darkSpyro

Skylanders: Giants

A direct sequel to Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure.

Platform	Developer	Age Rating		Release Date
Platform	Developer	EU	NA
				Oct 19th 2012	Oct 21st 2012
				Nov 30th 2012	Nov 18th 2012
				Oct 19th 2012	Oct 21st 2012

Story

As a direct sequel the story picks up following on from Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. Here is the very basic premise of the game as told by a press release:

Players will resume their role as a powerful Portal Master, who controls their a team of Skylanders, including Giants, mythical and powerful heroes that play a pivotal role in the quest to save the Skylands from Kaos, who is back with another plan to rule over Skylands. Players will navigate perilous lands, battle powerful enemies, collect treasures and solve interesting puzzles.

Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow have returned to help write the story.

Characters

As well as being able to use all of the Skylanders from the original game, Skylanders Giants introduces 16 brand new characters to play as. This new lineup is made up of eight regular sized Skylanders and eight Giants who are about twice the size of the other characters.

Here are pictures of all of the brand new Skylanders:

First row: Life Giant "Tree Rex", Tech Giant "Bouncer", Magic Giant "Ninjini", Air Giant "Swarm", Earth Giant "Crusher", Water Giant "Thumpback", Fire Giant "Hot Head", Undead Giant "Eye-Brawl"

Second row: Life Skylander "Shroomboom", Tech Skylander "Sprocket", Magic Skylander "Pop Fizz", Air Skylander "Jet-Vac", Earth Skylander "Flashwing", Water Skylander "Chill", Fire Skylander "Hot Dog", Undead Skylander "Fright Rider"

Third row: "Legendary Stealth Elf", "Legendary Bouncer", "Punch Pop Fizz", "Legendary Jet-Vac", "Granite Crusher" "Legendary Slam Bam", "Legendary Ignitor"

Fourth row: "Gnarly Tree Rex", "Royal Double Trouble", "Scarlet Ninjini", "Polar Whirlwind", "Jade Flashwing", "Legendary LightCore Chill", "Molten Hot Dog"

And if that wasn't enough there will also be new poses for 24 of the characters from the first game and eight LightCore versions (four of the new Skylanders, four of the old), bringing the total number of new toys to 62. That's a grand total of 99 toys if you include the 37 from Spyro's Adventure.

In the brand new Starter Pack you will get three Skylanders (on console Jet-Vac, Cynder (Series 2) and Tree Rex, on 3DS Punch Pop Fizz, Cynder (Series 2) and Tree Rex), a Portal of Power, Trading Cards, a Poster, and the game. The Starter Pack will also be available without the Portal of Power for those who already have it but it will only have one Skylander; Tree Rex.

To help differentiate between the old and new sets, the base of the Skylanders for Skylanders: Giants will be orange instead of the green currently seen on the Spyro's Adventure toys.

Here is a table to show the compatibility and features of the characters:

Type of Skylander	Wow Pow	Path Switch	LightCore Blast	Spyro's Adventure	Heroic Challenge
Giant	No	No	No	No	Yes
Legendary Giant	No	No	No	No	Yes
New Skylander	No	No	No	No	Yes
LightCore New Skylander	No	No	Yes	No	Yes
Legendary New Skylander	No	No	No	No	Yes
Series 2	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
LightCore Series 2	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Legendary Series 2	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Series 1	No	No	No	Yes	No

And all toys are compatible with the online world of Skylanders: Universe.

Portal of Power

Once again the game uses a Portal of Power, the technology inside has not changed so you will still be able to use the portal you got with Spyro's Adventure and there will be a version of the game without a portal.

The portal included with the Starter Pack for Giants has a slightly different appearance to the old one; the base of the portal (previously green) now glows the same colour as the top but the runes on the side no longer glow at all. All console portals will be wired this time to combat the issues with battery consumption.

The new large "Giants" are sized so that you can still fit two of them on at the same time for co-op play.

The Portals (both new and old) also power the brand new LightCore features of certain special Skylanders, when brought near the Portal of Power they will start glowing. All of the Giant Skylanders contain this LightCore feature but only a select few of the normal sized Skylanders have a LightCore variant. Those that can have it are Jet-Vac, Pop Fizz, Chill, Shroomboom, Drobot, Hex, Eruptor, and Prism Break. The LightCore versions of these characters will cost more than the regular versions (and the ones in the Starter Pack are not the LightCore versions).

Platforms

The game will appear on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Wii U, and 3DS as well as on mobile devices and the web. There will not be a PC/Mac version this time.

Music

The theme music will again be by Academy Award Winning film composer Hans Zimmer and there will be a brand new score by returning composer, Lorne Balfe.

Exclusives

Toys R Us will again have several Skylanders exclusives, the first of which is a Legendary Triple Pack containing Legendary Ignitor, Legendary Slam Bam and Legendary Jet-Vac. At launch they will also have a single of the giant Legendary Bouncer.

Target in the US will have a special darker version of Crusher, "Granite Crusher", as an exclusive.

At launch GameStop will have an exclusive Golden version of the "Dragonfire Cannon Battle Pack", a normal version will also be available elsewhere at launch.

GAME/Gamestation in the UK and Walmart in the US have an exclusive Glow in the Dark variant of the Series 2 Cynder and a Glow in the Dark Portal of Power in their console Starter Packs.