I heard the new Giants game is a bit harder and has different difficulty levels. Graphically it looks much better and it looks like it has cool boss fights.

I always like having a game that is low stress that I can just hang out in not think too much. My daughter(14) might like it cause it would be easy for her. She's not a big game player.

I think Giants is much better than the original. There is a nightmare mode that makes it more difficult. There really aren't too many boss fights though. I suppose they are however better than the crappy boss encounters in the original.

Ok so do you really need all the figures to access every part of the game. Lets say I wanted to explore every nook and cranny, what's the minimum figures I need?

You would definitely need one from each element of the regular skylanders, but I'm not sure how the Giants work as we got the Giants pack for my son for Christmas.

As M Polo says, you need one of each element. If you buy the Giants Starter Pack you get an Air, Undead, and Life (Giant) so you would need Earth, Water, Tech, Magic, and a Fire. You can complete all the Giant "areas" with just the one that comes with the pack, so the other 5 could be regular figures.

If you want to explore everything, you will need to buy the 4 advenutre packs from the original game as well. They each come with an extra level, some misc items and a character.

So basically once you buy the giants starter pack you will have life, undead and air. The four adventure packs come with earth, fire, water and undead. You will just be missing magic and technology.

If you also buy the original game you will get magic, water and technology. You will however have to buy an air and life figure as Jet-Vac and Tree-Rex (from the Giants starter pack) won't work with the original game.

edit: Well Edison beat me to it.

OR find a friend or co-worker that has them and just borrow the "level" piece. You can permanently unlock those special levels and give the item back to your buddy.

So you can unlock a level then play it with any character?

I will not be getting the original game. Do I need wave 1 figures from the first game or I can just get the wave 2 variations?

Are there 9 elements in all?

8 in all: Magic, Earth, Water, Fire, Tech, Undead, Life, and Air.

If they wise up and add Heart, then there'll be 9.

You dont need series 1 figures at all, but they do work and they're cheaper.

Yes.
You can use either. The least expensive way would possibly be to purchase figures from the first game (Series 1) as they have been put on sale at B&M stores for as little as half the MSRP (roughly $4 each). If you have a TRU in your town they are currently running a B1G1 @ 50% off on the Skylanders figures (both series). The *best* way would be to purchase "reposed" series 2 figures (those from the first game that got new poses for Giants) as they have the ability built-in to switch upgrade paths. You would need 2 each of series 1 figures to simulate that ability. You *can* simply purchase the new figures that only work with Giants but those do not support upgrade path switching.
8

No matter what you do be advised these are pretty much "plastic crack". Once you start you'll probably want them all...

I believe that "permanent" unlock is *only* for the game in which the special piece is used. I recall us starting a new game and those areas were not already unlocked. Of course it's been a while and I don't know this exactly but I *will* check tonight if I think about it...

Legendary Captain Planet!


You can also use the adv packs while they're still in the packaging.


Yes, the unlocks are only for the save you're currently playing. You should also go into the level or it doesn't seem to save the unlock properly. I had to unlock the pirate ship twice as I turned it off after putting it on the portal to see what happened.

Skylanders Experts Assemble!

Kinda lost me there.

What I would wanna do is get all the Giants. And whatever I would need of the series 2 reposed I guess one of each element. Am I wrong?

If you buy all the giants, you won't need anyone else. There is one giant for each element.

Each character has a branching skill tree. With the series one figs, once you pick one path you cannot go back and earn the skills on the other path unless you reset your Skylander to 0 or buy a second one and take that one down the other skill path.

Not all the Giants are available yet. Three havent come out yet.

How many branches does each have?

We also forgot to mention all the heroic challenges you can unlock. It's basically a mini level with an objective and if you complete the objective your character gets a stat boost. If you want all of those, you will pretty much need to buy / borrow all the Giants, series 2 figures and new figures.

Each character has two skill trees to choose from.

Edit: These are really tiny skill trees. Each tree has 3 skills so you're not really missing out on too much.



Yeah, but I think we're just talking about the least amount of figures you have to buy to complete the game. If he's already planning on buying every Giant figure, he doesn't really need to buy the other figures unless he / his daughter wants them.

Fuck me!

I would just ignore the heroic challenges as they don't really add that much. If you're a completionist though, you're screwed.

Yup, you could get away with beating the core game with as little as a figure from each of the 8 elements and 1 Giant, but if you are a completionist.... Well, welcome to the sickness of collecting Skylanders & Adventure Packs.

Don't get started on the variants, sheesh (i.e. Gold, Silver, Ice Blue, Ice Red, Legendary, etc.)

Thinking of starting out with:

Tree Rex *Life
Crusher * Earth
Bouncer * Tech
Cynder * Undead
Jet-Vac * Air

Is there a triple pack that has Magic, Water, and Fire?