Skylanders SuperChargers has been announced today and brings with it vehicle toys for special Skylanders to pilot and modify. It's a bold move that not only adds more value but changes how the game plays on the screen.
There will be 20 vehicles to collect, each one with a special SuperCharger Skylander that can unlock additional features and customisations. For example, placing Hot Streak on the Portal will bring in a fully customisable hot rod into the game. Add in its related owner, Spitfire, and you unlock some extra buffs. Progressing through the game opens up an ever wider array of mods to apply, mixing and matching wheels, engines and bodywork.
The Starter Pack includes the Hot Streak vehicle, Sure Shot Stealth Elf and SuperCharger Spitfire along with the new rubberised portal. A nice touch with the portal is that it includes a slot for the Traps - however, in SuperChargers they are not used to capture villains but bring additional power-ups to the vehicles instead.
The game will be coming to all the usual platforms including Wii U, Wii and 3DS. This year though, the Wii will get a "complimentary" experience rather than the same as the more powerful platforms. It will be interesting to see how this makes use of the vehicles and differs to the main game.
The Skylanders series has held out the longest matching the Wii game to the other consoles, but it is understandable with more procedural elements this year it was a bridge too far. Still, it's good to see the Wii getting some love with its own game, though.
With an eye on value this year, the Portal Owners pack lets those who already have a previous game to download SuperChargers and reuse their old portal. If you have access to a portal from any of the previous games back to Skylanders Giants, you can use it here. This is particularly useful for Wii owners of Skylanders who have since upgraded to Wii U. They can download the game and reuse the Wii portal on the Wii U.
The vehicles are a nice novelty and add some on-the-carpet play value for kids, but it's in the game where the SuperCharger vehicles make the biggest difference. A lot of attention has been paid here to how each of the different vehicles handles. There are land, air and water-based modes of transport, and each feels very different.
The game world also impacts on this handling. Take the submarine for example. The sea is procedurally generated and must be navigated to get the best performance. This really felt a lot like Wave Race back on the N64, with each wave knocking you off course if you hit it at the wrong angle. This new vehicle play is mixed with more standard on-foot challenges. Two player co-op is provided again, although in the vehicle sections players tag-team so that one steers while the other shoots — Skylanders Double Dash anyone?
One slightly odd decision in our book is that you can't put the Skylander toy character into the vehicle like you can in the game. This would have made the toy side of the experience much stronger. As it is, you have a vehicle and character that look similar and obviously go together but must remain separate.
On first impressions, Skylanders SuperChargers looks impressive. The vehicles add more than just a passing novelty and create an experience that feels like Skylanders mixed with Mario Kart, Star Fox and Wave Race.
Skylanders SuperChargers will be released on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, iPad, Nintendo Wii U, Wii and 3DS. The game releases September 20th in North America and September 25th [not the 24th as was previously reported] in Europe. Excited? Let us know by posting a comment.
Comments 43
@RCMADIAX Fixed
For a second there I thought this was just a racing game based on the Skylanders franchise. And personally, I would've preferred that.
I misread the title and thought it meant Star Fox was coming to Wii U in September. Got my hopes up for nothing (I'm expecting Star Fox to be a 2016 release).
SOLD!!
And congrats to Andy and his son for being 2 years early on their guess for vehicles in Skylanders.
And note to Ntinedo - thi sgame will support about 200 different Skyalnders. There are only 3 compatible amiibo fo rSpaltoon. so Nitneod really needs to get on it's game w/ amiibo, especially after how they said amiibo were better b/c they work in more games. So is just so blatantly a lie at this point.
200 >>>>>>>> 3
@rjejr I thoroughly disagree, with regards to amiibo support I feel games supporting 0 amiibo is the best option. The best part about it would be that sales wouldn't diminish if Nintendo stopped adding support because the figures are mostly bought to stay in their boxes anyway.
FUUU, I missed the "Melds" in the title...
@Grumblevolcano Really? I thought most amiibos were bought to sell on eBay.
Aw man I misread this title! I was about to freak with the thought of a new Wave Race going to WiiU. .....dreams crushed
Well time to save now
I get the Wii and 3ds version
Well time to save now
I get the Wii and 3ds version
@Samuel-Flutter Opened amiibo are useless for sale on ebay so that's why I put stay in their boxes.
Beenox has done some technically impressive work on Wii. I'm VERY interested to see what side game they come up with, if they're the Wii developers.
Erm... what?
Am I the only one not jumping on the Skylanders bandwagon this time?
I still can't believe what the first game did to Spyro. I held out hope that the Spyro of old could make a comeback until I saw his ugly as crap redesign and slapped on branding for Skylanders 1, then I understood that the Spyro I knew had apparently become a worthless character for today's market of young game players
@Samuel-Flutter @Grumblevolcano - "the figures are mostly bought"
Ah, somebody already beat me to my reply.
@DreamOn - On the bright side, the Skyladners series is much better than the Legend of Spyro series. Spyro was already damaged goods. The original trilogy was great though. (hmm, 2nd trilogy destroyed the first, now where have I heard that before?)
And Spyro is so far removed from the series now history will never remember his involvement. It's all about KAOS!!
... damn it! I need more shelf space... and moneys, lots of moneys.
@SuperWiiU Same. Skylanders looks cool and all. But is it too much to ask to have a game that can be played WITHOUT the Amiibo- I mean Skylanders figures?
Wow, the ocean waves look awesome!
Definitely getting this game for my son and we will be getting the Portal Owner Pack. He is going to love this. I might even play it for once.
I hope Beenox is strictly relegated to working on the Wii and or 3DS versions and Vicarious Visions is working on the Wii U version because Beenox's work on Trap Team was atrocious. My son and I have had problems constantly with characters not reading correctly, level crashes, traps not working correctly and game bugs in general. Compared to Swap Force which was an amazing experience, Trap Team was a buggy mess of a game and I was shocked when I checked online and saw how many other people had problems with the game.
Skylanders: Nuts and Bolts?
@Rhydas no, I'm with you.
@rjejr
This does look very cool. This is the year the competition is bringing out the real upgrades I think.
I wonder if I'm misunderstanding your point about figures and games.
Amiibo work with multiple games. As in one Amiibo does things in multiple games. Link works in SSB, unlocks a unique weapon in Hyrule Warriors, and unlocks costumes for Mii racers in Mario Kart 8. Kirby does something in 7 games.
Splatoon figurines have broken this rule so far but I expect that to change and bet it will be fun to maybe see Squid heads on classic characters or at least Miis. (I expect Mario Kart 8 to slowly unroll basic support for many more Amiibo).
How many games will all the new Skylanders car toys play in? One, right?
Some of the original Skylanders play in 5 games and maybe 6 now. So there is where your point still works. It is one series of similar games but the original toys still work with all of them.
One game supporting 200 figures doesn't seem to have anything to do with what Nintendo is claiming, that's why I brought it up.
Anyway, I'm impressed with all the toys 2 life stuff this year and we haven't even seen E3 Nintendo announcements yet.
At least we don't need to buy yet another portal. This would be horrible since there are already 2 different portals (Switch Force and Trap Team) and now this starter gives us another new portal. When I first saw this, I thought "Damn, not another portal forced onto us", but then I read the interview of Guha Bala and that there will be a Digital Portal Owners Pack of the game. So, I guess, I will first take a look at this series and decide whether or not I will be part of it.
I wasnt interested in Skylanders or Disney Infinity, but somehow this game and Inifnity3.0 are looking better and better, especially from a 2player co-op standpoint.
All those toys are what put me off from the whole thing.
@BertoFlyingFox From the point of a collector, this is surely a treasure since the models are looking great (Disney a bit better than Skylanders, but that is my opinion and I love both), but would you like a digital version of each Skylander for download? I mean, that would be an alternate option and via menu, you could choose which character you like to use.
For me, collecting those are much fun since I only get 8 (with Dark and Light 10) characters for each element and only if they look interesting; mostly the female characters. This is a bit easier with Disney Infinity, because there are only a handful of characters I like so far (mostly female characters next to Cap Sparrow, Sully and Nova as only male characters).
@aaronsullivan - "what Nintendo is claiming"
What are they claiming? As you pointed out Splatoon breaks the rule. But it's their game and it came out on the same day as Wave 4 amibo in the US. All those amiibo and Nitneod's game came out on the same day, but none of the Wave 4 amiibo work in Spaltoon - they just give you a error message, I tried. (I suppose they'll work in Hyrule Warriros? I need to find that out. And amiibo Tap greatest bits)
Nintneod made such grand claims when these were announced, 1 toy, many games. Then Mario Party 10 deleted the SSB data so they made more Mario Peach etc amiibo for Mario Party 10. Now they make Splatoon with a box that says "amiibo" right the corner of the hub, but none of the other amiibo do anything. True new Sky toys will only work in Superchargers, but all the previous ones work. It just looks like a major oversight to me that the previous amiibo don't do anything in Splatoon.
Found the compatibility chart - giving me DI flashbacks - and Splatoon amiibo do work in some of the other games, so that's nice.
http://www.nintendo.com/amiibo/compatibility
.
What's weird though is why have Splatoon costume unlocks in SSBU for buying the game at Gamestop, but not have the actual amiibo unlock them? How does that make sense?
https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/05/splatoon_mii_fighter_outfits_coming_to_super_smash_bros_in_the_summer
OK, so maybe Nitneod isn't technically doing anything wrong w/ amiibo, but it just looks to me like they aren't doing anything right either. It's like random people in the company are coming up w/ random ideas, some they implement, some they don't, b/c there isn't anyone in charge of amiibo implementation company wide making sure these things look good. Look good as in game interoperabilty, not looks, I'm sure somebody is in charge of that.
For example: There's no mention of amiibo Tap: Greatest bits on the game compatibility chart. Why not?
Guess I'm not good w/ mish-mash or hodge-podge implementations.
Looks pretty good. Will be picking up the starter pack (with new base) for sure. It looks like I'm going to need to also buy Dive Bomber and a flying vehicle as well to get started. Would like to pickup more at launch but with Amiibo and Infinity my wallet is already feeling the pain.
nice!
I'm tempted to get this, the only thing that's making it hard to decide is the fact that Stealth Elf returns as a starter figure again which disappoints me.
@rjejr
No doubt that Nintendo is in a very experimental phase right now. It's in the process of exploring everything and I agree that it's disappointing that you can't use amiibo to outfit your Mii fighters as an option. To me, Amiibo are about collecting a few of your favorite characters and trying them out in different games to see what they do... but I do always have my eye on at least one particular game I want to get significant value from using an amiibo, too.
Honestly, I still prefer this to the other guys as those incentivize you to get basic gameplay out of the toys and after you've played the game you rarely return to many of the toys and if you weren't a big fan of the character... it's just plastic. Each of the toys 2 life approaches do deal with this in some way.
Um, "complementary"?
(Not sure I understand it either way though — are they trying to say a "different" experience, which means watered-down? Or perhaps even an increased experience using the gamepad's motion controls or mic or camera?)
Not sure why NL used that word to be honest.
The press release said "a different, unique adventure" for the Wii & 3DS. Not 100% certain if that means that those versions will be esentially the same or not.
September 20,24 isn't good release date as Lego Dimensions and possibly Disney Infinity 3.0 release around the same time. It's all about what captures your interest the most I guess.
Looks cool. So does the next round of disney infinity- isn't there a racing component in that too?
Looks AWESOME can't wait to have an empty wallet again, LOL..
Personally I'd rather get lego dimensions over sky landers, plus I'm kinda mad they screwed up spyro in the first game.
@Shiryu I'm really impressed how they have ALL portals work with this version VS the other ones where you needed a new portal almost yealry. (save for the first 2)
this is the 5th game isn't it?
@rockodoodle Yes Infinity 3.0 has a racing play set.
@Uberchu Indeed, the craziness began 5 years ago... and now everyone wants a piece of the pie.
@rjejr The Splatoon amiibo have no meaningful use outside Splatoon, they just do things that any other amiibo could do like unlock a demo in Amiibo Tap, give a random item in Hyrule Warriors, give Mario Party points in Mario Party 10. That's perfectly fine with me, the issue is of course the exclusive challenges in Splatoon (those should be in the game without the need of an amiibo)..
"Each game is given an epic adventure". That's a really bold statement. I have only played the first Skylanders game for 3DS, it's a pretty good game as long as you have every type of figurine. The only thing it lacks, sadly for Activision is the story! The story is sad and dull. It's probably the main reason I never got any of the next games.
Guess the kids like the toys though. I just found them annoying.
I think it's almost sad that they make a Wii version. I mean Wii was already replaced with the Wii U by Nintendo when they released the first Skylanders game. Or am I wrong?
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