There is also another trick that can net you 5,000-6,000 in treasure per go in less than 2 minutes. After you beat the Giants game you go back to the main ship and head to the right where the little "casino" is. Instead of going in there go up the little staircase and out on the little deck out back. It seems that each time that you beat a level they put jewels back out there and they add even more. Once you have beaten the game there will be 5,000 or more out there depending on your character that you are using and his/her luck and hats, etc. The trick here is to pick up all the jewels and wait a second or two for your figure to save it in the base but not the game itself to save that you picked up the money. Quickly reset the game and go back and recollect the jewels once again. You can have all the money you need for any character in around 8 minutes as it took me less than 2 minutes per restart and collect on the PS3. It should take no more than 4 times doing this for any character to be able to purchase all of their upgrades from scratch. Just be sure that you don't leave the balcony and give the game a reason to save.

We've played the first 3 levels, basically "blasting" through them using a assortment of figures to get an idea of how each works. They got a *very* good assortment for Christmas including all of the currently available "new" regular figures (with dups on a couple), a half dozen or more reposes, the Light Core Prism Break (who looks *very* cool on the portal), and 3 additional Giants. I held back a few for later.

So far I'm just a bit underwhelmed as Giants already feels shorter and easier (we've been playing on "Medium" difficulty and I hope "Hard" will help with that although I suspect it'll just be more "baddies" to dispatch) than the original. They improved the graphics, especially the cut scenes (which we skip after the first viewing), but this really seems to be at the expense of level design and a more involving gameplay. We've not used the Player's Guide to help find stuff and do not yet have 100% on the levels so that'll help the "shortness" feel a bit longer after a replay or two of those. I'm also somewhat underwhelmed with the "regular" Giants figures in game play. None truly stand out and are just "blah" as far as abilities and playability are concerned. Most of the Giants we've played with are better but they just seem to significantly decrease the difficulty. They feel overpowered in most cases with their ability to mass dispatch "baddies" and open walls/chests/etc. So far I've found little reason to use the regular sized figures other than a few cases of wanting a bit more speed than that of most Giants. Hopefully this "blah" feeling will go away and I'll feel better about the game but so far it seems overpriced for what you get. I didn't have that feeling with the original Skylanders.

*EDIT*

OK... played a couple more levels and it's a bit better on "Hard" with a few improved level designs. I guess those first 2-3 are like the original and aimed at getting you ready for something better. BUT I do *not* care for the level where you constantly have to play "Skystones" to advance. Like the matching game in the Pirate Ship level it's somewhat a buzz-kill as you just get going good and have to stop for a simplistic game.

I noticed that Dillon's (our local Kroger store affiliate) went 75% off of Christmas/Toys today including Skylander Giants figures. I was able to pick the lightcore figures (Drobot, Eruptor, and Jet Vac) for $3.00, and Bouncer for $3.75.

Well it looks like my daughter's skylanders obsession is over. She has moved on to mario on the wii u.

The 2 month + drought of new characters seems to have killed my desire to collect everything from the Giants set. I'll probably pick up everything I am missing if I happen to see them at a store but I doubt I'll be driving around hunting for figures anymore.

i like this game, i got the white xbox bundle from walmart for a $100 with discount. the only thing i can think of while playing though is i'm waiting to see joe from family guy come flying in on his wheel chair, drives me nuts.

Very YMMV, but one of the local Walmart locations has Skylander Giants figures on clearance. Single figures (lightcore/reg) were $5, and the Battle pack was $12. They didn't have too many to choose from, and I didn't scan the Giant (Swarm was it) since I already had it. On the way out I found the iOS Battlegrounds pack was also clearanced for $20 so I picked it up.

Man. Definitely getting hard to find the original figures. Glad the re-posed ones will work with the original game. Now if I can just find a reasonably priced Dragon's Peak and Darklight Crypt, I will be all set.

Oh wow, I didn't know that. I haven't gotten into Giants yet, but have noticed all the old figures have disappeared.

I've noticed the originals disappearing around town. Toys R Us is drying up it seems they've been running B1G1 xx% off for a while now on the originals.

A Walmart near me has 20+ of the Empire of Ice sets, but I haven't seen the others for a while. Dragon's Peak will likely be the hardest to find since it was one of the last sets released.

I can understand figures with a reposed Series 2 variant going OOP on the series 1 figure. But you would think Activision would keep the "Adventure Packs" in print as they also open new "levels" in Giants.

Yeah, that surprised me too. I got Empire of Ice on Amazon for a good price, and a friend found Pirate Seas at Target last week too. Haven't seen the others in a while. They're up to $40 or so on the Amazon marketplace right now.

I typically don't trust amazon marketplace prices. What are they ending at on Ebay? I know my local Sams has a bunch Dragon's Peak sets. The Crypt seems to be more rare in my area.

According to zoolert.com Amazon had copies of Darklight Crypt on 12/28 off and on for about fifteen minutes total. WM had some on the 31st. Looks like it would be best to set up a alert notification for those you're after.

They're pretty high on eBay too. I need to check Sam's, I didn't think of looking there.

Yeah, I have zooLert alerts set up on both of them. Dragon's Peak was in stock for about an hour the other day and I missed it cause I was driving to work and didn't see the message.

I picked up a Scorpion Striker Battle Pack today at GameStop. Looks pretty cool but I've not yet opened the package and put it on the portal so I don't know exactly what it does. It looks like the spikes on the ball will light up and the gold color suits the figure better than the gold cannon in the GameStop Cannon Battle Pack exclusive.

I'm not crazy about Zap being the reposed Series 2 figure in the package simply because we don't play with the original much but it *does* have Hot Dog so our collection of the *new* regular sized Giant figures is complete. Now all we need is Thumpback, Eye Brawl, and Ninjini. I'd sure like to know when those will be released so I can tell the kids and get 'em off my back about them.

I picked up my Scorpion Striker pack yesterday also. It works just like the cannon unlocking a battleground, and you can put it on the portal with your character it will fire at enemies for a timed duration.

There has been so much talk/speculation on Thumpback and Eye Brawl releases on darkspyro, but I don't think anyone really knows. The current "date" is believed to be the 14th which doesn't really sound right since most of the others have released on Sunday.

I talked with the GameStop associate yesterday and he said they hadn't seen the new Giants yet so he didn't think this Sunday was right, but said they could get stuff on Monday. They evidently did get wave 3 figures yesterday also although they were gone by the time I got there. I wasn't looking for any of the regulars anyway so no big loss.

^I should have been more specific when I said "don't know exactly what it does." I was referring to the light core effect rather than the in-game mechanics. We've been rather disappointed with several of the light core effects... Hot Head is *very* lame with only his head lighting up. You would have thought they'd had at least one of the hands light up as well. We were also surprised that his eyes do not light up. That one seems like a no-brainer. So far light core is turning out to be rather lame and just another way to get more money out of the consumer. After all, once you put the figure on the portal you don't look at it for the effects as you're too busy playing the game.

The GS I visited received restock and wave 3 in addition to the Scorpion Striker BP which came in across *3* days (I checked every day starting the 9th as the web site indicated that was the release date). They had just unboxed the Scorpion Striker sets when I arrived around 1pm yesterday and indicated they'd arrived that morning. I also asked about Thumback, Eye Brawl, and Ninjini but they didn't know any more than I already do which is "possibly sometime in the next month on Thumpback & Eye Brawl but nothing about Ninjini".

I hope none of them turn out to be like Wham Shell has been. We got lucky and scored one locally right after release but haven't seen any more in stock anywhere since (no TRU locally).

At least one person on darkspyro was able to find Eye Brawl and Thumpback at Walmart. They were both most likely put out earlier than they were supposed to be but that should let us know that we should be getting them sooner than later.

looks like Disney is creating their own version of "Skylanders"

https://infinity.disney.com/#!/game

Would any of you guys be in? I see this being more successful because of the character recognition. Pretty smart of them to do it.

I'm surprised that Pokémon hasn't catch onto this yet.

Check your local Gamestop for Thumpback, and Eye Brawl that may have came in today.

Whoa. That Disney game looks pretty cool.

I keep waiting for the sports game to do it that lets you use trading cards or figurines.

Sports games would be pretty hard, because that'd be a lot of figures, you'd need to license out the player likenesses, and you have to sort out the licenses that are already made for existing action figures (like McFarlane). Disney or Pokemon I can see, even though that would be a ton of figures too. Or heck, something like Hot Wheels.

Anyone know how Skylanders is doing in Japan? They're obsessed with little figurines and collectibles, even more than we are.

Doesn't the WiiU have some kind of RFID equivalent built in already anyway?

Yes, and NFC was mulled over for Rayman: Legends, but it was scrapped. I don't know how "near" the near field communication has to be, but putting a figure on the gamepad means the pad is out of play, and that was apparently the dealbreaker.

I don't think it's out in Japan yet.