As more than some of you are likely aware of, I am "kinda" a big fan of Skylanders. It was the first big video game franchise I got fully hooked on. The whole reason I was given my Wii and Wii U was to play Skylanders. Yes, other games to play on said systems came along for me- Godzilla Unleashed, Disney Infinity, a bunch of random games half of which I never played, yadda- you get the point.

Well, I have been doing my best to search for all copies of the 3DS versions of all the Skylanders games (minus Imaginators, since 3DS game production was either coming or already came to a halt by the time Imaginators came around). I have also been trying to find any Portal of Powers that worked with the 3DS since the 3DS versions don't hook up to the console as the bigger console versions did. Now, you're probably wondering "what's so special about the 3DS versions of the Skylanders games compared to the regular versions?"

Everything.

See, the 3DS versions of the Skylanders games, probably due to the DS family of consoles being smaller and only being able to handle so much game content, are all very different from the main games. Recently I have managed to obtain not only two Portals (I was told one was for Spyro's Adventure/Giants and Swap Force but was assured they should work for Trap Team and Superchargers Racing as well), but also 3DS copies of all except Spyro's Adventure. If and when I obtain Spyro's Adventure for 3DS I wish to cover it as I will cover Giants for you all today. For now, allow me to begin my amateur analysis of the 3DS versions of Skylanders by starting with Giants.

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In the 3DS copy of Skylanders Giants, it's not Kaos or the Arkeans you have to put up with. It's the feared Frightbeard that's the threat. He's somehow escaped whatever confinement he was in and is now plundering Skylands again looking for the Chest of Exile, where the Arkeans sealed away Frightbeard's entire fleet of ships and crew many ages prior. Also apparently Flynn may or may not have attempted cheating Frightbeard out of his pirate cake recipe, idk.

Kaos isn't even relevant to 3DS Giants and the Giants themselves are only really mentioned by Eon and maybe one Mabu villager you run into in the first level. If you're not looking to beat the game 100%, you could probably get by with just two core Skylanders. All the Giants are there for is for bashing some boulders, smashing through floors, and toppling some bridges. No fancy chain pulling, no picking up rocks to throw at enemies- just finding chests and hat boxes.

Speaking of chests and hats, they're a bit different in the 3DS version of Giants, and possibly the other games but I've yet to confirm that. See, you don't buy things in Giants. There are no merchant NPCs like Batterson around, and there are certainly no minigames like Skystones so there's no need to buy anything for that stuff. So what's with all the coins in the crates, barrels, and even the enemies? Well, money isn't used to buy random stuff. It's used to give your Skylanders experience to level up. While EXP orbs are very much still a thing and your Skylanders can level up mid-level, the number of coins you get in a level gives you more experience than your Skylanders once you've beaten the level. Also, there's a daily changing of which two elements can give you a bonus in this department, so if at least one of your Skylanders is the same element as one of the two daily elements, you get a little coin bonus and a little more experience. Even if one of your Skylanders is the max level (which in Giants would be 15), the other Skylander will still gain the bonus EXP so long as they are not also maxed level.

And hats are mostly for decoration and for that 100% completion thing. In the main games, they can give your Skylanders stat bonuses depending on which hat you put on your Skylander. But in Giants for 3DS (and likely for the other Skylanders 3DS games), they don't give you stats for wearing them. They just kinda exist. This means you have the freedom of putting any of the hats on without worrying about how they benefit your Skylander. Finding and collecting the boxes is the reward in itself, not necessarily the hats themselves. There is a neat thing where the pedestal you interact with to choose which hat you want to wear changes which hat appears on it every time you go into the lifeboat area. One visit to it it may be wearing the Rocket Hat, the next visit it's wearing the Anvil Hat. Like I said, that's neat.

This coins=experience thing may have lead to you asking an important question; what about Persephone and Skylander upgrades? Well, Persephone is nowhere in the game at all. And upgrades, along with damage, health, and luck bouses, come with leveling up. I'm telling you, the money is almost exclusively used for EXP points. Almost.

The coins you get can also be used to revive one of your Skylanders, after all, its health has been depleted. See, you can technically have two Skylanders to play at the same time by putting one on the portal, having it be recognized and take the form of a crystal in the bottom screen, and then the second Skylander the same. You can play as one Skylander, and when its health is depleted or if you find an elemental gate that matches your other Skylanders or Giant area that you need your Giant to bust open, you just tap the crystals on the bottom screen to switch between your two Skylanders. It's a little like switching between your Skylanders and your captured villains in Trap Team, except the crystals are in-game only, and you still have to go to Hugo's Portaltron 9000 to switch which two Skylanders you're playing as in-between levels.

Anyway, you can pay 60 coins to revive your fallen Skylander so long as your second one is still healthy. If both are taken out, you have to start the level over (and get treated to Frightbeard freaking you out with his presence as a game over screen). The only other thing you can use coins for is to use the Adventure Pack items. Remember Dragon's Peak, Darklight Crypt, etc, etc, and the items that came with them like Sparx the Dragonfly, Ghost Swords, Hidden Chest, etc, etc? Well, you can pay 30 coins to use them for a limited time while playing a level (you can't use them on Flynn's Ship since you only get coins in the levels). This decreases how much experience you get by the end, but assuming your Skylanders are already maxed out or you just don't care, let the Sparx fly.

This would've been very useful to know if I had tested the items out before beating the game. I really could've used that Elixir of Healing item in the Frightbeard fight. 😓

So, um, who all is in the game as far as returning NPCs and such? Well, Flynn and Cali are back- what's a Skylanders game without either of them?- along with Hugo (who is just about all other versions of Giants, Swap Force, and maybe Trap Team was all but nonexistent in the stories of those games, so his involvement in the 3DS Giants game was a delightful surprise for me). Eon is also kinda there, but only for the cutscenes. All other NPCs are either generic Mabu NPCs (which only appear in the first level, interestingly) or completely original NPCs. There are only two original NPCs that accompany you on Flynn's ship- a Tiki Head from the first part of the second level (I'll explain that in a bit) and a theme park robot called Information who helped run a troll theme park that happened to be built on top of one of the locations of one of the map clues to the Chest of Exile. The only other original NPC that speaks to you and my knowledge doesn't appear in any of the other games is an old island turtle that you accidentally wake up while looking for another of the clues.

Most of the enemies were from Spyro's Adventure, as the blue chompies, trolls, those weird sawblade waterbug things from the water-based levels of Spyro's Adventure, etc, etc. There was a type of troll-ridden robot thing that I don't remember seeing in any other game, and there was what I can only best describe as a blue, melee version of the weird tall cyclops mages from the cyclops levels. Also, there was Corn Hornets, which was another delightful surprise for me since Corn Hornets weren't ever seen again after Spyro's Adventure aside from their dragonic versions in Dragon's Peak, so to see them in the 3DS version of Giants as an enemy you can run into in the marsh/forest levels was a treat for me. The *three* bosses in the game were also pretty unique in context to the other games too. There was the first boss, Squidbeard, who is pretty easy to beat but still a bit entertaining. Next was Rustbeard, who was I say medium difficulty. Frightbeard himself? Both Skylanders I had died fighting him the first time, and Polar Whirlwind just barely pulled through for me with that last couple shots of rainbows after Eye-Brawl died on me during my second attempt.

Frightbeard is no f**king joke guys. 😅

Also, the OG Adventure Packs- Dragon's Peak, Empire of Ice, Darklight Crypt, and Pirate Seas. I must talk about them because they're very VERY different.

Pirate Seas is basically like Leviathan Lagoon from Spyro's Adventure. No kidnapped mayor's daughter, no kicking pirate butt in a card memory game, nothing. Just you going to a pirate-infested set of islands and kicking all their tails. It just kinda exists. I can kinda see it as being the aftermath of the main game version of Pirate Seas where you have to deal with the remaining pirates in the town, but aside from that, it's just kinda there. Still fun though.

Empire of Ice- Oh my God. The main game Empire of Ice has you taking orders from a crackpot wizard to take down the empire wall the Frost Cyclops is using to hold back the warm rays of the sun. 3DS Empire of Ice was more like a wizardless recon mission INSIDE the Empire of Ice itself! So many turning gears, so much ice, cyclops! Good grief! So much yellow and royal red! So much color! I'm still kinda blown away by how freaking different it was. The most different out of all the Adventure Packs! Dang!

Darklight Crypt... Is a f**king crypt in the 3DS version. In the main games, an eyeball entity called Oculus had taken over a town of ghosts and forced them to go after brains instead of delicious pie, and you had to go in-between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead to get through the mazes and fight Oculus. In the 3DS, it's literally like a Scooby-Doo shenanigan gone wrong- you walk into a giant crypt or possibly mausoleum, but then you fall a traphole (which happens twice, which I believe warrants it eligible to be subject of that Dr.Dofenschmirtz meme about something being weird that it's happened twice) and have to navigate your way through a spider/skeleton/haunted knight/demon tree monster-infested crypt to find the portal out. There were spikes and guillotines nearly everywhere, and there were skulls with massive inhuman grins that... look I'm glad those were considered destructible like every crate and barrel in the game.

Dragon's Peak was arguably the best out of the four. I had already read on the Skylanders Fandom wiki page a while back that it was the only one of the four packs that had an actual boss fight (in regards to the 3DS versions I mean), that being a fight with the undead wyvern that took over the throne, Vathek. In the main games, Flavious the big red dragon came to pick you up and save the king and Dragon's Peak from Vathek, and Vathek kept sending all his minions to stop you before being tricked off the throne and turned to stone. In the 3DS, there's no Flavious, no king- just Vathek flying around in the skies as you progressed, ancient trophies to collect and eggs to return to their nests, and a ton of Drow to deal with. And the purple chompy spewing pods? They don't birth chompies. They spit out orbs that, when hit, shrink your Skylander (even when you try to switch to your second Skylander, you're still shrunk) and you can't use your powers for a short time. And the boss fight with Vathek? Well, it took a second to figure out what exactly I had to do since I didn't know everything about the boss fight outside of it exists, but it's one of those "throw bombs at the boss when he drops his guard" type of fight, aka a sort of King Dodongo scenario. You had to wait for when he unfolded his wings to attack one of the bombs floating in the moat separating the two of you to send it onto Vathek. After enough bombs, Vathek goes down and the portal home opens where he stood. I can't say I expected any more from Vathek considering the capabilities of the 3DS, but it was nice that Dragon's Peak made both my Skylanders die on the first attempt while the other Adventure Packs were so technically easy I didn't even use my second Skylander. Vathek would've been the undead dragon Skylander we'd all enjoy if Cynder wasn't already picked for the dragon representative for the undead, so honestly, I'll take what I can get with Vathek.

All and all, the OG Adventure Packs were interesting to play through in 3DS form. Nostalgic and awesome, that's all I can say.

Also, um, some words about the Skylanders themselves (or at least with the ones I used).

There's a primary attack and the secondary attack. For some Skylanders I used, their usual secondary attacks were changed a bit or were given a different animation, likely to compensate for the game being on a smaller console. The third attack was sometimes used as a dash attack or dash ability for some Skylanders. See, the game gives all Skylanders a dash that covers a bit more ground and, like I mentioned, doubled as part of their attacks. I'll mention what I noted my Skylanders doing differently down below, but, without those path-specific upgrades from the main games, you got the basic sum of what powers make up your Skylander.

Also, double jump is ESSENTIAL for this game! The main games don't have double as a constant for all Skylanders (I don't think there's any Skylander in the main games that has a double jump feature at all), so seeing it in the 3DS games is a bit... interesting (I didn't spam the double jump whilst in search of chests and hat boxes-). Also, for the winged Skylanders, there is a slight glide ability when falling from a height if you hold the jump button, usually used after using the second jump. There was a definite slight slowness applied in comparison to regular fall speed, but either it was an actual glide I'm still a bit unsure of.

With all that stuff out of the way, let's get to the individual Skylander stuff I wanted to mention.

Jade Flashwing- Her green is darker than her figure form, which honestly I think is accurate to the main games too. Now, in the main games, Flashwing's Soul Gem ability is to sprout a big gem and it spins as its light damages enemies. But since there are no Soul Gems in 3DS Giants, the crystal lighthouse power is instead given by a level up to upgrade and will occasionally spawn after an enemy has fallen. I found this notable since, to my observation, few others of the Skylanders I played within 3DS Giants kept their Soul Gem abilities in any capacity. Also, Flashwing's dash button is either sliding along the ground or low-key flying, which should mean that Flashwing does have some capacity to fly as not shown in the main games to my knowledge. Otherwise, everything about Flashwing is about the same I say.

Ninjini- Ninjini's sword attacks are about what is to be expected, and technically so are her bottle powers. One thing about the bottle though; it's so slow! In the main games, you can at least outrun most of the enemies while spamming the bottle rockets (trust me, I know), but in the 3DS version, the bottle moves like molasses! It can double jump tho, so I guess that's a plus, but you also have to get close to the enemies since the rockets don't have a very good homing ability. Also, when she walks- erm, well, "walks"- she puts her palms together, one going up and the other going down, while she moves. I am 60-70% certain that she doesn't do that in the main games. Did they give Ninjini a different walk animation for the 3DS, one that vaguely seems like some kind of kids' version of an "enchantress"? Also, her dash animation is her going straight out horizontal and flying through the air like she's Superman or something. And, this may be some kind of bug I run into with her, but I think when she double jumps she can very briefly hover like Peach can in Smash Bros??? Ninjini makes me question everything, that's all I'm saying.

Polar Whirlwind- Whirlwind was another Skylander I noted still having her Soul Gem ability (or at least I think it was her Soul Gem ability, I could be wrong) where she focuses her rainbow energy to create a rainbow blackhole singularity, tho in the 3DS version it's smaller and more of a mini-rainbow nebula thing. Still does good damage tho. And her dash is a dash attack where she charges forth with her energized horn. Her cloud attacks are pretty much the same as in the main games, so I won't go much further there. Not much else regarding Whirlwind here, I beat Frightbeard with her and she's an awesome Skylander to have if you get the chance to play the 3DS versions. Also, unrelated to Whirlwind other than that this happened while I was using her, but I was going through an Air element gate on one of Frightbeard's ships and a random piece of flying debris hurt me. HURT ME. You're telling me they programmed random flying debris that hurts you if it gets close to you in a tiny console with comparatively limited capacity for game action while the main games only have flying debris as *mostly* background flavor? Really?

Slam Bam- Slam Bam operated pretty much the same as the main game, but I did notice one or two things. Before Slam Bam gets leveled up enough to use his surfing ability as his dash, his dash is him using all four arms to move like a silverback gorilla charging at you. Slam Bam is a big frost gorilla and from now on you can't change my mind on that.

Sunburn- Clearly the best animated I've seen. In the main games, he holds his place as his fire stream from his mouth and he sounds as if he is putting all his energy into it, and you have control over his teleportation as he emerges from the flames with poise, and his flame dash attack is him taking a fiery bird form as he blazes past foes. But just when you thought his attacks couldn't have had more personality and effect, the 3DS animations show off an almost completely different side of him without even changing his attacks. In the 3DS, his flamethrower breath is held whilst Sunburn is FLYING in place much like how Drobot can hover around his foes, and Sunburn's teleportation felt more like a genuine dodging reflex as he appeared behind those Drow witches and pass the dragon torch obstacles. And the dash? It's not of him taking a fiery form. It's more of him proudly flying as heatwaves extend from below him and scorch all the dare get close to him as he flew past them. It almost felt like I was playing as the most OP character ever, and yet they only changed his animations! Idk about you, but I was deeply impressed with what they did with Sunburn for the 3DS version. He's always held a special place in my heart, as I imagine many fans do since Sunburn is- pardon my pun- lit, but wow I wasn't expecting the grand hybrid to get any grander. 😍

Legendary Bouncer- Idk, he's alright. In the main games Bouncer has a laser ability, but from what I can tell 3DS Bouncer doesn't have that power at all. He just has his rocket gun fingers and his shoulder rocket launcher homing missile attacks. His dash is just him hitting whatever is his equivalent of a gas pedal is and just lunges forward. In the perspective of, say, a chompy or a troll, the image of a one-wheeled rocket-shooting giant a** robot thing speeding towards you at Mach 5 with absolutely no hesitation has got to be the most terrifyingly hilarious thing about Skylanders 3DS Giants to me. 😂 Otherwise, Bouncer is alright as long as you realize how limited in reaction time he can be (but that might just be my old 3DS' worn out buttons talking, idk).

Also, I want to address a couple of things in case you other Skylander enthusiasts decide to pick up the 3DS version of Giants. Since Lightcore Skylanders started with Giants (easy to forget that, I know), the game does occasionally tell you that Lightcore Skylanders can send out a shockwave of light to damage foes, but will need some time to recharge the ability. I haven't had the chance to try this out since the only Giants compatible Lightcores I remember having is one of Flashwing and possibly one of Prism Break. If the game mentioned them though, then they should work as well as any other Skylander.

Also, um, you know how, when Activision made the series 2-5 Skylanders and that you could play as those series 2-whatever Skylanders in the previous games so long as the character your series whatsit Skylander was compatible with that game (by which I mean, say, you can't play as Spitfire in Spyro's Adventure because he wasn't made in that generation). Well, I do have a copy of Spyro's Adventure for Wii and I tried that with it with my series something Drill Sergent, Lightning Rod, Double Trouble, Wrecking Ball, and Dark Spyro and it worked. But when I tried my Dark Spyro figure on the 3DS thing (it was the Mega Ram Dark Spyro figure btw, in case that matters to you programming fellas), I think the game slightly crashed because it wouldn't show Dark Spyro on the screen at all. It was just stuck on the portal screen until I closed the game and got in again, and when I did it I had the same two Skylanders I had before going to try getting Dark Spyro in. I find that sort of ironic considering Series 1 Dark Spyro was only available through the Spyro's Adventure 3DS starter pack, so Dark Spyro shouldn't have had trouble getting into a version of the game on a console he sort of pioneered I guess. XD

Still, I'm gonna not to try the Series who cares Skylanders in Giants again, just to be safe.

A couple of other things I wanted to mention.

- The levels are all made up kinda like Mario levels. You know, World 1-1 and all. I mention this since I got pretty confused about it for a hot minute since the first level wasn't necessarily made like the others and the game didn't mention anything about it.

- I feel like Cali picked up a level of savagery in the 3DS version. She talks down all of Flynn's egomaniac talk like usual, but I think by the time Frightbeard became a problem she's gotten so used to it that she's lowkey roasting him or something. Let me copy word for word what she casually says to you after she officially becomes one of your crew.

"I'll admit, it's good to be back with the Skylanders and friends. Well, most of them anyway. Oh, hi Flynn."

I'm just saying, any Skylanders fan knows Cali has a hate/like a thing as far as Flynn goes, so I don't think Cali needed to have had called Flynn out as the guy she wasn't thrilled about seeing again, and yet she did, probably knowing Flynn wasn't even paying attention to whatever she was saying. There were one or two other things she said that sounded a bit like her sounding independent. If I can I'll copy those down too somewhere here.

- As far as the story of the 3DS Giants game goes, I think it might take place after the events of the main Giants game. No really. Aside from smashing into specific, if not very small, areas that contain chests or hatboxes the Giants themselves aren't even required to beat the game. And the only person to even mention the Giants as important is Eon, and that's kinda his job. And like I mentioned, Kaos isn't ever mentioned anywhere in the game, not even by Eon. And with Hugo aboard Flynn's ship here, Cali talking like she's been away from us for a little while, Persephone and Brock and Batterson and otherwise, no other iconic NPC being there besides Flynn, Cali, and Hugo, it's probable that everyone went their separate ways for a spell after dealing with Kaos and his shenanigans in main game Giants. And Flynn's rustbucket ship? Barely explained away at all. We just get the general "oh yeah she's a beaut blah blah supposedly has a curse bla bla bla" talk from Flynn, but that's it. In the main game Giants there are at least two, maybe three levels where the point was to get stuff to make Flynn's ship operational. In 3DS Giants, he just briefly mentions it and the only trouble we have with it is that it gets stuck in the marsh muck because Flynn attempted a divebomb trick.

Makes sense honestly. When we start a game of Swap Force, Flynn is on his own- which is honestly a bad idea in general, why did the others think he would be okay on his own? For God's sake, the first level of 3DS Giants was rescuing him from pirates because they thought he was cheating in a card game or something- and by luck he ran into Tessa and her bird, thus kickstarting the events of Swap-Force and our introduction to Tessa's people. And in Trap Team, it was the Academy that brought and kept almost everyone together for the rest of the franchise (as far as the main games go, maybe the 3DS versions of Trap Team and Superchargers Racing is different). Just saying, if the Giants hardly do anything in their own game, it's probably because they already served their purpose and were out doing other things when Frightbeard happened.

- I have to mention this because it's too hilarious. Remember how I said Persephone wasn't around in 3DS Giants? Well, her room- albeit on the wrong side of the ship I think-  is still there. And you can go in it.

And it's filled with, like, 8 sheep. Not including the sheep wandering around on the main deck in front of the door. They even labeled the room "the sheep room", and no one in the game acknowledges it at all. It's just there.

Why is this hilarious?

Well, as any dedicated Skylanders fan would know, Hugo is f**king terrified of sheep. No really, there's at least one official story somewhere where someone pranked Hugo with a sheep and he locked himself in his room for like a week because he was scared to death. He doesn't trust sheep at all.

Flynn, after Persephone left the ship to go elsewhere, let a bunch of freaking sheep stay in that room and on the ship and is probably waiting for Hugo- who may not have a clue about Persephone being gone- to walk into that room and see all those sheep in there and losing his little Mabu (or whatever Hugo is, idk if he is a Mabu) mind and probably has a heart attack. Or maybe that already happened and that's why no one mentions it because they all collectively agreed never to speak of that moment (in front of Hugo anyway).

Flynn was planning/had planned on pranking Hugo with that mass of sheep in Persephone's room and you cannot tell me otherwise. Classic. 😂

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Well, I believe that's about all I've had to say about Skylanders Giants for 3DS. This is almost 5000 words long and I should end it off before ya'll get too antsy. Next, I'll look at Swap-Force for 3DS and report my findings on it to ya'll. I'll see you then. ^^

Oh, and, um, before one of you inevitably asks, Idk if I'll continue my Skylanders fic. Don't get me wrong, I want to I do- but I also want to write original content like my Deity Antics and Our Monstrously Human World too. And with my life feeling a bit crummy right now, trying to get the courage to get my driver's license and such, I just don't think I have the energy to continue it. Especially since I've come to realize I've done several mistakes with the story, introducing new characters at inappropriate times and generally just dealing with a ton of lore- Skylanders official lore, my lore for my crossover universe, the lore surrounding several characters from completing different people- it's all just insane and nuts and Idk how to deal with it. If I didn't pour so much time and energy into writing as much as I did I would maybe rewrite some of it, but the truth is I'm the type of person to hate starting all over after so much pointless work was put into something.

God, my Skylanders fic is probably my only good work here on Wattpad and it makes me hate myself so bad.

I just don't know anymore. I can think of a thousand different AUs and crossovers and shenanigans, and somehow Skylanders only get involved in 0.1% of that, if even that. As far as Skylanders goes, the fic is just not worth the time anymore and I hate myself for that because I had so many things planned for it. Then new OCs and too much lore regarding individual characters and my sucky a** story management happened and, God, I don't even want to type anymore about it rn. 😢

If I can, I'll get to it when I get to it. Just not right now. Too much is happening. Me being a Virgo and all. Idk. >~<

Just don't expect any miracles involving that old book, alright. For all, I know it's beyond saving now. If I could, I'd let someone else write it, but that would only screw up my perfectionist feelings regarding the story even more and just... just no. No asking about the book, okay? Skylanders is supposed to be one of my childhood loves but the fic makes me have migraines thinking about it. No comments about it, okay. Just don't.

I'm done, I'm gone. I just had to throw that out there since I know somebody was going to say something about the fic. I'll come back with that thing on 3DS Swap-Force when it's ready. In the meantime, I might get you guys that Deity Antics story soon enough, even if only two of you are remotely interested in it. Cheers, goodnight, whatever, I'm tired now goodbye. 😑

-🐉

PS. According to the game I beat it within 7 hours and a little over 20 minutes, give or take a few minutes of my getting stars and playing through the adventure packs.