You have come just in time. I am afraid that the Ancient Elementals are in grave danger. Now that Kaos knows where to find them, you must go protect them, and see to it that they return here safely. If any harm were to come to them, it would be disastrous for all of Skylands.
—Chieftess
Skylanders: SWAP Force is the third game in the Skylanders series. The first game to be developed by Vicarious Visions and published by Activision and was released on Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo 3DS during October of 2013, as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One at later dates.
In the Cloudbreak Islands, there is a magical volcano that refills the magic in Skylands every hundred years by four Ancient Elementals. It has been the duty of a group of Skylanders to protect this area of Skylands as well as the Elementals and the volcano. But after a battle during the most recent eruption, the group ended up too close to the top of the volcano, getting caught up in the wave of magic and were banished from Skylands. But the magic gave them the ability to swap out their top and bottom halves, turning them into the SWAP Force.
A hundred years later, Flynn is off on vacation at the volcano. But while there, he encounters a fox named Tessa and her giant bird Whiskers, who's asking him and the Skylanders to assist her and her village of Woodburrow. Kaos has found pieces of Petrified Darkness, and with it has constructed a weapon that can corrupt creatures into becoming evil. Planning to use it to evilize one of the Elementals for the eruption, the Skylanders must journey through the Cloudbreak Islands to secure their safety. And if that weren't bad enough, Kaos's mother has decided to join her son's efforts in taking over Skylands.
The SWAP Force Skylanders introduced in this game, as stated, can swap out their two halves to combine their attacks (and there are 256 combinations for each of the SWAP Force Skylanders). All of them are also assigned to one of eight movesets for their bottom halves, which are used for mini-games in levels called Swap Zones. And for the first time in the series, every Skylander can now jump.
This game was followed by Skylanders: Trap Team, released the following year.
This game contains examples of:
- Action Bomb: Countdown, a Tech core Skylander, is a robot with a bomb for a head that he can throw at enemies or unleash a massive explosion around him. The only side effect is that he loses his memory all over every time he does it, though.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- There's no fall damage in the game, so with the new jump mechanic you won’t be punished if you do it wrong or have a hard time getting used to it.
- If a SWAP Force Skylander loses their health in a SWAP Zone, they aren’t defeated and can still be used throughout the rest of the level.
- Dual-Elemental Gates are not restricted to only Swappers being able to open them, you can use two different Skylanders of those two elements in co-op mode to open them as well, preventing you from having to buy at least one Swapper of each element to get inside.
- Giant Chests aren't counted among the level's treasure chest count, so you aren't punished with missing one chest for not having a Skylander from a previous game that is likely more difficult to find.
- Once a figure is registered into one safe file, they are also registered for other safe files as well, so you won't have to place all your Skylanders on the Portal to have them registered, which makes the figure accomplishments for the Portal Master rank much less aggravating.
- The fact that three Skylanders who didn't get a repose in Giants come back in this game can give new players the chance to play as them if they didn't get their figures from Spyro's Adventure.
- The time challenge is no longer one of the goals of the second star and is instead its own mode, so you can get all three stars of a level on your first go without having to replay it.
- Art Evolution: This was the first Skylanders game to be released on the eighth generation of consoles, and with the technology, it was upscaled to be in HD. This includes all the Skylanders from the two previous games. Their new HD designs would stick throughout the rest of the series.
- Asteroids Monster: Chompy Pastepetals, the last introduced Chompy enemy in the game, splits into two duplicates upon being attacked. There's also a giant version named Mister Chompy, who divides into far more halves than a normal one.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Before the final boss starts, Kaos gets buried under a pile of darkness crystals. They power him up to become Super Evil Kaos, and he grows into a giant. So big that the fight is about having to destroy the crystals around his body to drain his power.
- Attack of the Town Festival: Kaos' mother invades the ceremony of the eruption just as it starts to take back her captured son and kidnap Tessa.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: The bad guys are using the evilizer most of all on friendly animals to turn into warriors for the evil side. The only exception of the six different evilized creatures are the Kangaroorats in Iron Jaw Gulch, as they are anthropomorphic.
- Baldness Angst: The Story Scroll in Kaos' Fortress states that one of the experiments being worked on there is a serum that will hopefully grow Kaos' hair back.
- Beat the Curse Out of Him: The creatures that have been evilized must be beaten to reverse the effect, including anthropomorphic ones like Glumshanks and the Kangaroorats. The only ones this doesn't apply to are Greebles, as they will remain purple even after they have been beaten.
- Bee-Bee Gun: Bumble Blast, one of the new Life Core Skylanders, has a bazooka that shoots bees.
- Big Little Brother: Of the Hippopotamus brothers, Tuk is the older and smaller one while Gorm is the younger and bigger one.
- Blatant Item Placement: In the final battle, a cannon is conveniently placed for you inside the volcano, which is used to launch yourself at Super Evil Kaos and deal the final blow.
- Boss-Only Level: Every Elemental arc of the game (counting Fantasm Forest and Kaos' Fortress as one) ends with a boss fight, and unlike the two previous games where you could only refight the boss by replaying the whole level, these bosses are counted as their own chapters and the game lets you refight them like any other level. Even the final chapter against Super Evil Kaos is simply a boss battle.
- Brave Scot: The Frost Elves in Boney Islands and Winter Keep speak with Scottish accents and are all fighters who can protect themselves from the snow cyclops.
- Brick Joke: In the opening cutscene, Flynn's volcano hat gets blown away by the wind. At the end of the game, the hat is blown back to him.
- Busman's Holiday: At the start of the game, Flynn is on vacation at the Cloudbreak Islands, but with Kaos now launching an attack on the islands to evilize the Ancient Elementals, he is recruited to Woodburrow to help them. At the end of the game, Tessa apologizes to him for making him miss his vacation, but Flynn tells her that the adventure he instead went through was way better than just sitting back and relaxing.
- Climax Boss: Kaos' mother. After her son's original plan has been foiled, she attempts to take the role of Big Bad and her boss battle even involves her interacting with the player themselves. Once she's defeated, while the Skylanders were distracted with her, Kaos took the chance to take his position back.
- Cool Airship: As part of Sharpfin's deal with the heroes, he and his men (mostly his men) work to repair Flynn's broken ship. Towards the final levels, we see the fruit of their labor, and the ship has been completely reconstructed to be even better than what it previously was, complete with an introduction from Sharpfin.Sharpfin: Introducing, the all-new Dreadyacht! Fully loaded with a pair of titanium mounted twin 14,000 cc engines with powercycled radiant coolant deployment!
Flynn: Wowsers, that is awesome!
Sharpfin: You also got your double set of triple amplified grammyphones with elf made high-fidelity audio transfer complete with a magical .4 decibel decay rate!
Flynn: I don’t even know what that all means!
Sharpfin: And to top it off, a high gloss, candy coated paint job with lephrechaun gold plated trim for all the world to see!
Flynn: AAAAAAAHHHH!- He also neglected to mention that the ship also has a spy mode, a hot tub and a manual.
Flynn: MY SHIP IS AWESOME! - Corrupt the Cutie: With Petrified Darkness, otherwise friendly creatures are turned into enemies that will fight you.
- Denser and Wackier: Swap Force has more comedic aspects to it compared to the two previous games. Several of the new Skylanders, NPCs, and enemies have more cartoony designs, there are more attempts at jokes in cutscenes and the enemy introductions aren't just the enemy's name appearing, it also is a small cutscene where something wacky happens. Even the designs of new Skylanders are more outlandish, cartoony and slightly exaggerated compared to previous ones.
- Developer's Foresight:
- If you use Stink Bomb or Stealth Elf's invisibility during the fight with Evil Glumshanks, he won't do his charge attack because he is unable to see them.
- Wash Buckler and Rattle Shake are both already wearing unique hats as part of their figures (although with no stat boosts). If you give them another hat from the character menu, they will switch out their regular hat for the new.
- Eternal Engine: Kaos' Fortress, the most recent lair of our favorite bald Portal Master is a labratory factory conducting all sorts of crazy experiments while being guarded by Kaos' robot minions.
- Female Monster Surprise: When the Terrasquid has been freed from being evilized, Flynn remarks that he's free before Sharpfin corrects him by telling him that the squid is female.
- Final Dungeon Preview: In the openeing part of Mount Cloudbreak, Flynn flies his ship inside the volcano where you see the core of it, the same place you fight Super Evil Kaos at the end of the game.
- Firefighting Episode: More like Firefighting Level. Fantasm Forest has Kaos' minions infecting the forest with Evilized Fire to use against the Ancient Tree Spirit, and you team up with the Treemen Firefighters to put it out. It is integrated into gameplay as well, as at several points the fire will be blocking your path.
- Fishing Minigame: After completing chapter 7, Wheelock will be putting up a fishing rod in the hollow beneath Woodburrow, where you can fish for some extra treasure. Mudwater Hollow is the only level where you can also fish, though there you have to do it in order to proceed.
- Fun with Acronyms: The sheep disguise the agent Softpaw gives to the Skylander in order to sneak into Kaos' lair is called the "Scout Hazard to Elude and Escape Poncho".
- Friendly Fire: Spinning enemies like Greeble Pirate Slamspins or Twistpick Cyclops can be used to hurt other enemies, including themselves if they spin into each other. This is even shown in the introduction of the former, as one of the Greebles spins into one of his teammates.
- Giant Mook: The different Geargolems are the biggest enemies in the game, and as such, have a lot of health and strong attacks. A Fire Geargolem is even used as the image for Hard mode during the difficulty selection.
- Hailfire Peaks: Going along with the the game's aspect of mixing and matching elements are Dual-Elemental Gates, which needs two different elements to access. The areas inside are combinations of two normal Elemental Gate areas, meaning you can visit stuff like a cave having gears and technology inside of it or a water fountain decorated with skulls.
- Heavily Armored Mook: Some enemies of certain species are bigger and stronger, and are also protected by shields. You're gonna have to wait for them to attack first before you're able to deal damage to them.
- High-Altitude Battle: Fantasm Forest ends with a battle against Kaos in his aircraft in the sky.
- Hijacked by Ganon: Downplayed. After all the Elementals have been saved and Kaos has been captured, his mother shows up and seems to be taking over the role of Big Bad by rescuing her son and kidnapping Tessa, and then saying that she will conquer all of Skylands for herself and that Kaos had his chance. But after she has been beaten, Kaos reveals that he is currently filling the volcano with Petrified Darkness, turning him into the final boss yet again.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- In his boss battle, Shellshock will occasionally launch explosives, but one of them will leave behind dynamite, which is needed to throw back at his machine to leave him vulernable.
- After every time you get Kaos' mom out of her hiding place inside your Portal, she will launch a green laser that will ricochet back at her if you hide behind the green crystals that will drop from the cieling.
- Hornet Hole: Some areas of Mount Cloudbreak are inside trees, where the inside of them are beehives.
- Irony: The elements of the two Skylanders that are included in the Adventure Packs fit better for the other than what they do for their own. The Tower of Time is a level built around a clock tower featuring gear and gadget based puzzles to get through where the Air Skylander Pop Thorn is included. In the Sheep Wreck Islands you navigate through small tornado teleporters where the main villain is the Sheep Mage who uses air elemental attacks, and the Tech-Skylander Wind-Up is included in this one.
- It's All About Me: When Baron von Shellshock has been defeated, he walks around in place as Sharpfin, Flynn and Tessa are discussing Sharpfin's collaboration, and then he demands that they pay him attention when he's doing nothing. Having had enough of Shellshock's nonsense, Sharpfin calls on some of his boys to beat him up.
- Keep It Foreign: In the German dub, Baron Von Shellshock is French and is renamed Baron de Shellshock. His German voice actor speaks fluent French and speaks German in a French accent.
- King Mook:
- In the Water Elemental Gate in Kaos' Fortress, you encounter Mr. Chompy, who is a giant Chompy Pastepetal that splits into multiple duplicates as opposed to a normal one that can only split once.
- The third phase against Kaos' mom stars with a short fight against the final Greeble enemy in the game, Bubba Greebs, who is an enourmous Greeble mutant.
- Last Ditch Move: When Grumblebum Rockshooters are defeated, one of their rockets will be launched into the air and land in the spot the shooter stood in, trying to get one last hit in.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: In Sheepwrecked Island, Flynn tells the Skylander to never tell anyone about what happened there, which is that Flynn got turned into a sheep by the Sheep Mage.
- Loads and Loads of Loading: The Wii version required more loading screens to be able to run the already scaled down HD version, so every level will have one around the halfway point, and these loading screens go on for quite a while, too.
- MacGuffin Delivery Service: Your efforts to protect the Elementals is turned into this at the end, when Kaos fills the volcano with Petrified Darkness so all the magic will be turned evil.
- Macro Zone: In Twisty Tunnels, to destroy the crystals that are trying to evilize the Terrasquid, the Skylander will be shrunken by it to go and destroy it from the inside.
- Magic Pants: Kaos does tear through some of his clothes when he becomes Super Evil Kaos, except for the upper part of his undershirt and heart-patterned underwear, as they grow to the same giant size as him. When he has been defeated and reverted back, his original clothes are magically back.
- Mind Screw: The entire confrontation with Kaos' mom in "Motherly Mayhem". When you first meet her, despite the fact that it's the Skylander you're playing at that meets her, her speech before the battle isn't directed at the Skylander, but rather at you, meaning that she can somehow see you. At certain points during her battle, she will suddenly disappear with no hint at where she is. Until you take your current Skylander figure off your Portal and find her in the Skylander summon scene that's supposed to be inside the Portal.
- Minion with an F in Evil: The Greebles start off as this. The yellow Greeble enemies met in the first level are among some of the weakest in the game and as stated by Kaos, they simply aren't evil enough. But even after being evilized, they are still somewhat inept at evil, as while they become more violent, their slapstick shown in cutscenes doesn't go away. In fact, they straight up vanish from being enemies around halfway through the game.
- Mood Whiplash: After the Tree Spirit has been saved, the volcano ceremony at Woodburrow begins and everyone is ready to celebrate. All of a sudden Kaos' mom appears, and the tone goes over to being serious in a heartbeat.
- Mother Nature, Father Science: This is Flynn and Tessa's dynamic in the first half of the game, with them questioning and arguing about each other's opposite methods. Flynn is more reliant on flying machines for transportation and uses practical objects like maps and compasses to find his way while Tessa rides on a giant bird and uses her instincts instead.
- Motor Mouth: Gurglefin in Mudwater Hollow will talk non-stop during the parts where you go down the river on his raft, and at one point, he claims to be someone who knows when it's time for him to keep his mouth shut.
- No-Damage Run: To earn the third star in the Boss-Only Levels, you have to beat them without taking a single hit. Easier said than done, though.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The Illuminator that lights up the area around Winter Keep from the eternal midnight was from Whirlwind, which marks the first time a Skylander has a direct involvement in a level.
- Palmtree Panic: With the Magic Item Arkeyan Crossbow scanned into the game, you unlock the battle arena Treacherous Beach for both Arena Challenges and PvP.
- Plot Hole: In the intro cutscene, Kaos' mom tricked the Swap Force Skylanders into standing near enough to the top of the volcano that they were caught up in the magic explosion and banished from Skylands. But at the end of the game, when Flynn is flying his ship out of the volcano, they are right in front of the magic being sent out, but they aren't affected by it at all and can escape.
- Put on a Bus: This time it's not only Hugo who takes a backseat in the plot, but also Cali, both only appearing in one scene at the beginning to talk to Flynn.
- Recycled Soundtrack: The first theme of Frostfest Mountains uses the exact same heard in Glacier Gully from the previous game. After getting past the first Yeti village, the theme changes to something different, something that sounds way more foreboding.
- Replacement Mooks: Subverted. At the start of the game, Kaos is out of troll minions, and uses Greebles instead. But because the Greebles are just as, if not more incompotent than the trolls, Kaos goes back to having trolls do his bidding starting at Twisty Tunnels. After that happens, the only new Greeble enemy in the second half of the game is Bubba Greebs.
- Retired Badass: Snagglescale may not look it, but he used to be a gladiator and a damn good one at that, which is why he hosts the Arena Challenges. He managed to score 99 battle wins and wanted to go for one hundred, but unfortunately, the scoreboard couldn't go any higher, so he had to retire.
- Ride the Rainbow:
- In Winter Keep, to get from one island to another, you're using rainbows as grind rails, playing into Whirlwind's relation to the level.
- In the hub world, at a certain time of of the day, there will be a rainbow bridge at the training grounds that leads to a small island of treasure.
- Rise to the Challenge: Around the halfway point in the final level, there's a staircase the Skylander must hurry up as the goo below is rising up to sink it into it.
- Roaring Rapids: In the halfway point of Mudwater Hollow, you have to board a raft and use it to drift down a river filled with mines.
- Ruins for Ruins' Sake: The Rampant Ruins is an Arkeyan graveyard that is guarded by a giant stone monkey. It's also the place where Kaos gets all of his Petrified Darkness.
- Rule of Three:
- It takes three levels to find and secure the protection of both the Ancient Terrasquid and he Ancient Frost Hound.
- In Kaos’ Fortress, you have to go through three sheep cannons and then also destroy three sheep shooters to break the fortress’ defenses.
- To unlock the door to the Tower of Time so they can face Cluck, the Skylanders must retrieve three gears found throughout the town.
- Shifting Sand Land: Averted somewhat with Iron Jaw Gulch and Motleyville, as they are more focused on the town aspects they bring. It's more in play with Twisty Tunnels, which aside from the Terrasquid's tentacles being all over the level, doesn't have much to make it stand out as a desert level, even with things like the Fire Viper and going inside the Evilizer Crystals.
- Shockwave Stomp: In the first phase against Super Evil Kaos, his attack is to stomp his feet on the ground to create shockwaves.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The levels from the Frost Hound portion of the game, Boney Islands, Winter Keep and Frostfest Mountains. All three also have their own. Boney Islands is a frozen museum where you escort a group of Frost Elves to a ship. Winter Keep has you and the Frost Elves against Cyclops and their snow cannons in a huge snowball fight. And Frostfest Mountains has you following a light through a blizzard to get to the top of the mountain to find the Frost Hound.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The Chieftess of Woodburrow doesn't do too much in the story besides provide you with the location of the next Elemental. But she is the reason why Kaos is even going after the Elementals in the first place, as when he kidnapped her and her two advisors, he managed to get her to tell him what he needed.
- Small, Secluded World: Downplayed with the Frostfest Mountains. They are still a part of the Cloudbreak Islands, but there rarely goes any visitors there because of the harsh blizzard. The storm also cuts off the Yetis from the rest of the islands so they are not as informed about things, such as the volcano eruption. The Story Scroll of the level says that they hold a celebration every year for it, not knowing that it only happens every hundred years. But since they wouldn't know if it happened or not since they can't see through the blizzard anyway, there's no harm in what they’re doing.
- Spin Attack: Free Ranger and Doom Stone, as the two Spin-type SWAP Force Skylanders, naturally have this for their bottom halves. For Core Skylanders, Star Strike and Wind-Up also has this sort of attack.
- Stealth-Based Mission:
- True to its name, the Sneak SWAP Zones are these types of level, tasking the Skylander with sneaking through a fortress and avoiding searchlights and lasers so they can reach the self-destruct button and blow the place up.
- The best way to get further into Kaos' Fortress is by the Skylander disguising themselves as a sheep and getting launched out of the cannon meant to transport them to the sheep shooters. However, the area surronding the second and third cannons are guarded by robots with searchlights that will get rid of anything that isn't a sheep, so they will have to avoid them and get to Softpaw to get a sheep costume.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: At the start of Frostfest Mountains, Flynn and Sharpfin meet a yeti named Fizzy who appears behind them without a sound. After the situation has been explained and how the Skylander will follow the light to get to the top, the yeti then disappear right before Flynn and Sharpfin's eyes.
- Surrounded by Idiots: Kaos really doesn't show much admiration for his minions. He's already put off by the Greebles not being evil enough and calls them "much better" after they've been hit by the evilizer. And when he rallies up his troll army before the raid on the Fantasm Forest, he says them to their faces that he sees them as a failure buffet and says that their mission is their chance to prove to him that they're not.
- Take Cover!: This is how you deal damage to Kaos' mom. When she fires a slow-moving green laser at you, you have to move behind one of two crystals that fell from the ceiling so it will ricochet the laser back at her.
- Technicolor Fire: In the Fantasm Forest level, Kaos has equipped his troll minions with Evilized Fire to use against the Ancient Tree Spirit which is purple, just like the Petrified Darkness.
- Time for Plan B: After the Stone Monkey strikes down Evil Glumshanks' machine, he asks "What would Lord Kaos do?", to which he listens to the machine that suggests Plan Z, which he then initiates.
- Time Stands Still: You use this to proceed through the Tower of Time level. There are tons of contraptions around the town that move fast and can only be bypassed by making them stand in place for a few seconds.
- Underground Monkey: There are seven different kinds of Chompy enemies in this game, and all of them have their own quality to them, unlike in Giants where Chompies and Bone Chompies were basically the same enemy.
- Vacation Episode: For Flynn, at least. He was supposed to be off to see the magical eruption, but instead got roped by Tessa into helping Woodburrow protect the Elementals. But once the day has been saved, he says that this adventure was way better than just kicking back and relaxing.
- Villain No Longer Idle: For the first three Ancient Elementals, Kaos simply sends out his troops out to hopefully accomplish the goal. When that ends up not working, he decides to go all out with his attack on the Fantasm Forest where the Tree Spirit resides, equipping his minions with Evilized Fire, having some of the toughest enemies in the game, and even being there himself to supervise the whole operation. This is then deconstructed, as he still sticks to his Attack! Attack! Attack! approach, which makes it just more of the same song and dance for the Skylanders. And at the end of the level, he gets captured by the heroes after they defeat him.
- Villain Song: Right before the boss fight against Mesmeralda, she and her puppets sing a song about she's the one who pulls your strings.
- Warp Whistle: Unlike in the two previous games, while there are NPCs to talk to in order to access bonus missions and arena challenges, you can also access them from the pause menu, even while you're in the middle of a story level.
- Womb Level: When the Fire Viper has a fourth of its health left, it eats the Skylander whole and the rest of the battle takes place inside of it where the last crystal to be destroyed is.
- Xanatos Speed Chess: Kaos' mom takes over as (temporary) new Big Bad after her son's latest plan has failed. But Kaos capitalizes on the Skylanders being distracted by her by coming up with a new plan to evilize the magic in the volcano with a pile of Petrified Darkness crystals.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: After the Ancient Tree Spirit has been saved, it seems like things are back to normal with all Elementals saved and Kaos captured, but then his mom appears and takes both him and Tessa to Kaos' Fortress, forcing the Skylanders to head out on a rescue mission.
The 3DS Version provides examples of:
- Calacas: Count Moneybone and his lackeys have this motif, and it is also combined with machinery.
- Egopolis: The main hub world for this game is Flynn's hometown Boom Town, which is named after his signature catchphrase because of how loved he is there.
- Recurring Boss: You fight Moneybone in his battlesuit a total of three times, and it gets improved with every fight.
- Skewed Priorities: After Moneybone has attacked Boomtown and taken Cali hostage as well as the giant golden statue of Flynn, Flynn is more concerned about getting back his statue than Cali.
