Skylanders Imaginators

It’s going to be the best kids game of the holiday season and no doubt a great gift for kiddos everywhere. But there’s plenty here grown-ups will enjoy as well. My advice? Play it with your kids. It’s best that way.

Skylanders Imaginators adds a new RPG layer to a smooth and solid formula.

Last year’s iteration attempted to change the genre of the series, but Imaginators grounds it in platforming again, this time simply crafting the best gameplay experience possible.

The core game is a triumph of what can be done with a character creator that plays out in how the characters play as well as look and sound. I'd expect for anyone to want more Creation Crystals, but getting to share the game with the rest of the family is well worth the few rough spots.

A fantastic release that brings some new value to the series through gamer Skylander creation and great gameplay in the main story. Toys for Bob and Activision are certainly keeping this series fresh with good ideas and execution.

One of the best Skylanders games to date thanks to the deep character creation tool.

Skylanders Imaginators is a dream for gamers who love to customize, platform, and just blow stuff up. The customization options are both easy to use for beginners and advanced enough to make some truly fantastic creations. Combat can be wonderfully chaotic but the lack of dodging or sprinting can make it uncharacteristically slow considering how frantic the game is otherwise.

Skylanders Imaginators is one of the best games of the franchise. Create our own Skylanders is fantastic and the Sensei are a great addition. A great design of levels and a dozens of hours of action, fun and humor complete this great adventure.

This new episode is more irregular than its predecessors, but still a lot of fun, particularly for younger audiences.

It’s also easily the prettiest Skylanders game yet – an early stage in a twilight world with glowing lights and waterfalls has an almost Trine-like beauty – but as with past entries the graphical upgrades are evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

With Imaginators, young players can have fun creating a wide roster of characters, but playing with a bunch of crystals is not the same thing of having actual characters in the real world, so some magic is lost in the process. The game is the usual action-platform-adventure and can delivery an enjoyable experience for the sixth year in a row, but the formula seems now in need of some rethinking.

The inclusion of Crash and creating your own Skylanders just took it to the next level for me.

Imaginators puts a Diablo twist on Skylanders. Pure fun! [13/2016, p.61]

Slick brawling, charming visual design, vibrant set-pieces and that glittering guest star mean it’s still well worth crashing this kids’ party. [Christmas 2016, p66]

Slick brawling, charming visual design, vibrant set-pieces and that glittering guest star mean it's still well worth crashing this kids' party. [Dec 2016, p.78]

Skylanders Imaginators is a great step for the franchise, far from perfect and still quite the drain on the wallet but fresh enough to keep even the most fatigued Skylander player (or parent) coming back for more. The addition of the joyous loot grind along with (finally) the ability to create your own Skylander, coupled with a lengthy yet colourful and downright fun campaign, Skylanders Imaginators shows that this is one toys-to-life franchise that isn’t going anywhere.

While the mechanics is pretty much the same as the previous Skylanders games, Imaginators lets you be far more creative. With better gameplay and more colorful graphics, and this is one of the best installments in the series so far.

The increased role-playing elements add another interesting angle to an already accomplished franchise, but the cynical attempts to fleece parents’ wallets are hard to defend.

Incredibly addictive to children, Skylanders Imaginators is a good heir to the IP with loads of content, good humor and a very strong tendency to make them collect all those toys.

Skylanders Imaginators is fun and does not disappoint, though it's not particularly innovative and it may exceed in being too familiar to longtime fans.

Another fun little adventure with quite a lot of options to create your own, unique characters. It's still a bit slow and the camera at times seems to get a kick out of annoying you, but other than that, Skylanders once more delivers on its promises.

Skylanders: Imaginators fun, accessible and easily played by gamers of any age. It doesn't break the mold, and the highlight of the game is in creating your own character. The core gameplay will feel very familiar and perhaps too safe. The ability to create your own Skylander means there's a lot of potential fun for the younger set — though it can be a hit to the wallet for parents! Players who are aging out of or burning out on Skylanders might not see much of a boost from it.

Imaginators feels like the next logical step in the franchise while still maintaining support for the massive library of characters from all previous games. It gives Skylanders the perfect way to survive as the era of kids using games to craft their own heroes, stories, and experiences is upon us.

If you haven’t been a fan before, you won’t be a fan now. There’s not enough new to call this a revamp to the formula; it’s just the same, solid game that it’s always been, returning with the same things you loved or issues you may have felt.

Skylanders Imaginators doubles down on everything that makes the series addictive, with an appealing slate of new toys and a frankly ridiculous amount of collectible parts for the titular custom characters.

Even with a few uninspired stages, Skylanders Imaginators manages to nail the childlike whimsy of the beat-'em-up genre so many of us grew up with. It's still a blast with friends, and even more-so now that you can share your creations and tweak them together. The series has shown signs of slowing down in recent years here and there, but it's not done yet.

Skylanders Imaginators is rich with customisation options, and a genuine sense of fun makes this a brilliant addition to the series.

It's been 6 years since the first Skylanders and the formula starts to be quite repetitive. Even so, Imaginators is a great game for every gamer, regardless of his or her age. The toys-to-life game welcomes the already well-known loot system and character customization. Imaginators is not as interesting as SuperCharges, that added the multiplayer. Even so, it has magic in it: it brings back Crash Bandicoot and Neo Cortex.

Skylanders imaginators plays it a bit too safe with the same game mechanics, but the editor and some RPG flavour give some more deep to a solid and enjoyable formula.

The core gameplay is still a lot of fun and the level of customization with the new Imaginators is quite impressive, but a few decisions prevent Skylanders Imaginators from taking the series to the next level.

Diablo III—to a child looking for a zany but accessible roleplaying game with larger-than-life characters in dazzling fantasy venues—is clearly no Skylanders Imaginators.

Just when you might have expected the original Toys-to-Life franchise to be running out of steam, Activision has brought it back, revitalised and exciting. Imaginators might just be the best Skylanders yet.

Despite its simplification in the plot and the mechanics of the Story Mode, kids will finally unleash their imagination.

Compared to last year’s Superchargers, Imaginators is certainly a step in the right direction. Instead of bolting something onto the existing formula, Toys For Bob have instead gone for reinvention. Being able to construct and share your own Skylanders isn’t a massive game changer, but it feels far more considered than other gimmicks.

A huge, bright, and endlessly charming adventure filled with things to do and stuff to unlock.

Skylanders Imaginators manages to find a way to offer something new in the gameplay. The crystals, however, represent another constraint to the immoderate purchase and the Sensei have no unique selling proposition. Imaginators, however, has the great honor to have revived Crash Bandicoot, proposing it in a unique and pleasant way.

The action is extremely varied, providing a good mix of action, platforming, and other various offshoots like racing, which keeps things fresh and fun. While I enjoy creating my own characters, the requirement to purchase special crystals to do so feels like I am just being forced to buy save slots.

Excellent combat and the joy of customizing a character keeps this as a strong entry in the franchise, even as it is undercut by a lackluster story and underwhelming humor. Level design is mostly great with some uninspired moments. Definitely still worthwhile for kids, but not necessarily as intriguing for adults as well.

Skylanders Imaginators is another good game in this toys-to-life genre. My children thinks it's the best Skylanders game in a long while.

Skylanders Imaginators introduces at last the character customization, which gives the player lots of possibilities and entertainment. Apart from this and the Skylanders Supercharger, there are no other improvements in this new installment.

A whimsical evolution of the beat-'em-up. [Issue#181, p.83]

Skylanders Imaginations is built for the long haul with great replay value, which may be one more reason for the series to take a year off.

It struggles to get out of its own way, featuring perhaps its most complicated buy-in system yet. Creativity knows no bounds, but your checkbook certainly does.

The overall experience at the centre of all Skylanders: Imaginators' toys and loot chests is so charming and feature-rich that kids will enjoy it and adults won't begrudge playing it alongside them.

With Imaginators, the Skylanders series isn't pushing any gaming boundaries, but at least it has character.

Compared to the last year installment the Skylanders Imaginators is a cautious step toward the inevitable change. But the game itself rather stagnates due to the repetition of the same tricks.

Compared to last year sequel Skylanders Imaginators are a cautious step towards the inevitable change of the game foundations. The game stagnates and repeats the same tricks. [Issue #269]