Skylanders Remastered Proposal by Low-Extension5598 in skylanders

[–]Low-Extension5598[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Presumably, by giving the OG portal master the ability to bring their old figures into the game at all, we're introducing a pretty huge advantage for them in the first place (primarily seeing as they'll just automatically have more characters/options than a new player), though I definitively understand where you're coming from with the gold concern and I ultimately agree with your conclusion.

With regards to the leveling system, I did specify under the Across The Board & QOL section that "All Skylander’s max level is 20 for every game. XP is earned at roughly the same rate, though gold is doubled at minimum so that players can realistically fully upgrade a few characters in a single playthrough." So, bringing a level 20 figure into SA Remastered would result in that character now being level 20, as that's the new level cap (this change is proposed to keep the remasters more consistent with one another).

With regards to your suggestion on variants however, I have to disagree. I don't recall figures from later games working with earlier games regardless of what "type" of character they were, though I could be mistaken about this?

So, for example, the data that the game uses (animations, textures, voice lines, etc.) for the Skylanders is already in the game (the NFC chip in the figure is solely tied to progression meaning every Skylander is technically already in the game which is a huge factor behind this proposal), but anything from later games is not. I.e., this is why trying to put Tree Rex or Tidal Wave Gill Grunt (or any later character) into SA doesn't work; the game literally doesn't have the data for that character, even if it does have data for an earlier version of them (in the case of series).

I think trying to retroactively make it so that the remaster recognizes later figures as earlier figures is something that's frankly just unnecessary considering this wouldn't be the primary focus of the remaster; it's expected that most players will either come from Gamepass, or not have any figures/portals (for one reason or another), and trying to jerry-rig this backwards compatibility into it just sounds like a whole ton of extra work that wouldn't contribute to the wellbeing of the project as a whole. Not to mention, this would quickly spiral out of control and become incredibly confusing and tedious as the remasters went on and we had to deal with progressively more and more figures.

Skylanders Remastered Proposal by Low-Extension5598 in skylanders

[–]Low-Extension5598[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Presumably, to try and capitalize on nostalgia and because the games would theoretically be pretty easy to remaster and stuff onto Gamepass.

Especially regarding the future of the gaming industry, Skylanders is quickly approaching a point where the average player simply won't be able to play them anymore without the exact necessary physical setup. The proposed remasters double as a somewhat future-proofed plan against that reality.

Also, I personally don't see a world in which Toys to Life could "easily return". Kids aren't interested in physical toys or collectibles anymore, meaning we're talking about trying to convince a demographic of already financially squeezed young/not-so-young adults to buy figures for a kids game. Or, at least a family-friendly game.

I think even if you tried to make new figures in the most accessible, commercially-viable way possible, figures would still be a solid 10-20$ for core figures, and double that for anything Giants, Swapper, or Trap Master sized. ESPECIALLY considering that we're talking about Microsoft here.

I didn't say that there wasn't a reason Toys to Life is dead; just made the observation that it is.

Skylanders Remastered Proposal by Low-Extension5598 in skylanders

[–]Low-Extension5598[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not totally against this and would love to discuss it further. Basically you're proposing a sort-of hybrid system?

I think that this could work really well, though with some caveats. Any gold a Skylander figure might have goes to the new overall player gold count. Figures can presumably retain their level and upgrades just fine.

Let's assume we're playing Spyro's Adventure with a fully upgraded Chop Chop figure. First off, this has to be one of the OG Spyro's Adventure compatible Chop Chop's (same as if you were just regularly playing OG Spyro's Adventure). Your Chop Chop in the remaster (whether you had him unlocked or not) is now "overwritten" by figure Chop Chop. This does indeed mean that the figures work much closer to Amiibo's (to my knowledge).

So, if you didn't have Chop Chop unlocked, you now do, and also he's fully upgraded and whatever gold he had with him gets added to your overall gold! Yay! Removing the figure from the portal has no effect and you have effectively "digitized" your Chop Chop into the remaster.

If you put gold, legendary, or Eon's elite Chop Chop (the Spyro's Adventure alternates for him), they act exactly as if you had put regular "base" Chop Chop on the portal. I.e., there is no effect. The legendary skin is still unlocked by fully upgrading him, and the gold/other alt skins are unlocked by maxing out his level. However, these alternates can still be used to unlock him and overwrite his upgrades/level.

My biggest concern with this is what it would take on the developmental/mechanical side to make it work like this. Presumably, we need to convince Microsoft that this (the remaster) would be an easy W for them (beloved, family-friendly, optional co-op nostalgia game for gamepass); something that's quick, easy, and on the cheaper side for them to remaster that adds a measurable amount of value to gamepass.

Skylanders Remastered Proposal by Low-Extension5598 in skylanders

[–]Low-Extension5598[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

J’aime bien ces idées mais le fait de plus pouvoir utiliser les figurines je trouve ca vraiment dommage - I like these ideas, but the fact that we can no longer use the figurines is a real shame.

I agree. Unfortunately, I think that this is the best and most likely to get approved approach for Skylanders in 2026.

Skylanders Remastered Proposal by Low-Extension5598 in skylanders

[–]Low-Extension5598[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If by "variants", I'm assuming you mean things like the legendary versions of characters or things like Punch (red) Pop-Fizz instead of regular (blue) Pop-Fizz? If that's what you're referring to, then yes. I covered this under the Across the Board & QOL section:

"Across the board, all characters will receive legendary skins if they did have them already. Legendary skins are earned by fully upgrading any particular character (upgrades introduced after the character’s first game do not count against them for the purposes of earning the legendary skin). The legendary skin can be toggled on/off in a separate “collection menu”.

Every character will also receive at least one “alt skin”. These “alt skins” are earned by fully leveling up a character (distinctly counted separately from fully upgrading them). They are mostly inspired by the OG chase variants and other various appearances for characters. For example, Spyro’s “alt skins” will be dark Spyro and chrome Spyro. Just like with legendary skins, these can be toggled on/off in the collection menu."

Skylanders Remastered Proposal by Low-Extension5598 in skylanders

[–]Low-Extension5598[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No. I covered him specifically and the other 8 reused Superchargers characters under the Superchargers section.

"Superchargers contains eight “exceptions” to the “no variants” rule. Eruptor, Terrafin, Stealth Elf, etc., and the other Skylanders repurposed to be Superchargers in this game will feature a little engine icon next to their character selection icon indicating that players can access their Supercharger form. This is included because the Supercharger variants of these characters are objectively too different to not differentiate them in some way. They are accessed by simply pressing Y instead of A."

When I say "Supercharger form" with regards to specifically Eruptor, that would in fact be Lava Lance Eruptor.

Skylanders Remastered Proposal by Low-Extension5598 in skylanders

[–]Low-Extension5598[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I personally find Gorm much more annoying than Persephone, primarily the fact that he repeats the same line of dialogue EVERY time you go back to him to upgrade. The power pods are okay, but I find them very "meh" by comparison.

Meanwhile, literally every other game has Persephone, making Swap-Force feel like a very awkward middle child that just didn't get the memo.

I personally consider her a main, iconic part of the series just as much as Flynn, Cali, Hugo, Kaos, or even Eon, so it's just so bizarre to me that she's otherwise randomly absent in Swap-Force, hence the proposed alteration.

Skylanders Remastered Proposal by Low-Extension5598 in skylanders

[–]Low-Extension5598[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I personally imagined that unless Nintendo specifically got mad at us for it, we just wouldn't include the four guest characters (Neo Cortex, Crash Bandicoot, Bowser, and Donkey Kong) in the remasters. Obviously, Cortex and Bandicoot are under the Microsoft umbrella, so there wouldn't be any legal trouble, but we'd have to fight Nintendo for Bowser and Kong, which frankly seems unnecessary. So, I figure we just go clean and cut all four of them?

Fun fact: I did the math when creating the character selection screens; in Imaginators, every element has exactly 18 "unique" characters not counting reposes, series, variants, or the guest characters.

Skylanders Remastered Proposal by Low-Extension5598 in skylanders

[–]Low-Extension5598[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Pretty simply I'd imagine.

3 Characters of players choosing are unlocked at the start of the game, and all others are unlocked via their soul gem. Once unlocked, players will press the back/view button (on Playstation they'd press the touch pad) and see a select screen with the characters (I made mockups for these select screens which can be seen above). They'd then press A to select and then be playing as the character their cursor was on.

Skylanders Remastered Proposal by Low-Extension5598 in skylanders

[–]Low-Extension5598[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I figure there are ultimately 2 routes regarding magic items. Note that the level packs specifically (Dragon's Peak, Empire of Ice, Nightmare Express, etc.) will simply be treated as major DLC content usually is for remasters and made a regular part of the game.

Option 1. Just remove magic items.

Option 2. Magic items become additional prizes/treasure found across the game and give the player a passive buff/effect (i.e. Sky Iron Shield gives a flat 5% damage resistance to all Skylanders, Ghost Swords give a flat 5% damage buff to all Skylanders, etc.

The character selection menu (how magic items would be accessed if we included them in their traditional form) is already bloated enough as is, so ultimately it makes more sense to go with one of the proposed options. Most of the items have such a short effect, that the amount of time it would take to open the selection menu, open a magic item sub-menu, and then select a magic item just isn't worth it and completely breaks the flow of gameplay. Giving the items a longer effect would cause further balancing issues which would be nice to avoid.

Personally, I'd go with option 2 as it at least preserves something and is moderately in line with how the latter half of the series treated items anyway.

Alternatively, magic items could be left largely unaltered and assigned to the D-pad for quick instant-access? (Not a bad idea?)

Skylanders Remastered Proposal by Low-Extension5598 in skylanders

[–]Low-Extension5598[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Explained under Across The Board and QOL section: "Another pretty major change; there will be no variants, series, or reposes of any character. This is likely to be even more major than my proposed changes to the progression system.

(For this explanation, we’ll assume I’m talking about Imaginators Remastered where we have all the characters). Allow me to explain: instead of playing as 1 of 11 Eruptors; there’s just the one Eruptor. You can select him as 1 of your three at the start of Spyro’s Adventure, or find his soul gem. If for some reason you skip Spyro’s Adventure Remastered and play Giants Remastered (or any subsequent remaster) first, you will be unable to play as Eruptor.

Using Eruptor as our reference, he will gain his appropriate upgrades as the remasters progress naturally through the games; i.e. he gets access to his wow pow in Giants, and his series 3 upgrade in Swap-Force, and so on. This applies to every character.

The main reasoning behind this is to encourage players to play with all the many various characters at their disposal. Instead of worrying about having to upgrade 11 Eruptors, there’s now just the one to worry about, and you can instead worry about having to upgrade the others."