Scratch

Buying Scratch was problematic for me. 

See, when I got into Skylanders with the game Skylanders: Giants I fell in love deep. I purchased a figure of every available figure. I did not buy every figure, since there were a lot of repaints and many characters were given a new figure with each wave. And since the variants and whatnot don't add anything to gameplay, I feel fine ignoring them. 

So when Skylanders: Swap Force came out I assumed I would collect all the new characters too, because collector mentality. But that turned out to be problematic because by the time the new  game, Skylanders: Trap Team, came out it had become clear that they had underproduced figures of Scratch. No store had it. Skylander collectors grumbled about how no stores ever got them It was on ebay, but for about 3x the MSRP, and I refuse to pay more than MSRP for Skylanders because that way leads to bankruptcy.

When Trap Team came out I realized that Scratch had broken me of the need to collect them all. If it was impossible to get every character why try. When I finally started buying Trap Team characters I only picked up characters I really wanted. I ignored a lot of figures and my wallet was glad for it.

But now... My local TRU got a Skylander restock and it included a bunch of Scratch figures. This figure that collector's couldn't find for 2 years and suddenly I see a woman and her 6yo trying to figure out Skylanders holding one. I literally gasped and asked her if there were more. There were.

So I've finally finished getting all the characters in the first 3 games. Now I wonder if I should just go and buy all the characters I skipped for the fourth game  to complete my collection.... Or would that be a waste of money. 

I should probably point out that I already have 70% of the Trap Team characters.It turns out that I really like Skylanders.

Skylanders Saturday: Grilla Drilla

Why did I buy that toy/skylander?

He's a Gorilla with a drill body. In the game he burrows underground and punches people. What more do you want?

Skylanders Swap Force

Black Friday price matching has all Skylanders Swap Force sets at $37 at WalMart so I picked it up. So far the figures are decent and the game is the same as its always been. I am worried that the magnet gimmick may fail one day, rendering all figures unusable, but for now I'm enjoying it. It's 100 times better than Disney Infinity in the sheer scope of what its trying and in terms of sheer videogaming fun.

Although, I must admit that right now the biggest thrill has been WashBuckler, voiced by John DiMaggio, saying "8 legs, no pants."

Skylanders Giants

So I've been struggling with whether or not to get Skylanders Giants figures for about a year. That's when I found out that Bobcat Goldthwait did the voice of one of the Skylanders. But to hear that voice in gameplay, I'd have to get the game starter set and then the figure. Too expensive, I thought.

Of course this year, in fact just couple days ago, they released the NEW Skylanders game: Skylanders SwapForce, which has an even more gimmicky (and more expensive) new feature for the figures. But as a result, there was suddenly a sale on Skylander starter sets that I felt very reasonable for a video game. (They were at Target for $40.) So I picked it up... and holy crap everything in the game is designed to make you addicted. You get in game bonuses for owning as many of the characters as possible. Want to be a little more powerful in game? You just have to have at least 12 characters... but with 16 you'd be even more powerful... You have 3 characters from the machine class? Then all your machine characters get a bonus... and if you had 5 they'll get an even bigger bonus...

There's even a bonus for having characters from the previous game that are retired and thus hard to get. What I'm saying is that the makers of the game get the collector mentality. Thank god the figures are decent enough that if you get them on sale the price doesn't feel like too much of a rip off. They're insanely more detailed than the Disney Infinity figures, but are all original characters from the video game developers.

Two things keep me from feeling to bad about this spending. 1) The game is decent and using the different characters actually extends the fun of the game. (The RPG leveling up aspect plays well to the collector mentality as well.) 2) More importantly, the voice acting in the game and for each character is really well done. And they've got some great voice actors... to the point that the majority of the figures I've bought so far are due to who does their voice. Also, NPCs include George Takei.

Those characters in the picture immediately above are voiced by Kevin Sorbo (Hercules the Legendary Journeys), Dwight Schultz (Barclay from Star Trek: TNG and Murdock from A-Team), and Bobcat Goldthwait (Too much to mention). I've also picked up figures voice acted by John Kassir (who does his cryptkeeper laugh), EG Daily, Kevin Michael Richardson, and hope to get some Tara Strong in there soon.