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Skylanders: Swap Force - Volcanic Eruptor
Score: 90%
Developer: Activision
Device Type: Accessory
Compatible With:


Stats:

Volcanic Eruptor
Element:Fire
Health:290
Speed:35
Armor:18
Critical Hit:6
Elemental Power:25

Attacks:

Skylanders: Swap Force - Volcanic Eruptor (and every other version of Eruptor) starts off with his Lava Lob and Eruption attacks. The first is a mid-ranged attack that can do a fair bit of damage to enemies and Eruptor seems capable of tossing out these guys in fairly quick succession. The Eruption ability has a pool of lava pouring out of the ground at Volcanic Eruptor’s feet to deal a lot of damage for a few seconds in a circle around your character. One of the main drawbacks though is that neither Eruptor nor the Eruption ability is fast. He lumbers across the field and this attack takes some time to bubble up.

Before choosing an upgrade path, Volcanic Eruptor can unlock the ability to lob large lava blobs, have those blobs leave fiery spots that can deal more damage after they’ve gone away, and even have the Eruption attack shoot out lava blobs of its own to make this ability even more effective. The most expensive upgrade before choosing a path is Volcanic Eruptor’s third attack. Magma Ball is a giant ... well, magma ball. He spits it out and it goes rolling across the screen to damage opponents.

The two upgrade paths let Volcanic Eruptor either make his Lava Blobs more powerful or his Eruption. Personally, while I like the idea of Eruptor’s blobs becoming more effective, I tend to upgrade his Eruption ability because that path makes this particular attack very deadly. The Lava Blob upgrades allow the blobs to bounce, explode and eventually do increased damage. The Eruption path makes the magma come out much quicker, makes it even more destructive and finally causes small volcanoes to form doing more long-term damage - a real benefit when locked behind a battle gate.

Volcanic Eruptor’s Soul Gem is Mega Magma Balls (Spyro’s Adventure, Lava Lakes Railway) and let this character shoot out three Magma Balls at the same time and each does even more damage. Since Eruptor was a character from the first game and has been brought back for each of the sequels, he has two Wow Pow abilities. The first is Lava Barf. Charging the Magma Ball ability releases a wave of lava from Volcanic Eruptor’s mouth while the second Wow Pow, Lava Barf 2: Barf Harder, releases three Magma Balls, then holding down the button lets you eat them and then immediatly barf them back up to deal extra damage. I found the timing of this one to be a little tricky, but once you get it down it is most effective.


Features:
  • Compatible with:
    • Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure
    • Skylanders: Giants
    • Skylanders: Swap Force
  • Series 3

Comments:

Skylanders: Swap Force - Volcanic Eruptor is only available in the Nintendo 3DS starter pack version of Swap Force. Thankfully, this time, the people deciding how best to package the characters and games didn’t put duplicates in the console and handheld starter packs and while you can get the other two characters that come with the 3DS (Rattle Shake and Free Ranger) individually, this Volcanic variant of Lava Barf Eruptor can’t be picked up in a solo-pack. So, if you are looking to get all of the characters and variants, but want to minimize your duplicates, you will need to pick up the 3DS version of the game and not have already gotten the other two characters that come with it.

As far as Volcanic Eruptor himself, he is a Series 3 version of the classic fire-type character, and his attack progression and gameplay style hasn’t changed much. While he does have a ranged attack, those fireballs don’t go very far and his most devastating attack is the area-of-effect lava field he spits out. This makes him a great close-ranged fighter with a fairly high armor rating, but he is also very slow. The best thing to do is to level him up fast so that his attacks don’t take as long to generate and to find ways to up his Speed rating.

As far as needing this character for your collection, there is the non-Volcanic version that you can buy on its own that behaves exactly like this character (not to mention the previous game’s versions and the Lightcore one that came out with Giants). Given the fact that you have to buy the 3DS version of the game to pick up Volcanic Erupor, I can only recommend grabbing this figure if the collecting bug has bitten you and you have to have them all. Then again, it’s because of this figure’s rarity that I gave it as high a score as I did. If you are a collector and you don’t want to buy the 3DS version of Swap Force, then you are going to have to look for it online or as a used figure in a store.


-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications
AKA Chris Meyer

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