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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 shortly after the events of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. 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 introduced 16 brand new characters to play as. This new lineup was made up of eight regular sized Skylanders and eight Giants who were about twice the size of the other characters.

Here are pictures of all of the Skylanders new to Skylanders Giants:

Life

Tree Rex

Shroomboom

Gnarly Tree Rex

Legendary Stealth Elf



Lightcore Shroomboom

Stealth Elf

Stump Smash

Zook

Tech

Bouncer

Sprocket

Legendary Bouncer





Lightcore Drobot

Drill Sergeant

Drobot

Trigger Happy

Magic

Ninjini

Pop Fizz

Scarlet Ninjini

Punch Pop Fizz

Royal Double Trouble

Lightcore Pop Fizz

Double Trouble

Spyro

Wrecking Ball

Air

Swarm

Jet-Vac

Legendary Jet-Vac

Polar Whirlwind



Lightcore Jet-Vac

Lightning Rod

Sonic Boom

Whirlwind

Earth

Crusher

Flashwing

Granite Crusher

Jade Flashwing



Lightcore Prism Break

Bash

Prism Break

Terrafin

Water

Thumpback

Chill

Legendary Chill

Legendary Slam Bam



Lightcore Chill

Gill Grunt

Slam Bam

Zap

Fire

Hot Head

Hot Dog

Molten Hot Dog

Legendary Ignitor



Lightcore Eruptor

Eruptor

Flameslinger

Ignitor

Undead

Eye-Brawl

Fright Rider







Lightcore Hex

Chop Chop

Cynder

Hex

Along with the brand new Skylanders and variants there will also be new "Series 2" poses for 24 characters from the first game (compared to the original characters they have a special "Wow Pow" upgrade and the ability to switch paths at will - you can use these toys in the first game but you won't have access to that extra power there) and eight LightCore characters (versions of characters who light up when placed on the portal and cause a massive in-game explosion of light when they first enter) who are made up of four of the new Skylanders and four of the old (they are not Series 2 so do not have a Wow Pow - you can also use these toys in the first game but again do not have any sort of extra power).

Altogether that brings the total number of new toys to 62. Combine that with the 37 playable toys from Skylanders Spyro's Adventure and you have a grand total of 99 different playable Skylander toys.

In the Starter Pack you 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 was also available without the Portal of Power for those who already had one but it only had one Skylander: Tree Rex.

To help differentiate between the old and new sets, the base of the Skylanders for Skylanders: Giants are orange instead of the green that is seen on the bottom of the Spyro's Adventure toys.

Here's 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

All toys were compatible with the online world of Skylanders: Universe but it is no longer running.

Portal of Power

Once again the game uses a Portal of Power, the technology inside has not changed so you can still use the portal that you got with Spyro's Adventure, there is however also a version of the game sold 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 were wired this time to combat the issues with battery consumption that plagued the first game.

The new large "Giants" are sized so that you can still fit two of them onto the portal 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 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 have an additional LightCore edition are Jet-Vac, Pop Fizz, Chill, Shroomboom, Drobot, Hex, Eruptor, and Prism Break. The LightCore versions of these characters cost slightly more than the regular versions (and the ones in the Starter Pack are not the LightCore versions).

Platforms

The game was released on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Wii U, and 3DS. There was not a PC/Mac version this time.

Music

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

Exclusives

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

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

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

GAME/Gamestation in the UK and Walmart in the US had 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.

Console Version »