[Review] Skylanders: SuperChargers

[[MC]Ronin[MC]]

It’s easy to say that this year’s Skylanders keeps things fresh with its focus on vehicles, but that would be selling it short. While the most obvious change is that Skylanders SuperChargers features a brand-new line of car toys and levels full of fast-paced, Mario Kart-esque racing, it also has some of the most visually appealing and mechanically diverse levels the series has to offer, with plenty of hidden areas to explore.

 

The figures are some of the best-looking Skylanders ever released.
“
Of course, SuperChargers still centers around the increasingly saturated toy-to-life gimmick, where your physical Skylander toys and the new line of accompanying vehicles pop into the game world as soon as you place them on your portal. For the first time, these toys are actually articulated, too - the wheels on the Hot Streak land vehicle, which came in my SuperChargers starter pack, actually rolls, and the figures are some of the best-looking Skylanders ever released, meaning they double as great toys. We also see air and sea vehicles, each with totally unique in-game handling, taking you to barrel-roll through the sky and bob through the sea, usually chasing side-objectives, adding hours of gameplay variety.
Ready to Roll (and Fly and Boat)
The 20-or-so vehicle missions offer a lot of variety over the roughly 12 hours of gameplay, too, with tense chase sequences having you frantically dart across the back of a dragon, to three-step, weapon-based boss fights in arenas full of nasty obstacles. There are some interesting attempts at car-platforming, particularly in levels where you have to use an item to raise a jump at the right time, but the vehicle sequences blatantly try to rush you towards the end, totally forgetting about all the collectables you’ll have to miss as a result.

The air and sea vehicles, which don’t come with starter packs, are optional extras – but highly recommended ones. You’re locked out of any sea or sky missions without purchasing the extra vehicles, as opposed to being locked out of levels based on Skylander’s individual elements as in previous games. This is certainly more of a positive for value-conscious people (like myself) who’d much prefer to purchase two extra vehicles than 10 extra Skylanders And those two vehicles certainly do add a lot to that experience, because there are whole sections of levels designed completely underwater or completely in the air.
 

 

Cleverly, the vehicles pair with specific types of Skylander drivers, too. If you put the right driver in the right vehicle, you get a special SuperCharged enhancement, giving both the Skylander and the vehicle aesthetic and statistical upgrades, are a pretty big help when it comes to successfully navigating the courses. There’s an abundance of shiny stuff to collect scattered throughout each of the levels to upgrade your ride with, but the customization system is very, very simple, and really only adds value to the surprisingly fun cooperative play.

Vehicle co-op in Skylanders SuperChargers sees one player controlling the car, and another in charge of the weapons in high-speed, chaotic action. All of the single player missions can be played co-op, too, but some of the item-based puzzles can be difficult when two people jump to use those items at the same time, and cancel each other out by doing so. It also gets a little frustrating when the fixed camera makes it a little hard for both players to see exactly what they’d like to.
There’s a surprising diversity of enemies, though almost all can be approached in the exact same way.
“
Single-player combat outside of the vehicle missions will feel familiar to anyone who has played a previous Skylanders - or Diablo, for that matter. It’s extremely forgiving, and even on the “nightmare” difficulty it doesn’t present too much of a challenge. It seems to focus more on kid-friendly button mashing and basic skill upgrades than intensely gear-specific combat influences or combo chasing. There are enough different moves for the mashing to feel purposeful, though, if the screen exploding into glittery candies whenever something busts open or you gain a level isn’t enough excitement for you on its own. There’s also a surprising diversity of enemies and, though almost all of them can be approached in the exact same way, it should be said that they’re all beautifully animated.
All Over The Place
In fact, the all of SuperChargers is beautifully animated, from the genuinely funny, somewhat dorky team of characters who help you along the way through its disappointingly bland story, to the oddly adorable returning villain, Kaos. Even aesthetically sinister levels are so creatively designed that the vibe of the game doesn’t often veer far from charming. One level plays around with gravity, with different hallways flipping you on different corners of your TV screen, sometimes forcing you to navigate through its various portals completely upside-down. Another has a shrink/grow ray, allowing you to change the size of obstacles - shrinking your enemies, or making things so large they topple them over. The diversity of gameplay mechanics is near constant, but consistently easy to come to terms with, making it impressive for adults but totally understandable for kids.
 

 

If that’s not enough for you, there’s also a ‘hub’ that you can loosely decorate with Legendary Items like trampolines and soccer balls, which also acts as the center for most of your missions. It houses the kart racing side-missions, a store with some admittedly pretty cute purchasable hats for your Skylander to wear around in-game, and some characters to play Skystones with. (That’s the surprisingly challenging, addictive collectable card game that has returned for the third time since its debut in Skylanders Giants.) There’s certainly no shortage of things to do in Skylanders SuperChargers, and everything you can do is highly polished, however simple it all might be.
 

 

 

Verdict
Adding three different and fun vehicles and extremely creative level designs to the series’ simple but reliably enjoyable action platforming gives Skylanders SuperChargers a healthy boost. Every level has you switching between approaches based on the vehicle you’re piloting, which is great for variety. That said, both the story and the approaches to boss fights are very predictable, and some things - like

 

 

Series: Skylanders
Publisher: Activision
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Wii, Xbox One, Wii U, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, iOS
Genres: Toys-to-life, Platform Game, Role-playing Video Game, Action-adventure game, Racing Video Game
Developers: Vicarious Visions, Beenox