Swapforce is a ton of fun - so much depth. Not as challenging as i'd like, though the battle arenas are really well done. With fear of exaggeration, they are as attractive and have as many tricks and weapons as the Power Stone games. I play more in the battle arenas than main game.
The main game is certainly designed with a goal of getting kids to pester their parents to "buy more swapforce characters". Many areas are locked unless you have the right combination of swapped elements. "A skylander with both Dig and Climb elements is needed to unlock this portal." ..."Dad, dad, you need to buy us a DIG character!"
Of course you can beat the game w/o those areas - if you want 100% completion - you'll need a minimum of 1/ea of the attributes.
Snatch/Darsparx this is gauntlet with multiple characters you can switch out at any time. If you enjoy hack and slash games, you will enjoy the game. The first game introduced the concept, the second introduced giant figures, and the third introduced swappable figure halfs. If you are even partially interested, the $32.50 for the Swapforce is worth the risk. You can beat the entire game with the characters in the base game, but if you want to unlock everything, you have to have the extra characters. Honestly, we bought most of the original set, and most of the giants and only a handful for the second.
Great news for all man/womankind. I was on this website and discovered a fantastic holiday treat for all of us.
ToysRus has the Trap Team starter sets for $39.99 (40% off) AND you get a free trap of your choice with purchase ($6 value). Shipping over $49 is free.
I just grabbed:
Wii U Trap Team starter Set - $39.99
Undead Head Trap - $FREE
Lego City Flexible Train Tracks - $16 (cheapest online currently)
Shipping - $FREE
Tax - $3.80
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$59 for all
For the first time i'm upset to the point of posting about resellers. My kids have been so excited for Skylanders day at Gamestop today. Starting at 10am (when they open) they had the light and dark expansions on sale, both sets for $50.
Showed up at the Superior, WI store at 1030. Sold out. Some guy was outside when the staff arrived - apparently; and bought up every set they had. I asked, "Isn't there a limit or something...?" As I said this in walked another 2 families w/young kids talking loudly about Skylanders. The employee says, "Unfortunately there was no limit listed in the email promotion so there is nothing we can do."
I got home - frustrated for my kids to the point of fuming. Called the other 2 stores w/in driving distance. Same story. They sold out as soon as the doors opened.
This is Gamestops fault for promoting something for weeks and taking zero measures (ie, "limit 2 per customer" is all they needed...they should know this, they've done it before) but mostly this is just the disgustingness of people w/nothing better to do than to make a living reselling kids toys.
I wish retailers had some stipulations and guidelines on how many you could purchase -- would certainly stem the reselling of these things. Certainly this way with Amiibo, is it brutal for Disney Infinity also?
Sorry your fam-bam had its day dampered -- want me to check locally for you?
Sure, don't go out of your way - but yeah, if see the light and dark and can get them $25-30/ea i'd be interested. I'm seeing ebay absolutely flooded w/them right now...who knows, maybe it will backfire on the resellers - will be interesting to see what these do at auction the next few days.
Naw, infinity doesn't really seem to have any supply issues. The thing w/amiibo is...I don't think they intentionally created the scarcity. They assumed Mario and Link would appeal to most gamers more and made tens of thousands more of them. I mean - when I first saw Wii Fit Trainer my thought was...these will be $5/clearance in 2 months - I can't imagine anyone wanting that...so I think Nintendo thought the same thing. The other side of this is - this is pretty exclusive to N. America. Japan has plenty of everything, Europe has plenty of most everything. I was looking at AES games on the JP webstores last night and all the Amiibo were in stock at 1400-1900 jpy. All of them (marth / villager / pit, etc)
I was pretty fortunate to be able to grab both the Light and Dark sets for my son when I saw them pop up at Gamestop a couple of weeks ago. Since then they have gone in and out of stock at the stores around me. I've spotted them at Gamestop, Best Buy, and Toys R Us so far.
My big complaint is around the Kaos trap and how ridiculous that one seems to be to find in the wild. There was one in the Dark Edition starter set but the basic one is very rare by all accounts. From my understanding Activision intentionally limited supply and only sent one or two to retailers for every 20 or so normal traps they ordered. Scalpers have really inflated the price of that trap and the cheapest I have seen is $75.
I know it was more limited - or at least announced as limited, but I'm not hating on Activision for it. It was marketing and the point was to try and sell the Dark Edition starter sets - so there has to be incentive to order that set over the basic set. However, they still had to release it is a general trap as well because it is pretty necessary for the game.
Here's the thing though - I know my local Target had many of them, but they were all bought by resellers. I mean, it's the most popular trap on ebay - there are people sitting on dozens (hundreds?) of them. The market is set at $50 on them, so what keeps happening is people bid to their max ($47-50) it sells to only one person...so all the other "losers" of that auction go bid on the next one and all of a sudden it goes from $5 to $50...and it just keeps happening - but I just don't believe the supply is that low with the sheer number available on the secondhand market. Amazon and B&M retailers are as much to blame by not putting limits on what shoppers can purchase. It is in their interest to limit. If i'm going in to buy 10 of something that isn't selling - then sure, their interest is to let me buy them all and walk out. If i'm there for a limited item like an amiibo or skylander figure and all i'm doing is buying out your stock and nothing else - that hurts them, because now customer 2-25 call and ask about stock, you (retailer) are out, and now i'm not going to your store. Had customers 2-25 gone, not only would they have bought the Kaos trap, they likely would have grabbed a DVD or something else too.
I agree that retailers should put a limit on how many copies of the same SKU per transaction. It wouldn't stop the re-sellers, but it could certainly help stem the tide. I would even argue that the limit would only really be needed for the first week or so of an item's release.
