The Skylanders Superchargers Toys Are Mostly Great

The new Skylanders video game is pretty great, but what about the toys? Toy Time takes a quick look at the good and not-so-good with the new Superchargers toys, starting with Donkey Kong’s shirt.

Seriously, what’s with that shirt?

As those of you who’ve been following along with the Skylanders Superchargers saga, care about Amiibo or read my buyers guide know, the Nintendo versions of Skylanders Superchargers exchanges a perfectly good original character and car with either an incredibly bright Donkey Kong with his Barrel Blaster vehicle (Wii U) or Bowser with a clown-faced jet (3DS, Wii).

They’re no Amiibo. Well, they are Amiibo — there’s a base switch that changes the figures from Skylanders mode to Amiibo mode — but in terms of quality, not quite. The paint is a little bit sloppy, the plastic a bit too plastic-y. They aren’t bad figures, but compared to Nintendo’s offerings they’re a step below that rung.

As for the original figures, there’s just one major issue that bugs me. When I first heard about Skylanders Superchargers I was excited about the vehicles — finally toys with some sort of playability! I sat in the meeting room zooming a little car all over the place like a kid. It was sad, in a really happy sort of way.

The problem is not all of the vehicles have a cool play feature. Fiesta’s cool coffin-esque ride rolls like a champ. Next to it we have Sky Slicer, which is just a lump of pointy plastic. One submarine has a dial that makes the propeller move. Another is just a lump of plastic.

It almost feels as if the vehicles with parts are fully-realised toys and the others are prototypes that were never fully fleshed-out.

At least the figure designers haven’t let me down. This year’s crop of characters so far are a lovely collection of old friends made new and new friends making an excellent first impression. I am pleased.