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You know, video game side content has been a mixed bag over the years. Alternate gameplay styles can help the overall experience feel fresh. Preventing potential boredom found within receptive level formats. Other times they can feel like chores, interfering with the main gameplay style. Skylanders Giants however, I think does its extra game mechanics pretty well. I predict that people mainly hate the original Spyro's Adventure game mainly because the mini games hurt the experience. Lock-Imp puzzles can mess up speed runs. The turret sections only make appearances in the begging and around the end of the game combined out-of-no where robot vehicle level. Some elemental zones contain some the slowest moving platforms in gaming history. Block puzzles, prism puzzles, cannon puzzles, switch puzzles, and my personal least favorite...rolling bomb puzzles! That junk always puts levels to a halt. Most annoying of all is that developers program enemies to jump scare the player while they're working on them. But here in Giants, its actually pretty enjoyable. Excluding the receptive Arkeyan levels, I remember returning to Giants all the time just to replay another round of Sky Stones. I still consider it to be the best side game in the series. You can beat opponents in seconds by collecting stones from the best players hidden within levels, you can buy powerful Skystones at Auric shop to take down formidable players like Quigley in Rumble Town, and some opponents will give you extra challenge with elemental tiles that can only be used by certain types of monsters, adding extra strategy to the game. Like Dragon Quest 8, having both classic RPG mechanics and popular RPG mechanics can create a sense a freedom for the player. When one gameplay style starts to get boring you can switch to other to mix things up. And even though levels like Autogyro Adventure get on my nerves with the sheer amount of enemies I need to slaughter just to progress, I play a round of Skystones with the Weapon Master and I feel refreshed!. Speaking of which, the vehicle segments of this level with the Copter are actually not half bad. The control is acceptable, the shooting sections don't annoy me too much, you can earn extra treasure bonuses by performing well, and their's plenty of checkpoints. Sometimes I crash the ship anyway just to hear Flynn scream in terror. Somehow I find it hilarious to see these characters suffer. Block and prism puzzles haven't changed much, so nothing is stopping me from cheating by walking on the blocks diagonally like I'm back in Super Mario RPG. Its good to see that the Lock-Imp puzzles aren't as annoying as before. By purchasing lock keys from Moneybags' cousin, you skip these mini games from the pause menu, like my need to skip cutscenes, its vital for speed runs. The turret sections make a return and sadly become a required mechanic for Skylanders games from here on out. In all honestly, the controls are fine, I'm pretty good at shooter games in general, but since they rarely make an appearance in the majority of levels of Giants as well, its like visiting an annoying cousin you're forced to spend time with. Funny thing is, you're most likely to be tasked to replay these sections in the Oracle trials regardless of how you feel about them. Skylanders is a great action RPG series, but any mini games that overstay their welcome will most likely hurt the experience. Arena challenges are often encouraged throughout the story, but I didn't find them to all that fun. Most of them just involve giving the enemies an unrealistic advantage, my least favorite was where all the summoned creatures were invincible and you have to push them off with strong attacks. But some enemies are too heavy to push off with out enough force and by the time I damage them enough to ring them out, enemies that appeared off camera destroy my Skylander with long range attacks! Even with my fully upgraded Double Trouble, one of my most broken characters failed to complete most of these challenges. Don't just love to fight Juggernauts in the Kaos Arena? There's no room to dodge their laser attacks because the arena keeps falling apart and hoards of enemies are blocking the safe zones. There's also challenges where you're not allowed to take a single hit during battle and instead of bettering my gaming skills I just feel stressed and annoyed. And when I finally completed one of the challenges, I earned t a charm that boosts the defense of my Skylanders whenever they reach low health! And for some reason this also affects the enemies! This means that I'm now playing the game at the Screw You level of difficulty. Making me more furious than ever while replaying the levels. When I return to this game someday, I hope to have a more enjoyable experience. Take away all the annoying factors and you've got a pretty enjoyable fantasy game. I may be pissed off with this game right now, but these games will always be a blast to revisit.… Expand
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