Skylanders: Giants

Genre: 3D Platformer

Players: 1

Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: Activision Blizzard

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Review:

Note: Are you confused by all this “Toys to Life” stuff? Check out eShopperReviews’ helpful guide here!

Skylanders: Giants is a family-friendly Action-RPG with 3D Platformer elements released in 2012 on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and Wii U, with an entirely separate game with the same title released on Nintendo 3DS the same year. This is the second game in the Skylanders franchise, the series that started the “Toys to Life” craze that has largely died out by 2022, save for Nintendo’s own Amiibos, which continue to linger on. Much like Amiibos, Skylanders figurines have NFC chips in the figurines, which can be read by a “Portal” device that connects to your Nintendo 3DS wirelessly via the Nintendo 3DS’s little-used infrared port (on the top of the handheld, near the L button).

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Getting Started

For those wondering about what additional toys/gadgets/doodads you’ll need to get to enjoy this game, know that in order to play this game, you need to get a compatible Skylanders portal – any Nintendo 3DS Skylanders Portal will do, but only those designed for Nintendo 3DS. Console portals won’t work. The Nintendo 3DS Swap Force portal is highly recommended, as this is reputedly the only portal that works with all Nintendo 3DS games in the series.

You will also need at least one compatible Skylanders figurine (this game only works with Spyro’s Adventure, Giants, and Eon’s Elite figurines) – Different figurines have different abilities, and some types of figurines are required to access certain areas, but no specific figurine is required to play the game. Adventure Pack figurines add content to the game, but are not necessary to play and enjoy it.

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A Giant-Sized Presentation on Nintendo’s Small Handheld?

Compared to the first Skylanders game on Nintendo 3DS, Skylanders: Giants is both a step forward and a step back. The game once again features the well-animated, expressive, detailed characters of the first game and an appealing, colorful world. This time, that world seems a great deal bigger, with levels that are more expansive and less linear than the prior game. Unfortunately, this seems to have come at a cost, as the framerates noticeably chug in areas of the game, and there’s also some noticeable pop-in as well.

On the bright side, this sequel retains more of the great voice acting talent of the console games, with Patrick Warburton’s presence in particular doing a great job of making this game feel better-connected to the console games. And in addition to this, you have another excellent instrumental soundtrack that does a good job building the feeling of adventure this game is going for.

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Growing Pains?

Once again, the handheld version of a Skylanders game plays more like a 3D Platformer, although this time around, there seems to be a greater focus on combat, This definitely helps to take the game farther away from the easy comparisons to the Mario games, and it’s just as well because the combat is much more enjoyable than the Platforming here anyway. There’s also a little more exploration in this game as well, though it’s still a mostly linear experience.

Unfortunately, that exploration leads to an issue the console games have had since the beginning – the inability to control the camera makes the occasional backtracking you’ll need to do really frustrating, especially when you’re jumped by enemies from off-screen as you walk toward the camera. This isn’t a game-breaking issue, but it’s a source of frustration that I felt needed to be mentioned here.

Back to positives, I also need to point out that once again, the figurines retain the progress you made leveling them up in the prior game (or games, if you count the multiple different versions), really helping to give this sequel a feeling of continuity and ensure that you have a reason to bring back old favorite characters rather than gravitating toward the new ones.

Having said that, the main complaints about the prior game are all still valid here. Once again, some bonus sections of levels require a certain type of character to access. There are 8 “element” types, so you needn’t have all figurines to access the entire game, but needing to buy 8 figurines to access the entire game strikes me as really sketchy, and even if it wasn’t I would be frustrated by the need to replay levels with a different character because the game arbitrarily decided that my current character wasn’t the right one to visit the section in question.

This issue is exacerbated somewhat by the new “Giants” characters, who also have their own specific areas that only they can access. Unlike the console games, these sections are relatively infrequent, occurring maybe a few times during a level, and none of these sections need to be accessed to play through the game. However, it still feels like there’s a nagging feeling that you should always have a Giant take up one of your two party slots because you know you’ll inevitably run into one of these sections.

On that note, yet again, unlike the console games, you can’t just hot-swap your Skylanders at any time – you can only change them out in-between levels, keeping only two of them in your active roster to swap between. I suppose this makes sense given that the Nintendo 3DS portal is wireless and would need to be activated for each use, but this is also part of the cause of the frustration of having to replay levels, as you can’t just swap to the needed Skylander when you reach a section that requires them.

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A Giant Leap Forward, or a Giant Disappointment?

Skylanders: Giants on the Nintendo 3DS does seem to genuinely expand on the gameplay from the prior 3DS game, and many of the changes here are indeed improvements, such as the shift in focus from playforming to combat. However, along with these changes come added frustrations, such as this game’s framerate issues, the inability to move the camera, and the Giants characters further bogging down your limited roster if you want to access the entire level. On the whole, I do think this is an improvement over the prior game, but these flaws make it something of a marginal improvement.

tl;dr – The Nintendo 3DS version of Skylanders: Giants is a family-friendly 3D Platformer. This game, and its console counterparts, are also the second game in the Skylanders series of Toys-to-Life games that kicked off the entire craze. Giants improves on its predecessor with expanded level designs and a shift in focus from the Platforming to the Combat. Unfortunately, there are also some new issues as well, such as worse framerates, camera issues, and frustrations caused by new areas only the titular Giants can access. All things considered, this is an improvement over the first game, but these flaws keep it from being a significant improvement.

Grade: B-

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