xelaalexNowOnWebtoon on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/xelaalexnowonwebtoon/art/Merry-Christmas-Bioblood-721766518xelaalexNowOnWebtoon

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Merry Christmas Bioblood

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Okay so this is an interesting one, for the second time I have made a fanart for my friend :iconbioblood: of something that I never wanted to get into, last time being My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Unlike the last one however, I ended up actually getting into the thing I never wanted to get into, that being Skylanders. So, to sum up, I was one of the crowd who HATED Skylanders for taking Spyro and using him as a marketing strategy to sell their games, and for a while that was probably all he was in the game, an attempt to bilk nostalgia, with no interest in paying any kind of tribute to what Spyro originally stood for. However, after getting my Nintendo Switch, and deciding that owing to the at the time tiny game library the only other game aside from Zelda that appeared at all tempting was Skylanders, I had my Mother get it for me for Easter since I wasn't willing to pay for it with my own money...and I ended up actually kinda really liking it .w.; these two are Whirlwind and Drobot, who I know :iconbioblood: is very fond of as a pairing X3 they are admittedly cute together!!

So, to explain my feelings toward Skylanders, first of all as a franchise it actually has a ton of merit...and a ton of wasted potential, but lets focus on the good stuff. Its the only videogame franchise at the moment that is actively building its own world and lore, introducing brand new characters with EVERY SINGLE GAME, and not just one but SEVERAL!!! Aside from this, the new Imaginators allow players to create their OWN characters (with the available pieces, can't go completely nuts with the designs) each with their own elements and battle styles. Its all good stuff, and I found in particular with Imaginators, its actually really addictive playing the same levels over and over in order to obtain new parts for my own characters, almost like I'm playing a dungeon crawler like Diablo, only the pieces are purely cosmetic and have little to no impact over how the character fights or plays, that was enough motivation for me to play well over 100 hours. Alongside this, the level packs (I only picked up the Wumpa Islands level pack, I don't know how representative it is of the others) are actually REALLY well designed. Lastly, whilst some of the characters are lame, some are actually pretty cool, I actually really like how Spyro is presented in the game - he has much more of a Sonic-ish attitude now, but still feels like a significant part of the world, joined now by dragons of all shapes, elements and sizes, and he actually gets a couple of good one-liners and laughs. However, my favorite character is from the second game, Jet Vac, this guy I feel could well be an indirect reference to classic Spyro character Sgt Byrd, as he has the same British accent and Militaristic personality (though his are way better than Sgt Byrd, seriously his voice is amazing) but lastly he is a hawk, a bird that should fly but he needs a jetpack, whilst Sgt Byrd is a penguin, a bird that normally can't fly but he can (in Spyro 3 anyway). Lastly, the series actually has some pretty damn good soundtracks, with some of the boss fight tracks being absolute hits, as well as the new Imaginator character themes (but only in their OST variants, they're kinda muted in-game which sucks :/) I particularly recommend Wolfgang's theme from Trap Force, which I recently discovered and its freaking BANGING :D seriously this gives Sonic a run for its money in terms of electronic rock!! www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s-yhH…

Now for the stuff I'm really not impressed with. First and foremost, Kaos (the Skylanders villain) is probably the worst villain I have ever seen for a game series. He is completely ineffectual despite having LONG FRIGGIN cutscenes dedicated to his next pointless and obviously-going-to-fail scheme, and his personality is simply "insert bad guy here," he has no motivation for his actions aside from just being a dick, and he's given such a generic bully personality and lame ass design. He has some decent looking final boss forms but that's LITERALLY all he has going for him as a character. Secondly, in Imaginators, don't whatever you do be fooled into buying the Sensei characters in order to unlock the elemental realms. Those areas are absolutely tiny and whilst some may be charming CERTAINLY aren't worth the price of buying the Sensei character JUST for the levels. Alongside this, the games obviously have certain areas or things you can't do because you don't own the right Skylanders character type, which is pretty lame and obviously only there to incentivize spending more money on the game. (I ended up spending about 100 pounds on additional content after buying the game, which is kinda shameful but nothing compared to the amount of money the games want you to spend on them) also once you learn that every character more or less fits into a series of archetypes based around elements or battle styles there's little reason to buy more of them, even less when you factor in the Imaginators who are so much more worth buying than the named Skylanders. Lastly, there are some characters that are really annoying, including one that has no purpose aside from being a running gag where he pukes up lava, that's all he's capable of and that's all he ever does... 

So yeah, a little review of my experience with Skylanders, but all things considered I think I may have found a new favorite franchise. I ended up deciding to only buy dragon characters for the game, since of all the things you can't do with Imaginators, you can't make quadrupedal characters, so I figured I should only buy the dragons because they are the only ones I wouldn't be able to make facsimiles of with the Imaginators. Lastly my advice for parents when it comes to buying Skylanders games for children, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't buy them more than a few Skylanders characters, no matter how much they want more. Tell them they can have a new character if they do something well at school or for their Birthday/Christmas. It is important for children to learn patience and that they can't just have everything they want. If they learn that they will be rewarded for good behaviour, they will be taught good behaviour and patience. People nowadays will fulfill their children's wishes at the drop of a hat, THIS IS BAD PARENTING AND SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED!!! If a child has just one Skylanders character, they will grow more attached to that one character, and have fonder memories because of it, whilst if they are given all of the characters at once they will simply never bother to use all of them and will therefore not gain as strong of an attachment to any of the characters. There, that's my Skylanders PSA out the way =w=;

Whirlwind and Drobot are (c) to Activision
Art is (c) to :iconxelaalex:
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© 2017 - 2024 xelaalexNowOnWebtoon
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