Recommended Skylanders
I mentioned in the introduction that you will need something extra in order to unlock all of the achievements. At a minimum, you need either an additional vehicle of a different terrain or you need the Land Cup to unlock extra Land races.
I would recommend getting two extra vehicles to have access to all of the terrain. The game comes with a Land vehicle, so this means getting a Sea and Sky vehicle.
The Sea and Sky racing packs each come with a vehicle (of that terrain), its matching Skylander, and the Cup for that terrain. Buying one of those is a great way of maximizing your achievement earning ability.
The Dark Starter Set (which I usually find is overpriced) comes with a Sea vehicle, so it will let you complete the game.
Overall, I would recommend having at least 15 total Skylanders if you plan on finishing the game in Nightmare mode. The vast, vast majority of those can be characters from previous games though.
Unlike previous games, there are no areas that require Giants, Trap Masters, or Skylanders of a specific element. There are areas that require a specific element of vehicle, but completing them is not required.
Traps, from Trap Team, serve two purposes in this game. If you have a Trap Team villain in the trap when you use it in Superchargers, the Skystone for that villain will be added to your collection to use when you play Skystone Overdrive. Equipping a trap will also add a bonus elemental attack to your vehicle. This attack replaces the normal attack with that vehicle and lasts for only a certain number of shots (although there is no time limit). Used traps reset at the same time Skylanders are healed – at the end of each region.
Instant Skylanders
The Portal Owner’s pack is advertised as coming with Instant Spitfire (a fire Supercharger Skylander) and Instant Hot Streak (a fire land vehicle). What is not obvious is that even physical copies of the game also come with these digital characters.
To use one, just hit when there is no character/vehicle on the portal.
While there is no reason not to use them, I would make them my Skylander of last resort since they cannot transfer between games, so any levels, upgrades, or coins that they get cannot be used in future Skylander games.
Levels
The chapters are organized differently from previous Skylander games. There are 53 chapters to the game – significantly more than previous games – but they are grouped into regions. When playing through a region, you advance directly from one chapter to the next. Any Skylanders that get knocked out will stay knocked out until you finish the region (and end up at the Academy).
But, if you return to the Academy or if you choose to restart when a Skylander is knocked out, you’ll resume at the start of the current chapter and all Skylanders will be restored. So really, you only have to survive a single chapter at a time with your Skylander army.
When replaying, you can start at any chapter – allowing you to jump directly to the section you want to replay.
Unlike all previous games, there are no achievements tied to doing certain actions in each chapter.
Nightmare Mode
Nightmare mode is back again – a difficulty level that gives enemies (especially bosses) crazy numbers of hit points and increasing their attack to the point that two or three hits will be enough to kill any Skylander. And naturally, there is an achievement for completing the game in Nightmare mode.
One significant difference from previous games is that for the first time, you don’t have to complete the game first – you can start in Nightmare mode right from the start. Also, you can change the difficulty at any time so you can play on Easy and then replay levels on Nightmare to unlock this. Usually, you can restart a region at the final chapter of that region and have it ‘count’ for Nightmare.
If you’re a veteran Skylander with a substantial collection of figurines, playing in Nightmare mode from the start is probably the most efficient as it lets you finish the entire game in a single run.
If you’ve got a smaller collection of figurines – especially if many of them are new (starting the game at level 1 with no gold) – you’re better off playing through on easy or medium first. At the very end, you can replay the levels on Nightmare.
There are two big advantages to putting off the Nightmare run:
- You can skip optional vehicle sections during the Nightmare run. Vehicles are especially vulnerable on Nightmare and can decimate your army.
- Every time you gain a Portal Master level, you get a bonus and the bonuses at levels 60-65 give overall bonuses to all Skylanders or vehicles when playing in Nightmare. (As you need to reach level 70 for an achievement, you’ll be getting these bonuses anyway.)
If you only have a handful of figurines, you can probably forget about completing Nightmare mode. I’m probably not the most skilled player, but it took me about 20 figurines to win the final battle on Nightmare. If you’ve only got 5 or so, it will take exceptional skill to finish the game.
Other tips
Coins are good for two things: Buying upgrades and purchasing items from the shop (when it becomes available). Coins are not transferable between Skylanders (but do transfer between games). If you have a Skylander that has not bought all of his upgrades yet, you should swap them in when you open up a chest so that the coins go to that character. Skylanders that have bought all of their upgrades should be the ones purchasing items from stores.
Any Skylander can use any vehicle. You get a small bonus if the Skylander that matches the vehicle is used, but other than that, the Skylander used doesn't matter at all. The only stat from the Skylander that is used is hit points (which comes into play when the vehicle's shield is used up) so you'll want to use a Skylander that is less useful in the on-foot areas for these sections.
You should swap out a Skylander that is badly injured and swap them back in to collect food. An injured Skylander can be healed in a variety of ways, but a killed Skylander is gone until the next chapter. Of course, this is easier said than done – especially in Nightmare mode, death can come swiftly and unexpectedly.
As you gain Portal Master levels, you get certain bonuses. You can change those bonuses anytime at the Academy, but not during a level. In particular are three bonuses you earn near level 20 where you can choose between bonuses to emblems, Live Wire locks, and quests. When you’re at the Academy, claiming your reward for an emblem, you should switch the bonuses to give you an extra bonus for emblems. When you’re playing a level, you should have the bonuses switched away from emblems.
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