SWAP Force is available for purchase in starter kits that include a copy of the game itself, the Portal of Power, three characters to begin or supplement a player's collection, a poster of the entire SWAP Force collection, cards, stickers, and Web codes. The current starter packs and the characters include the following:
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (March 2022) |
Aggregator | Score |
---|---|
Metacritic | X360: 83/100 [5] WIIU: 89/100 [6] PS3: 83/100 [7] PS4: 79/100 [8] 3DS: 68/100 [9] |
Publication | Score |
---|---|
Destructoid | X360: 8.5/10 [10] |
Eurogamer | 8/10 [11] |
Game Informer | 8.5/10 [12] |
GameRevolution | PS3: 8/10 [13] |
GameSpot | PS3: 7/10 [14] |
GamesRadar+ | X360: [15] |
IGN | 8.2/10 [16] 3DS: 7.1/10 [17] |
Joystiq | X360: [18] |
Nintendo Life | WIIU: [19] 3DS: [20] |
Nintendo World Report | WIIU: 8.5/10 [21] 3DS: 6/10 [22] |
PlayStation Official Magazine – UK | PS3: 7/10 [23] |
Official Xbox Magazine (UK) | XONE: 7/10 [24] |
Official Xbox Magazine (US) | X360: 7.5/10 [25] |
Pocket Gamer | 3DS: [26] |
Polygon | X360: 7.5/10 [27] |
Push Square | PS4: [28] |
The Guardian | X360: [29] |
VentureBeat | PS3: 90/100 [30] |
VideoGamer.com | X360: 9/10 [31] |
Skylanders: Swap Force received "generally favorable" reviews for most platforms according to review aggregator Metacritic; [5] [6] [7] [8] the Nintendo 3DS version received "mixed or average" reviews. [9] The Metacritic scores for the game were the highest and most positive of the series on most platforms. Gaming website Quarter to Three gave both the Wii U and Xbox 360 a perfect score of 5/5. [32] [33] Video game website Gaming Age gave the PlayStation 3 version the highest grade of an "A" and further commented that "whether you’re a Skylanders fan or a gamer who’s looking for a charming and unique family-friendly game series to get into, Skylanders Swap Force comes highly recommended." [34]
During the 17th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Skylanders: Swap Force for "Family Game of the Year". [35]
Pokémon is a series of video games developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company under the Pokémon media franchise. It was created by Satoshi Tajiri with assistance from Ken Sugimori, the first games, Pocket Monsters Red and Green, were released in 1996 in Japan for the Game Boy, later released outside of Japan as Pokémon Red Version and Blue Version. The main series of role-playing video games (RPGs), referred as the "core series" by their developers, has continued on each generation of Nintendo's handhelds. The most recently released core series games, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, were released on November 18, 2022, for the Nintendo Switch.
Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars is a Lego-themed action-adventure video game developed by Traveller's Tales and published by LucasArts in March 2011 for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS, Microsoft Windows and a launch title for the Nintendo 3DS. The game features missions and characters from the 2008 animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars and its follow-up television series, as well as fan-favorites from the original Star Wars saga, in both single-player and multiplayer gameplay modes. The Mac OS X version of the game was released by Feral Interactive.
F1 2011 is a video game developed by Codemasters based on the 2011 Formula One season. The game was released in 2011 on Microsoft Windows, the Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, with a 2012 release on the PlayStation Vita as a launch title for the system. The game engine is based on EGO 2.0 engine.
Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is an 3D action-adventure platform game and the first video game in the Skylanders series. It is played using with toy figures that interact with it through a "Portal of Power" that reads their tag through NFC.
Mighty Switch Force! is a puzzle-platform game developed by WayForward Technologies for Nintendo 3DS. It is the third game in WayForward's Mighty series, following Mighty Flip Champs! and Mighty Milky Way. The game was released on the Nintendo eShop on December 22, 2011. An update to the game, including five new levels, was released on May 24, 2012. A high-definition version, Mighty Switch Force! Hyper Drive Edition, was released for the Wii U in 2012, featuring re-drawn graphics and other new features. A Steam version of the game was also released in June 2015. A sequel, Mighty Switch Force! 2, was released in June 2013.
Rune Factory 4 is a role-playing video game developed by Neverland and published by Marvelous AQL for the Nintendo 3DS. It is the sixth game in the Rune Factory series, and the first to be released on the 3DS. It was released in Japan in July 2012, in North America in October 2013, and in PAL regions in December 2014. An enhanced version, titled Rune Factory 4 Special, was released for the Nintendo Switch in Japan in July 2019 and worldwide in February 2020. It was also released for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows in 2021.
Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two is a 2012 platform video game developed by Junction Point Studios and published by Disney Interactive Studios, and is the sequel to Epic Mickey. Unlike its predecessor, which was only released for the Wii, the game was released on the PlayStation 3, Wii, Wii U, and Xbox 360 in November 2012, and would make further releases on the PlayStation Vita, and Microsoft Windows over the next two years. The game features an optional co-op mode where a second player plays as Oswald and assist the first player, Mickey, in saving the Wasteland. The game also has a companion called Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion for the Nintendo 3DS. It was also the last game to be released by Junction Point Studios, as it was released two months before its closure.
Skylanders is a toys-to-life action-adventure video game franchise published by Activision. Skylanders games are played by placing a character's figure on the "Portal of Power", a device that reads its tag using NFC and "imports" them into the game as a playable character.
Skylanders: Giants is a 2012 video game in the Skylanders series and a direct sequel to the 2011 game Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. It features the voices of Kevin Michael Richardson, Greg Ellis, Peter Lurie, Steve Blum, Dave Wittenberg, Carlos Alazraqui, Kevin Sorbo, Bobcat Goldthwait, Patrick Seitz and Julie Nathanson. As the title suggests, it features larger Skylanders known as "Giants", along with other new gameplay mechanics. 16 new Skylanders were introduced, including 8 "Giants": Bouncer, Crusher, Eye-Brawl, Hot Head, Ninjini, Swarm, Thumpback, and Tree Rex.
Battleship is the name of two video games based on the film of the same name, both of them published by Activision in 2012. It was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo 3DS. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions are a first-person shooter developed by Double Helix Games while the Wii, DS and 3DS versions were a turn-based strategy game developed by Magic Pockets.
Shovel Knight is a platform video game developed and published by Yacht Club Games. Development was crowdfunded and the game was released for Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, and Windows in June 2014. It was ported to OS X and Linux in September 2014, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Xbox One in April 2015, Amazon Fire TV in September 2015, and Nintendo Switch in March 2017. Shovel Knight is inspired by gameplay and graphics of platformer games developed for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Skylanders: Trap Team is a 2014 3D platform game developed by Toys for Bob and Beenox and published by Activision. It is the fourth installment in the Skylanders video game franchise and was released on October 2, 2014, in Australasia, October 5, 2014 in North America, and October 10, 2014, in Europe, for release on Android and iOS mobile platforms, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Nintendo 3DS. It is the sequel to Skylanders: Swap Force, and features the voices of Fred Tatasciore, Billy West, John DiMaggio, Matthew Moy, Laura Bailey, Alex Ness, John Paul Karliak, Matthew Yang King, and Richard Horvitz.
Tetris Ultimate is a puzzle video game developed by American studio SoMa Play and published by Ubisoft. Ubisoft partnered with The Tetris Company to develop the game to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Tetris franchise.
Skylanders: SuperChargers is a role-playing platform video game and the fifth installment of the Skylanders series. It was developed by Vicarious Visions and Beenox and published by Activision. It was released on September 20, 2015, for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and was released on October 18, 2015, for iOS. Skylanders: SuperChargers Racing was released as a standalone title for Wii and the Nintendo 3DS on the same date, and focuses on racing. A sequel, Skylanders: Imaginators, was released in October 2016.
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age is a role-playing video game by Square Enix. The eleventh entry in the long-running Dragon Quest video game series, it was released in Japan for the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation 4 in July 2017 and worldwide for the PlayStation 4 and Windows in September 2018. An enhanced version, Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition, was released for Nintendo Switch by Nintendo in September 2019; for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in December 2020; and for Stadia in March 2021.
Skylanders Academy is an American animated streaming television series produced by TeamTO and Activision Blizzard Studios based on the Skylanders series. The first season debuted on Netflix on October 28, 2016. A trailer for the series debuted on October 12, 2016. The second season was released on October 6, 2017 and the third and final season was released on September 28, 2018.
Shantae is a series of platform video games developed by WayForward. The eponymous heroine of the series, a half-genie, was created by Erin Bozon, while the games for this character were created by her husband Matt Bozon. The series consists of five games: Shantae (2002), Shantae: Risky's Revenge (2010), Shantae and the Pirate's Curse (2014), Shantae: Half-Genie Hero (2016) and Shantae and the Seven Sirens (2019). A sixth title, Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution, is in development and scheduled for release in 2024.
Skylanders: Imaginators is a 2016 toys-to-life 3D platform game developed by Toys for Bob and published by Activision. A successor to Skylanders: SuperChargers, it was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. For the first time in the series, players can create their own characters, known as Imaginators. The game received generally positive reviews but the title's sales were below Activision's expectations. It is the sixth and most recent Skylanders game released on consoles.
Fire Emblem Warriors is a hack and slash action role-playing game developed by Omega Force and Team Ninja, and published by Koei Tecmo in Japan and Nintendo internationally for the Nintendo Switch and New Nintendo 3DS. The game was released in Japan in September 2017, and worldwide the following month. The game is a collaboration between Koei Tecmo's Dynasty Warriors franchise and Nintendo and Intelligent Systems's Fire Emblem series.
Kao the Kangaroo is a platform video game developed and published by Tate Multimedia. It was released in May 2022 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. It is the fourth installment of the franchise, a reboot of the series, and the first title released after Kao the Kangaroo: Mystery of the Volcano in 2005.