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“Unleash Imagination, Create Your Own Skylanders!”
    —Imaginators tagline

Skylanders: Imaginators is the sixth and latest console installment in the main Skylanders series.

Story Summary

The story of Skylanders Imaginators takes place long ago when the Ancients used a mysterious power known as "Mind Magic" to create everything in Skylands. With it, they conjured into existence anything that they could imagine! However, they soon learned that in the wrong hands, it could be very dangerous, and so they sealed it away so that it could never be misused. After discovering this ancient secret, Kaos has unleashed the power of "Mind Magic" into Skylands once again - and he is using it to create an unstoppable army of Doomlanders, the likes of which have never been seen! Now it's up to Portal Masters to create Skylanders Imaginators from their own imagination and stop Kaos and his evil Doomlanders before it is too late. And to help train them, Eon is sending the greatest mystic warriors of all time - the Senseis![1]

Gameplay

Skylanders: Imaginators supports the 300+ character toys from all the previous Skylanders games that fans can enjoy in the real world and in the virtual game world. When players add new Skylanders to their collection, they expand their in-game experiences.

Create your own Skylander.

For the first time ever, their imaginations come to life as they can create their own Skylanders, called Imaginators. With endless creation options of powers, abilities, catchphrases, appearance and much more, fans can build their very own creations out of their imaginations or use the randomize feature to allow the game to choose parts for them.

Creation Crystal

Skylanders Imaginators introduces a new toy type - a Creation Crystal. This vessel allows players to create and transport their unique Skylanders to consoles at anytime, anywhere! Creation Crystals are elementally aligned. Portal Masters can create one character per Creation Crystal.

Meet the Senseis

The Skylanders franchise continues to offer engaging characters that kids love to discover as they play the game. Skylanders: Imaginators introduces new guest stars to Skylanders called Senseis to fans. Senseis include 20 new characters and 11 former villains. Each Sensei is a master of one of 10 powerful Battle Classes (e.g., Knight, Sorcerer, Brawler, and more).

Being the master of these Battle Classes, only Senseis have the ability to unleash Sky-Chi - the ultimate Battle Class super move. Sensei Skylanders have a master-to-apprentice relationship with newly created Imaginator Skylanders. This is supported in-game through the Sensei's unlocking of unique Imaginator weapons, the increase of Imaginator level caps, providing access to special areas in the game, as well as the unlocking of new Secret Techniques for Imaginators of the same class.

New Storyline and Gameplay

Skylanders: Imaginators features an all-new adventure-filled, comedic and charming story with fun new characters, as well as returning franchise favorites. The game delivers a diverse and dynamic story-driven gameplay experience, focused on the magic of sparking imagination, inspiration, and excitement of fans as they create their own superheroes - all set within a variety of compelling new environments. Additionally, Skylanders Imaginators supports local co-op multiplayer. Players can place two Creation Crystals or two toys or a combination of the Crystals and toys on the Portal of Power to maximize the fun!

Returning Core Characters

Skylanders Imaginators also features fan-favorite characters who make an appearance in both the storyline of the game - and the Skylanders Academy television series! These characters include Spyro, Stealth Elf, Eruptor, and Jet-Vac.

List of Sensei Skylanders

Credits

Skylanders: Imaginators/Credits

Development

Development of Skylanders: Imaginators began after the completion of Skylanders: Trap Team, and the game's development cycle is approximately two years. With SuperChargers not being a commercial success,[2] and Disney's decision to shut down its own toys-to-life developer Avalanche Software and its game, Disney Infinity, Activision, which had grossed $3 billion with the franchise, remained hopeful and believed that the genre still has potential for continuous game development.[3] Despite their positivity, following the underperforming sales of SuperChargers, Activision informed Toys For Bob if this new Skylanders game title didn't make more money, it may be the last one in the series. Toys For Bob knew there was a chance Imaginators would be the last Skylanders game, so they intentionally wanted to leave the audience with a create your character gimmick.[4]

As the game's target audience is kids, many development team members suggested ideas to their own children to see whether they resonate with them, and pitched these ideas to other members to see whether their children are equally interested in order to ensure that these gameplay ideas appeal to them.[5] According to Jeff Poffenbarger, the senior executive producer of Imaginators, innovation is one of the most important aspects while designing the game. They hoped that with new mechanics and systems, they can continue to attract new customers to play the game, as well as retaining the core players. In addition, according to CEO Eric Hirshberg, one of the advantages is that Skylanders, unlike its competitors, features largely original characters and would not be confined to any limitation. The Imaginators mechanic was the most significant introduction, and was designed to be similar to other complex role-playing games.

However, one of the key principles is to retain its accessibility. They hoped that players can make use of their creativity to create unique Skylanders, and that the team "can't wait to see what people create". This mechanic was inspired by a fan letter after the release of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. Selected player-created Imaginators have been printed out through 3D printers by the Skylanders team.[6] As this creation mechanic introduced lots of new characters, the team decided to create a story that puts a huge emphasis on existing characters, so that these characters would remain relevant to the franchise.[7] Toys For Bob was uncomfortable with the inclusion of microtransactions, with not enough content being added in due to time constraints and the story writers couldn't tell the game story and experience that they wanted.[4] According to former Toys For Bob Narrative Lead Alex Ness, Skylanders: Imaginators was the most difficult storyline he had done due to the different toolset for the game and the company spending more time on modeling and imagination time on the Imaginators.[8]

At E3 2016, Sony and Activision announced that Crash Bandicoot would be a guest character in the game. To create an accurate version of Crash, Vicarious Visions studied old documents of the old games, including the original concepts. As Crash has his own physical figure, the team went through multiple design iterations to ensure that they had successfully captured its personality, and that its final pose and appearance are cohesive with his old version. The team began animating Crash after finishing up the model, with the goal of ensuring that Crash's "edginess, trademark wackiness, and swagger" are preserved. To capture Crash's legacy, the team specifically created a new life system, spin attack mechanic for it, and numerous crates for its level.[9]

Imaginators marked the first major appearance of Crash in several years; though he had a cameo appearance in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, the last game in which he was the main character was 2010's Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 2.[10] In August 2016, at Gamescom, it was announced the game would also feature Crash Bandicoot series antagonist Doctor Neo Cortex as a playable character, along with an additional level featuring gameplay and design elements derived from the Crash series.

Reception

Skylanders Imaginators received positive, favorably reviews. While the game was praised for its 'create your character' gimmick, negative reception included the game's short length and rushed storyline, reussed assets, with some fans regarding Imaginators as the worst game in the series. Metacritic gave most platforms positive reviews[11][12][13][14] IGN gave it a 6.5 out of 10, noting that while creating Imaginators was the enjoyable point of the experience, the game had a bland story, repetitive minigames and the constant need for microtransactions to get more Imaginator parts; the latter IGN finds "a little distasteful in a game aimed at kids of all ages".[15] Gamespot gave Imaginators a 7 out 10, finding the Imaginators mechanic the redeeming quality for this latest instalment, but finds the rest of the experience lacking when compared to Trap Team and SuperChargers.[16]

Sales

The game reportedly sold 66,000 units in the US during its first month[17], and due to selling less than SuperChargers, this prompted Activision to put the main franchise on hiatus.

Gallery

Videos

Trivia

  • Imaginators is the first game to have the title logo not connected to the secondary logo.
    • The logo also includes the elemental symbols of the Light and Dark elements for the first time.
      • However, they still have smaller rosters than other elements, as well as much smaller symbols in the logo.
  • This is the first installment that doesn't include the Wii and 3DS versions due to size limitations.
  • Although certain original Skylanders music themes can be heard in the game, the majority of the game's soundtrack is licensed stock music. For example, the main theme is a truncated version of Ian Livingstone's "Heroes All" music track.
  • Imaginators is the first game in the series to include Skylanders (in this case, fan-favorites) as non-playable characters in story mode.
  • Even though it's hinted that Spyro has beaten Stealth Elf at a race multiple times, Stealth Elf is canonically faster than Spyro.
  • This is the first game to have an Adventure Pack for its Guest Characters.
    • This is also the first game to have Adventure Packs that are unlocked by a Skylander itself.
  • This is the first game to have multiple references to religion or religious concepts:
    • The Angel Sword weapon for Knights and the Angel set for Light Creation Crystals.
    • The Light default color scheme Golden God and Chain Reaction's Soul Gem, "Lightning God".
    • Bad Juju's catchphrase is based on a Bible quote.
    • It is also the first game to reference demons since the Book of Elements series, with the Dark creation crystal set and the Demon Staff.
    • The chant used by the Dragons of Dragon Temple to activate their magic is the sacred sound Om, used in most Indian religions.
  • Due to the Performance Matters game voice actor strike from SAG-AFTRA, several voice actors for recurring characters were left uncredited, such as Tara Strong, Kevin Michael Richardson, Quinton Flynn, and Cree Summer. Some cases even saw a character being recast entirely, with Spyro being portrayed by Matthew Mercer instead of Josh Keaton in both non-playable and playable instances, and Erica Lindbeck voicing Cynder instead of Tobie LaSalandra for the Cursed Tiki Temple Level Pack.
    • However, Keaton's recordings of Spyro were still used for Spry, and LaSalandra's recordings are still used for Cynder in playable instances.
  • This is the first Skylanders game not to introduce a new Skylander with a hammer for a weapon (although there are several hammer options for the Imaginators).
  • Several old Skylanders have new or replaced battle cries when used in-game.
  • Players can emote certain Skylanders - old and new - by using the directional buttons on the controller. The emotions are happy (left), sad (right), angry (down) and shock (up). This feature was probably included for use with taking selfies.
  • Due to the forwards compatibility of Skylanders figures, this is the first game to feature a crossover of playable characters from both the Crash Bandicoot and Mario franchises, though this only applies to Nintendo versions of the game.
  • This is the first home console Skylander game to use a digital library and to not be on the Wii or 3DS. However, it wasn't ported to these systems, due to the Switch having the portability of the 3DS, and the ability to handle the game, unlike both the Wii and 3DS.
  • This is the second Skylanders game to be released a second time for a new console after its original launch. The first being Skylanders Spyro's Adventure, which had a Wii U release in 2013, although it was exclusive to Japan.
    • The release for the Switch may be likely due to the launch of the new hybrid-console, the chance to release DLC due to not being on the Wii (a system that no longer has the ability to support DLC), and the games sales failing to meet Activision's expectations.
  • This is the first game where hats that Skylanders have on do nothing (excluding Imaginators) except add cosmetic changes.
  • There are scrapped assets for at least two different levels posted by the game's 3D modelers - a pair of dragon statues before a circular gate, and a port town with a building that appears to be a Troll restaurant.[18]
    • Oddly, another artist posted assets from the dragon-themed and port-themed levels, but they are listed as personal work; implying those levels weren't approved in time.[19]
  • Software Engineer, Robert Leyland stated that a sequel or Year 2 for Imaginators would have been about making quadruped Imaginators, including dragons.[20]
  • This is the only Skylanders console game to not have a new figure for Gill Grunt.
  • Racing mode is not available on the Nintendo Switch version of the game.
  • This is the only Skylanders game where none of its figures are compatible in the previous games.
  • This is the final Skylanders game to be developed by Toys for Bob before they left Activision and became an independent company.
    • This is also the final Skylanders game to have additional work done by Vicarious Visions before they left Activision and merged with Blizzard to become Blizzard Albany.

References

  1. Skylanders® Imaginators on Store Shelves Now -- Kids Can Create Their Own Skylanders for the First Time in Award-Winning Toys-to-Life Videogame. (Date Posted - Oct. 17, 2016). Business Wire.
  2. Activision's 2015 Figures Show Slight Growth, But Skylanders And Guitar Hero Underperform. (Date Posted - Feb. 12, 2016). Nintendo Life.
  3. Activision still committed to toys-to-life. (Date Posted - Jun. 1, 2016). GameIndustry.biz.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Skylanders: Portal Casters 10th Anniversary Celebration Pt. 2 - Paul Reiche. (Date Posted - Oct. 16, 2021). YouTube.
  5. Exclusive: Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg On ‘Skylanders Imaginators’. (Date Posted - Jun. 1, 2016). Time.
  6. Skylanders Imaginators lets you create your very own Skylanders. (Date Posted - Jun. 1, 2016). VideoGamer.
  7. 11 Things to Know About ‘Skylanders: Imaginators. (Date Posted - Jun. 1, 2016). Time.
  8. Skylanders: Portal Casters 10th Anniversary Celebration Pt. 5 - Alex Ness. (Date Posted - Oct. 16, 2021). YouTube.
  9. Skylanders Imaginators: Crashing Into Skylands. (Date Posted - Jun. 13, 2016). PlayStation.Blog.
  10. E3 2016: Crash Bandicoot Comes To Skylanders: Imaginators. (Date Posted - Aug. 16, 2017). IGN.
  11. Metacritic Playstation 4 Reviews. Metacritic.
  12. Metacritic Wii U Reviews. Metacritic.
  13. Metacritic Xbox One Reviews. Metacritic
  14. Metacritic Switch Reviews. Metacritic.
  15. Skylanders Imaginators Review. (Date Posted - Oct. 14, 2016). IGN.
  16. Skylanders Imaginators Review. (Date Posted - Oct 16, 2016). Gamespot.
  17. Skylanders franchise kept alive, but no new game this year. (Date Posted - Dec. 9, 2016). Eurogamer.
  18. Skylanders Imaginators by Jamie Burton. (Date Posted - May 24, 2018). ArtStation.
  19. Personal Work by Roberto Moreno. (Date Posted - Sep. 23, 2017). ArtStation.
  20. Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure DEVELOPER COMMENTARY - Episode 4: Software Engineer, Robert Leyland. (Date Posted - Jan 28, 2020). YouTube.
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