Skylanders SuperChargers (Wii U) Review

Long term bane of the Skylanders, Kaos, has unleashed his most DOOMy weapon yet. Using a mysterious power, known as the darkness, he has managed to capture the cast of heroes and taken over the Skylands. Making matters worse, he has also made all travel between the Skylands impossible, cutting the Portal Master off from being able to fight back against Kaos' forces. The only way to break through and reach the Skylands is by using the SuperCharges - strong vehicles powered by Rift Engines.

Each iteration of Skylanders has succeeded by focusing on new gameplay mechanics and themes. The second in the series introduced Giant Skylanders. The third, Swap Force, gave the ability to mix and match Skylander parts to create new characters. The fourth in the series, Trap Team, added Skylanders that wielded massive Traptanium weapons, along with traps that could capture enemies and make them playable. By changing up the gameplay and injecting fresh new mechanics and ideas into each release, the series has managed to stay relevant and to compete with all the newcomers. Skylanders SuperChargers' theme and focus are based around the Rift Engine-powered SuperCharger vehicles, which play a major part in all of the story stages and have race modes dedicated to them, too.

The vehicles come in three different forms: land, sea, and air. Each also has a specific element, like the Skylander characters, and by combining a Skylander and a SuperCharger vehicle of the same element, the duo gets a Supercharged power-up. There are twenty of these vehicles to collect, along with twenty new Skylander characters to add to the existing 160 Skylanders. There are also returning characters with new toys and new abilities, as well as a new variant 'Dark' edition of Skylanders and vehicles, too. All of these SuperCharger vehicles are customisable, with numerous parts scattered across the world to unlock and experiment with. It's not just the new SuperCharger Skylanders who can ride them either, since any of the Skylanders are able to, as well.

On top of this, for the first time ever there are also some surprise entries for players on Nintendo platforms, with Nintendo characters getting their own Skylander incarnations. Donkey Kong and Bowser are joining as guest characters with their own versions of SuperCharger vehicles, too. Bowser has an air SuperCharger, the Clown Cruiser, while Donkey rides a land vehicle known as the Barrel Blaster. The Skylanders can also double as amiibo for use in Nintendo titles.

The story has 52 chapters to play through and each is a real joy, incorporating solid 3D platform fundamentals with great vehicle segments and some superb acting by the returning cast. Particularly great is Invader Zim himself, Richard Steven Horowitz. Kaos is very much Zim in another form and hilarious. The animation and art style is beautiful and really complements the stages. SuperChargers has massive variety between each stage, with diverse and original level designs. There is a stage where the Skylanders are shrunk down and need to race to reach a goal while avoiding a now super-sized opponent, while in another level they use nefarious Fried Chicken technology to grow to gargantuan size and stomp around, destroying all in their path. There are Robot Wars-style Gladiatorial arenas, Escherian worlds, and locales set inside Storybooks.

With the focus of this title being around the SuperCharger vehicles, there are also plenty of race stages to enjoy. These play like iconic kart racers of the past, with very much the feel of channelling the fantastic Diddy Kong Racing. There are ramps, boosts, and power-up boxes scattered across each track, along with every vehicle having a set amount of health and a regular attack, too. The racing stages themselves are pulled from the story levels and are just as fantastical. Racing along the back of a giant dragon or through immense forests and across icy tundra… just like in the story mode, the race tracks are massively varied and brimming with superb set pieces and designs that evoke the series' trademark charm.

There's plenty to find, collect and do in SuperChargers. Firstly, for forms of collectable currency there is Gold, Gearbits, Stardust, and Wish Stones. Gold is used to purchase items and to upgrade each Skylander's magical abilities, Gearbits are used to upgrade SuperCharger vehicles, Stardust increases the player's portal master rank, and Wish Stones are thrown into the Wishing Well inside Skylanders Academy to receive random collectible rewards. There are plenty of collectables to acquire, hats that can be equipped to power up their wearers, Legendary Treasures, and Skystones.

The Legendary Treasures can be used to customise the home base of Skylanders Academy - random little items that serve to be fun distractions between races and stages. The Skystones are a returning mini-game trading card game, revitalised with new rules and entitled Skystone Overdrive. Trading card games have often been used as a mini-game and with good reason, as games like Tetra Master and Triple Triad are well remembered highlights of their games. Skystone Overdrive is simple yet addictive fun that entices gamers to search out more cards to better build their deck.

All Toys to Life titles have to entice their players into purchasing more of the toys, and this can often be a difficult balance to maintain. Much like DLC, it's important to have extra purchases on top of the initial starter pack. SuperChargers has two types of starter kits to choose from: the regular starter pack and the series mainstay, Dark Edition. The starter pack contains two Skylander characters and a single vehicle, the type of vehicle being selected from land, air, and sea, plus what Skylander character there is depends on the platform - this is a nice feature that more Toys to Life should follow suit on. The second type of starter pack is the Dark Edition, again returning after previously being available for the Swap Force and Trap Team editions of Skylanders. The Dark Edition offers special "Dark" versions of the Skylanders and their vehicles, along with a special "Kaos Trophy" Skylander. The Kaos Trophy unlocks Kaos and his SuperCharger vehicle, the Doom Jet, for use in any Sky Race track.

The core game only requires a land vehicle to complete, but each of the story levels includes air and sea aspects that add to the overall level, and completing them alters how the level plays. Of course, having the other vehicle types also opens up new race tracks devoted to their types, which means a standard starter pack will need to buy two vehicle packs to play all of the races, while a Dark Edition purchase will still need a single vehicle pack. Other than having one of each vehicle type, no extra purchases feel forced. There are small sections dedicated to specific elements of vehicles, but they aren't substantial.

There are more packs to come to unlock new content, too. Instead of the usual new levels, the packs this time are racing action packs, consisting of a Skylander character, a SuperCharger vehicle, and a trophy that will unlock boss characters to play as, like the Dark Edition Kaos trophy. The first of these, the Sea Racing Action Pack, comes with the Skylander Deep Dive Gill Grunt, the SuperCharger Sea vehicle, the Reef Ripper, and a trophy for the boss character the Golden Queen.

The race aspects are well done and addictive fun, however, there may very well be fans of the series who were hoping for just a 3D platform romp and don't particularly enjoy racers. Thankfully, these aspects are not hardcore racing mechanics and instead rely on simple, fun and addictive kart-style gaming.