Skylanders amiibo A Sensational Idea

When Reggie and Activision announced at E3 2015 that Nintendo characters were coming to Skylanders, I was fairly skeptical, especially since it was also announced that these characters would also be amiibo compatible. Now that I have the figures in my hands – thanks to Activision who saved me a lot of money (more on that later) – I can say my skepticism was unfounded. While I wish the characters modeled an amiibo more than a Skylander, the final figures are still excellent little toys that are loads of fun to play with in Skylanders SuperChargers.

Hammer Slam Bowser and his Clown Car, along with Super Charge Donkey Kong and his Barrel Blaster were added to the newest Skylanders title. Unfortunately, these characters – along with their ‘Dark’ counterparts, are only available in the Wii U starter pack (Donkey Kong) or the Wii / 3DS starter pack (Bowser). This makes getting both characters incredibly difficult. Thankfully, Activision was nice enough to send me an out-of-box Bowser and Clown Car so I could adequately review both! It should be note here, and perhaps it will be obvious to many, that Bowser and Donkey Kong will only work on the Nintendo platform versions of the game. When you are tired of using them as a Skylander, you can move a switch on the base of the character and set it to ‘amiibo’ thus making them, well, amiibos!

Hammer Slam Bowser – Clown Car (Fire)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9x_ovAlKP4

Bowser is a BEAST in Skylanders SuperChargers. When he gets on his feet, hammer swinging, there are few enemies that can realistically stop him. In fact, playing as both characters almost feels like a cheat. When your starter set options are Bowser or Stealth Elf, I’m choosing Bowser all day long. There is more “Nintendo” in these characters than just what you see on your portal and what appears in the game. In the case of Bowser, even the move sets have  Super Mario flare to them. For example, one of Bowsers abilities is to summon red and green koopas which can be jumped on to create a shell, and then fired at enemies! Pretty neat right! Bowser can also grow and breath fire on multiple enemies at once.

Turbo Charge Donkey Kong – Barrel Blaster (Leaf)

Donkey Kong brings the same size and over powered game play experience as Bowser, but with his own unique moves and abilities. Donkey Kong can put barrels onto his hands making them much more powerful than just using fists, he can crash down a host of ladders, platforms, and barrels in an homage to the original Donkey Kong, and he can play his bongos summoning Diddy Kong who can use his jetpack to get around, shooting peanuts at enemies. Again, here is another look back on a beloved Donkey Kong game, Donkey Kong 64. Like Bowser, Donkey Kong is a beast and will plow through enemies extremely quickly. His Barrel Blaster vehicle is also equally as impressive. When completely charged, Donkey Kong and summon a side car for Diddy who will ride along shooting anything that moves. Finaly if tired with Donkey Kong you can take a brake and play for fun with free slots no downlad required.

After playing with both characters, I can only hope that Nintendo and Activision team up to do more of this. These toys have dual functionality, with the only downside being how difficult and costly they are to obtain. If Acitivsion ever plans to sell these as stand alone figures, they probably would sell out almost immediately. For once – and I don’t say this often – the Nintendo platform versions of Skylanders might be the version to buy. There is nothing like romping through Skylands as Bowser or Donkey Kong.