Video Game / Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure

Bring the Skylanders to Life!^note From left to right: Trigger Happy, Stump Smash, Spyro, Stealth Elf, Gill Grunt, Eruptor and Boomer

WHOA! A Skylander! You've returned! Master Eon was right, that means he did find another Portal Master to help us.

—Hugo

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is the first game in the Skylanders series, and served as a reboot of the Spyro the Dragon series. It was developed by Toys for Bob and published by Activision for Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo 3DS (developed by Vicarious Visions), and Wii U.^note Japan exclusiveOriginally called Spyro's Kingdom, with unusual concepts such as Spyro being an NPC and being Wii exclusive, the game was reworked into the first installment of the popular "Toys-to-life" franchise.

Before the events of the game, the evil Portal Master Kaos, the arch-enemy of the Skylanders, appeared at Eon's citadel, which houses the Core of Light, a machine that brings light into the world of Skylands and keeps the darkness at bay, creating balance. Kaos has longed tried to destroy the core so that the darkness will spread throughout the world so he can rule it due to the darkness being the source of his powers as a dark Portal Master. Unlike previous attempts though, this time, Kaos actually succeeds in destroying it. The explosion of which turned Master Eon, the so far last Portal Master in Skylands, into a spirit and banished all the Skylanders, flying through space before landing on Earth. However, because Earth doesn't have any magic, they were frozen into small toys and were found by humans who became the new Portal Masters, and thanks to their portals, the Skylanders can be sent back to Skylands. Now alongside Eon's assistant Hugo and other allies, the Skylanders must venture though the islands of Skylands to find the parts so they can rebuild the Core of Light and bring peace back to Skylands all while avoiding Kaos' interferences.

The game was followed by a sequel, Skylanders: Giants, released the following year.

This game contains examples of:

Home Console Version:

• 100% Completion: To reach 100% on your safe file, you're gonna need to get all three stars in every main story level. This requires you at least to have one Skylander of each element to unlock every single Elemental Gate so you can get every level's collectibles star.
  • Even if they aren't counted towards the overall percentage counter, there are 19 accolades in the game. To get all of them, you're required to have all four Adventure Packs since you need to collect everything in the game, including in those levels, to earn every reward that requires all collectibles of one category. The biggest roadblock, however, is that you're gonna need at least one version of all 32 Skylanders, as two accomplishments require every single Skylander. One is for simply registering all of them, and the other is for having one Skylander clear all Heroic Challenges, which you need every Skylander for so they can unlock their own.
• 11th-Hour Ranger: Camo, Warnado and Wham-Shell were the last Skylanders to be released in the toy lineup.
• Already Done for You:
  • The residents of Stonetown kept the Eternal Earth Source secured for the Skylanders to come and get. But it's not gonna be that easy, as when they've arrived, the Source has transformed into a giant rock monster.
  • By the time you've arrived at the Molekin Mine, the Molekin miners there have already found the Crucible of the Ages, but also got lost in the search, so the mission is to find all of them.
• Antepiece: The player uses cannon for the first time to shoot four locks on a gate in chapter 2. The locks are stationary targets and are therefore a way of easing the player into how using cannons work for when every other segment following this one has moving targets.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The Zombies in Cadaverous Crypts can only be beaten by fire attacks. There are only three non-Fire Skylanders who have any form of Fire attack^note Spyro, Drobot, and Trigger Happy, the latter only if his upper upgrade path is bought, so on the off chance the player is playing as someone who doesn't have it, there will be cannons or candle poles nearby that can also damage them.
  • Ghost Roaster's Ectoplasm Mode shields him from enemy attacks, but drains his health in return. Both of his upgrade paths have upgrades that make it more bearable to use. The "Fear Eater" path has an upgrade that makes Ghost Roaster take less damage while transparent as well as making the mode more useful, and the "Skull Master" path has an upgrade that heals him when he eats a ghost with a Skull Charge.
  • Enemies in Heroic Challenges go down in one to two hits, helping the player focus more on the task at hand, even if the challenge involves killing a certain number of enemies.
  • The Adventure Pack levels aren't counted in the overall completion percentage, meaning you don't have to worry about having to get all four of them to reach 100% Completion on your safe file. If you want all the accolades, however, you're gonna need them because you'll need to get three stars on all levels including the Adventure Packs to unlock one accolade.
• Attack Its Weak Point: The Troll tanks all share the same weakness, which is an energy source on the backside of its tracks. The normal tank enemy, the advanced tank made from the Tech Source, and the tank encountered in Trigger Happy’s Heroic Challenge all have this weakness.
• Big Boo's Haunt: The levels in the Undead Source part of the game, Crawling Catacombs, Cadaverous Crypts, and Creepy Citadel. There is also Darklight Crypt.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The credits revolves around this, as Flynn talks over them and comments on them.
• Bullet Hell: The final phase of the battle against Kaos ends with him using his Hydra to combine the spells he has used in the fights against his minions, which covers almost the entire arena in hostile projectiles.
• Combo: Every Skylander that is focused on melee combat (except Bash, Ghost Roaster and Warnado) are capable of performing a combo attack. They all also have an upgrade on one of their paths that gives them two new combos.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The Evil counterpart of Chop Chop is equipped with both the Demon Blade of the Underworld and Demon Shield of the Shadows, which is impossible to have on a normal Chop Chop as they are unlocked on different paths.
• Cut and Paste Environments: The Heroic Challenges all uses one of four locations that are ripped right from Story Mode: Leviathan's Lagoon, Battlefield, Cadaverous Crypts, and Molekin Mine.
• Developer's Foresight: If you try to walk through the mine field in Troll Warehouse without having collected every map piece, there will be a closed gate preventing you from finishing the level too quickly.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: At the end of four different levels where the Skylanders recover Sources, Kaos shows up to take it as well. Rather than taking it right there, he focuses more on battling the Skylanders with his own Evil Skylanders and spells. And at the end, when all of his minions have been beaten, he gives up and just lets the Skylanders take the Source.
• Downer Beginning: Before the game starts, Kaos succeeds in his goal of destroying the Core of Light, the explosion of which banished the Skylanders to Earth and knocked Master Eon back into his portal, turning him into a spirit.
• Dual-World Gameplay: Darklight Crypt requires you to switch between day and night to solve various puzzles and progress through it.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • There is no unique gimmick to this game, but that is justified, as this was the first game of the series that tried the new Toys-to-Life idea.
  • Of the 32 Skylanders, only 12 were able to speak English, with the others expressing themselves in grunts or some made-up language. And some of those who could talk, like Chop Chop, Ignitor and Gill Grunt, were often voiced by the same voice actor, with some exceptions like Spyro and Stump Smash.
  • There's no jump button, something that was carried over to Giants until it was finally added in Swap Force.
  • There were multiple different people who served as Mission Control while also fitting into the current Elemental Source you were looking for, while in later games it was usually the same character throughout the whole game who had this role.
  • There's no Difficulty Levels, instead having a consistent level through the whole game. Likely because as the first game, it didn't allow for any backwards compatability with figures from games that could come before it.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The explosion from the Core of Light destroyed everything on the island, banished the Skylanders to Earth, and turned Eon into a spirit (by knocking him back onto his portal).
• Endless Winter: The Empire of Ice used to be a valley filled with green greens and the most lovely weather you can imagine. But after the Snow Cyclopses appeared, they built a giant wall that blocked out the sun, which turned the area into the glacier it is when we arrive.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Kaos' Huge Holographic Head is also designed to make Kaos' voice sound much deeper then it actually is.
• Game-Breaking Bug: Only appears in the Wii version. If the player says no to go to the Arkeyan Armory, the Weapon Master, who is the current Mission Control, will return to his sleeping stanche with no way of waking him up, meaning the player has to restart the entire game. The kicker? The Arkeyan Armory is the penultimate level.
• Gangplank Galleon: Two of the water-levels, Darkwater Cove and Leviathan's Lagoon, as well as the Pirate Seas Adventure pack.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: In Stonetown, it's revealed that the Eternal Earth Source has been turned into a giant rock monster, for seemingly no reason. This makes the monster the only boss in the game that is unrelated to Kaos.
• Gusty Glade: Downplayed with Shattered Island and Stormy Stronghold. Both places are being teared apart because of a giant tornado being at the area, but it's never done in a way that's gonna hinder your progress. The latter do have you trying to undo the storm that's happening, but it doesn't disturb you during the level up until you calm it down.
• Guide Dang It!: The Legendary Treasure in Leviathan's Lagoon has no indication on where to find it. To find it, you have to go behind the tower with the cannon, walk out on the water and get eaten by the Leviathan, where you will find the treasure inside of it, and only if you were eaten in this area. Every other time you get eaten by it for going too far, you only find money inside it, and there is nothing that suggests there’s anything unique to be found where you find the treasure.
• Hailfire Peaks: Lava Lakes Railway starts out as a Underground Level, taking place in the same mine as the previous chapter, albeit with a changed layout. After heading deeper, the level becomes a mix of the previous mentioned theme and Lethal Lava Land.
• Huge Holographic Head: Kaos uses this to make himself look more intimidating than he actually is. It doesn't even work as well as he thought it would, as Eon is unimpressed by it.
• Instant Armor: Some Skylanders have upgrades that give them more armor, either on one of their upgrade paths like Dino-Rang and Slam Bam, or as their Soul Gem like Warnado or Drill Sergeant.
• Knight of Cerebus: Kaos' four-headed hydra has a scaringly realistic design compared to every other character, and was the beast that is responsible for destroying the Core of Light and what happened to the Skylanders and Master Eon.
• Last Lousy Point: Some levels just barely have enough enemies to reach the Enemy Goal, but since they usually aren't hidden and some levels have enemies that spawn endless smaller ones, it isn't too much of a hassle. But if you're playing on an Xbox 360, then Quicksilver Vault becomes this. The level in that version will not have enough enemies to reach the count, even if you search it from top to bottom. There is still a way to reach it, but it's only thanks to a glitch with Sonic Boom, where if her hatchlings are defeated, it will count towards the enemy goal despite them not being enemies. But if you want to reach 100% Completion and don’t have a figure of her, you're out of luck.
• Left Stuck After Attack: Kaos will try to use his throne to slam down on your Skylander, but after doing so, it will be stuck on the ground, leaving him open. Averted in the PS3 and XBox 360 versions, as there he will sometimes not be stuck at all and can rise up again with ease.
• Lone Wolf Boss: The Rock Monster that the Eternal Earth Source turns into in Stonetown is the only boss fight that has no affiliation with Kaos.
• MacGuffin: The Eternal Elemental Sources, as well as all the other materials needed to rebuild the Core of Light.
• Marathon Boss: Kaos in the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions can take a much longer time than the Wii version. While he doesn't heal himself back to max health at any point, there will be a lot of time between the times he leaves himself vulnerable, meaning a lot of the time, you're just waiting for an opening instead of fighting him.
• Marathon Level: Chapter 17, Creepy Citadel, is by far the longest level in the game. Most other levels can be beaten in about 20 minutes (including the final one if you ignore the final battle against Kaos), while this one takes about 25-30 minutes to beat. Even it's time trial is significantly longer compared to a lot of other levels.
• Mission Control: There are several characters who serve as the people to talk to in order to progress with the story, and they all relate to the element of the Eternal Source you're looking for. Flynn for Air, Gurglefin for Water, Diggs for Earth and Fire, Arbo for Life, General Robot for Tech, T-Bone for Undead and the Arkeyan Weapon Master for Magic.
• Mistaken for Flirting: Flynn says that his balloon is gonna need something added to it to push him through the storm, to which Cali suggests a propeller. But Flynn shoots it down, not because so that he could act like he came up with it, but because he thought that Cali was talking about him. So when he then says that his balloon is gonna need some kind of propeller, Cali says "Really? REALLY?", and it's unclear if she's sarcastic or dumbfounded.
• Non-Indicative Name: Despite a certain Skylander having his name in the title of this game, Spyro doesn't have a unique role in the story, or something exceptional about him compared to other Skylanders in gameplay. The closest it gets is in the opening battle cutscene, where he's the first to jump into battle and the one who receives the most focus when the Skylanders are being banished. Everywhere else though, he shares the spotlight with Gill Grunt and Trigger Happy, such as Hugo refering to only them three by name at the start of Shattered Island and all three appearing in the closing cutscene.
• Ominous Floating Castle: Kaos has one, and it's the only place where we see him in person throughout the game.
• Orcus on His Throne: Zig-Zagged. After blowing up the Core of Light, the Darkness starts spreading over Skylands, but while this is happening, Kaos can't really do much except wait for it to cover all of Skylands. He gets more chances to take action as his enemies starts rebuilding the Core of Light, but mostly resorts to trusting his lackeys. He does get involved at some moments, that being when he tries to take one of the Eternal Sources to prevent his enemies from getting their hands on them, but he only does so for half of them while doing nothing during to secure the other four (except for the Tech one, as that one is in possession of his Troll minions).
• Our Dragons Are Different: Every element has one dragon each, and they all differ from each other. For example, Bash, Zap and Camo don't have wings, Whirlwind and Sunburn are hybrids between dragon and unicorn and phoenix respectively, Spyro and Cynder retains their elemental breaths from the origianl Spyro series and The Legend of Spyro trilogy, and finally, Drobot is a cyborg dragon. And there are several other similarities and differences they have with each other.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Both Stump Smash and Double Trouble's Soul Gems gives them the ability to traverse over water (and in the former's case, also get healed while in it). But they become useless when you realize that you get Gill Grunt in the Starter Pack, who can already do it out of the gate due to being a Water Skylander. There's also Spyro, whose flying ability that can be used for the same thing is much cheaper than what a Soul Gem upgrade costs. And to make things even worse, traversing over water isn't even utilized that much in the game.
• Race Against the Clock: The Skylanders must hurry with the reconstruction of the Core of Light because with it destroyed, there is nothing holding the Darkness back from spreading itself throughout Skylands, and if it were to cover it all, Kaos is gonna be able to rule it. This is indicated by the sky at the Ruins getting darker and darker the further you get in the story, giving you a sense of urgency.
• Red Sky, Take Warning: When Skylands has almost been completely covered in darkness around the time you're looking for the second to last Source, the sky becomes blood red.
• Rolling Attack: Bash and Wrecking Ball have this as their secondary abilities, and both even have "rock and roll" as their catchphrase (in Wrecking Ball's case, it’s "Wreck and Roll!"). Stealth Elf's tertiary attack can also qualify as this if her upper path is chosen where the player can buy the Shadowsbane Blade Dance upgrade, as it makes her deal damage while rolling.
• Scenery Dissonance: The Ruins is the place where you can feel safe with no enemies to damage you, or anyway that you can be defeated at all (unless you stand too long on the campfire or use Ghost Roaster's Ectoplasm mode too much). But as you get further and further into the game, the darkness spreads more and more across Skylands as the sky at the Ruins gets darker and darker. It is already pretty dark during the Undead Source arc of the story, but by the final levels before the final one, the sky has turned red.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Empire of Ice.
• Starter Mon: Figures of Spyro, Gill Grunt and Trigger Happy are included in the console starter pack. For the 3DS starter pack, Stealth Elf, Ignitor and Dark Spyro are included instead.
• Take Your Time: You are on a Race Against the Clock to find all the gadgets and Eternal Sources to reconstruct the Core of Light before the darkness has spread all over Skylands. Despite this, you can spend just as much time as you want to at the Ruins doing side content like Heroic Challenges or finding all the secrets, or even doing the Adventure Pack levels in-between your adventure.
• Time for Plan B: When Kaos’ initial plan A of showing up at Eon's citadel and sending in all of his underlings to combat the Skylanders fails, Glumshanks suggests they should move over to plan B. Kaos dismisses it, and instead goes right over to Plan Z, which ends up working brilliantly.
• Timed Mission: All of the Heroic Challenges are this, varying from three to four minutes. Sonic Boom's challenge, "Time's A-Wastin'", is a unique take on this, as you start off with 15 seconds on the clock and get more time by beating enemies.
• Underground Level: Molekin Mine and Lava Lakes Railway, the two levels during the Fire-Source part of the game.
• The Unfought:
  • During the final battle, you never deal any damage at all to Kaos' hydra, you just avoid its attacks while you focus exclusively on attacking Kaos. Defeating Kaos will automatically defeat the hydra.
  • Vathek in Dragon's Peak. He sends waves of enemies at you and after the final one, he jumps off the throne to deal with you himself. But that's when Flavius seizes the throne, and uses it to freeze Vathek.
• Unique Enemy: The Zombies met in the Cadaverous Crypts that are only weak to fire are only ever met in this game (they make a cameo as NPCs in Cynder's new Heroic Challenge in Giants).
• Villainous Breakdown: When Kaos has finally been beaten and his throne starts malfunctioning, he tells the Skylanders that this is not over it in a very desperate tone. He then does his Evil Laugh, but sounds less enthusiastic when he finishes it as his throne explodes.
• Villains Want Mercy: At the end when Kaos is about to be banished yet again, this time to a place unknown to him, he tries to bargain with the heroes into a We Can Rule Together by suggesting that they split Skylands between light and darkness.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Glumshanks disappears from the story after the Magic Source has been brought to the Core and there's no closure on what happens to him.
• Wrench Whack: The Troll Greasemonkeys are equipped with clamps to use at the Skylanders.
• You Have Failed Me: In the final battle, Kaos becomes displeased with his minions’ failure at defeating the Skylander. When the first group of three has failed, he calls upon the next group and kills the previous one to have the new one get their XP. After the fourth and final group lose, Kaos himself will feed on their XP and refill his health to max, having decided that he only need his Hydra for this battle.

3DS Version:

• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: You can only have two Skylanders scanned in at a time, and if you want to change, you'll have to talk to Wendel in the hub world.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: Hektore has no unique characteristics that gives him a unique idenity. A big contrast between him and Kaos is that Kaos has some form of personality, while Hektore doesn't have any big characterization moments or even a single line of dialogue until his death scene.
• Stalked by the Bell: Hektore's purpose in the levels (and game as a whole aside from being the Big Bad) is to appear halfway through the level and approach the Skylander. A time limit will start, which will result in a instant defeat it it hits zero.