The combination of iconic characters, action figures and toys, and a videogame franchise can be a powerful one. At a hands-on demo for Activision's upcoming Skylanders SWAP Force, it soon became clear that people would start playing favorites amongst the 100+ playable characters in the game (and their associated real world collectible toys). For instance, Activision Publicist Claire Gregory predicted great things for new character Roller Brawl, an edgy, undead, magenta-and-purple themed character who skated through levels on roller blades and wielded dual fist-mounted blades when things got nasty.

Did Roller Brawl deserve Gregory's backing? I picked up the character's figurine and placed it on the game's portal accessory. Seamlessly, the video game on the television introduced the character I would soon be playing as in a stylish but short preparation sequence before dumping me back into the game. I then discovered that Roller Brawl's special attack was charging up her blades and then skating around with her arms swept behind her, forming a "V" of energy that damaged enemies I skated past but not into. Skating right between two enemies and damaging both of them at the same time this way, I couldn't help but think that Roller Brawl indeed had something special.

But Roller Brawl wasn't even one of the new "Swap Force" characters that Activision is introducing with this third iteration of the franchise. The idea behind these characters is that each action figure is actually two parts: a top and a bottom. Held together by a satisfying and solid magnetic connection at their waist, a Swap Force character's legs determined their method of locomotion while everything from their torso up tracked their general level, experience, and attacks. Just as Skylanders has always had certain side-missions and bonus levels that were only accessible to characters of a certain element, now SWAP Force would also have special bonus challenges that players could enter if their character had the right locomotion. 

These levels did a lot to vary the standard action gameplay of the core experience: enter a "bounce" specific Swap Zone and you'd be in a platformer-type mini-game, having to bounce across floating islands in the sky. Enter a Swap Zone reserved for characters who sped along on wheels and you were suddenly in a racing game, using boosts and dodging obstacles to get to the end of a race course before time ran out. It was also easy to understand which bottoms qualified, as the Swap Force characters had an icon prominently displayed at on the figurine's base that matched in-game indicators for each Swap Zone level.

It's worth nothing that mixing and matching the top and bottom of two Swap Force characters was reflected in the game too. The names of the two original characters combined into a new one, and graphically you could see the top you had chosen, the bottom you had chosen, and all the appropriate animations you would expect.

This attention to the game component of the Skylanders franchise is felt in other ways. Playing the Xbox 360 demo, the simple controls felt solid and satisfying. Characters had regular attacks, a movement-based special ability like dashes or (oh-so-awesome) teleporting, the ability to jump, and, once players unlocked the ability, special attacks like Roller Brawl's flying V of death. The level I played was linear but certainly didn't seem so. Within the first 30 seconds I defied the instructions I'd been given and leaped to a side branch of the level, something barely within view on the left of my screen. Another time, I found a mounted set of binoculars and, looking through them like in Super Mario 3D Land, triggered an event where an enemy wandered too close to an otherwise benign "Gobblepod," and was promptly eaten and dropped a collectible for me to pick up when I reached that section of the level later.

There were other touches of the game that I witnessed, but couldn't experience fully. SWAP Force seems to be chock full of cinematics. There was a lot of talk of recapturing the sense and quality of the Saturday morning cartoons that many of us remembered from our collective childhoods. On the other end, the game has borrowed from more modern sensibilities through giving players choice in character progression: at a certain point when powering up a character, you will have to choose which branch of upgrades to pursue, enhancing different abilities of the character based on your chosen play style. I didn't get to experience co-op play, though I could see how the abilities of some characters, like projecting a protective, defensive, wall of fire, would go far in enhancing a two-player experience. And though the demo on hand was the Xbox 360 one, I was promised the ability to play without a TV and with visuals only on the Wii U GamePad.

With 16 of the new SWAP-capable characters, 16 new core characters like Roller Brawl, 16 new series 2 and 3 versions of popular favorites, and the slew of previous compatible toys in the franchise, players could be starting up SWAP Force with more than 100 compatible figurines. But my time with the demo was an eye-opener. To think about Skylanders and focus only on collecting all the toys is reductive. There's a video game here too, and hopefully one as engaging and fun as Activision made sure to hint at with this demo.