Jawbreaker and Legendary Jawbreaker - Skylander Review

Jawbreaker and Legendary Jawbreaker – Skylander Review

Jawbreaker is a new Tech Trap Master making his debut in Skylanders Trap Team. He also has a Legendary variant called Legendary Jawbreaker which is sold exclusively by Toys R Us. Jawbreaker began his existence as an ordinary robot. He was one of many robots who operated and maintained the enormous underground machines that controlled and powered the legendary Sky Train which traveled between a thousand different islands daily. One day a large army of Gear Trolls invaded the underground complex who wanted to take over the legendary Sky Train for their own use. Jawbreaker used his massive fists and beat the troll army into retreat. His ability to think for himself set him apart from the rest of the robots. For this, and his heroic actions he was made a member of the Trap Team.

Jawbreaker is hard to miss with his huge Traptanium fists raised and ready to fight. He doesn’t have the largest body, but the position of his arms and fists sure make him take up a lot of space. The regular Jawbreaker is gold in color with some brown accents. His head actually extends out from his torso, attached by the same adjustable tubing that also is used for his arms and legs. His mouth is large and jagged and looks like some garbage compactor or incinerator. It’s definitely not something you want to see chasing you. The top of his body is actually exposed showing some large gears. These are probably important to the movement of his arms and head. It also might explain why Jawbreaker’s armor is rather low. The Legendary version of Jawbreaker is almost a one for one color replacement. The gold colors become the dark blue, and the brown accents become gold accents. The one noticeable difference are those exposed gears which are brown on the regular version but are blue on the legendary version. From looking at Jawbreaker, there is no doubt that he is a Tech Skylander.

Jawbreaker’s claim to fame are his massive fists. So it only makes sense, that his main attack is called Traptanium Punch. Each individual punch is not very powerful, but he can throw punches with great speed so the damage can add up in a hurry. Despite his fast punching speed, Jawbreaker is very slow. He is not very good at dodging and because an individual punch is not very strong it makes it very hard to use quick hit and run tactics. Usually, when Jawbreaker starts punching, he will go toe to toe for a while. This can also be problematic since he has low armor and he will more than likely take some damage before he can finish off certain enemies. However, when it is time to flee the fight, Jawbreaker can use his Robo Rage mode. While in this mode his punches actually go faster and do more damage, but he also speeds up making it a good way to escape. The mode initially doesn’t last very long, but there is an early upgrade that will allow the mode to last longer. There is also an upgrade that adds the Spark Shock attack. In this attack Jawbreaker slams both fists into the ground damaging nearby enemies and sending out a wave of electric sparks. The other early upgrades will increase the damage done by the punches, and will add shocks to the punches while in Robo Rage Mode.

When it comes time to choosing an upgrade path, you will need to choose between increasing your Spark Shock attacks in the High Voltage upgrade path or increase the Robo Rage Mode attacks in the Out-RAGE-ous upgrade path. The High Voltage path is ok, but it’s for the more passive player that doesn’t want to think much about new or different attacks. One upgrade will have Jawbreaker automatically releasing a wave of electric sparks when he is hit by an enemy. Another upgrade will have Jawbreaker constantly release electric sparks while in Robo Rage Mode. The last upgrade has the sparks sticking to enemies and doing damage over time. None of those upgrades require any action by Jawbreaker other than just entering Robo Rage Mode from time to time. Of course if you like using the Robo Rage Mode a lot, then you might want to chose that upgrade path. The Jolting Jab upgrade adds static bursts to the punches that are used in Robo Rage Mode. These static bursts will seek out nearby enemies. A second upgrade will increase Jawbreaker’s defense. It’s something that is sorely needed, though it doesn’t seem to make a huge difference. The final upgrade in the path is pretty awesome. The Punch For Power upgrade allows Jawbreaker to stay in Robo Rage Mode longer when landing punches. In our testing of this upgrade we found that as long as we landed punches Jawbreaker would stay in that mode. It only starts to fade once the punches stop hitting their mark. I feel like this is one of the best upgrades to deal the most power. Of course, the real power comes from the Soul Gem Ability. The Soul Gem Ability is called Hypercharged Haymaker. While pressing Attack 3 to perform a spark shock attack, keep it held down and after the slam of fists to the ground, Jawbreaker will wind up in preparation for a massive punch. After a short time, release the button and Jawbreaker will unleash a massive punch that shoots quite away from his body, but will also an electromagnetic pulse across the screen. It’s pretty powerful and definitely a favorite of ours. There is also an unnamed attack which we are unsure what upgrade it came from. While in Robo Rage Mode, if you use the attack 3 or Spark Shock attack and Jawbreaker will perform a massive spin attack damaging everyone in a 360 degree radius. This will also effectively cancel the Robo Rage Mode.

Overall Jawbreaker is a bit of a mixed bag. His punching can do quite a bit of damage, weather is the rapid punches thrown in Robo Rage Mode or a massive Hypercharged Haymaker from his Soul Gem Ability. But his low armor and slow speed mean that he will take a lot of damage from large groups of enemies. In the later levels of the Kaos Doom Challage, he didn’t last long, as he was quickly overwhelmed by the large groups of stronger enemies. While he did take out a few of those enemies, fast, the rest of them did their damage before Jawbreaker could effectively escape. And even if you do escape, you will have to get in close to actually use his punches to do more damage. However, during the story mode, he was great to use, as the numbers of enemies rarely got too great for him to handle. He’d probably have some trouble in Nightmare mode, but otherwise, he is fun to play with in Story Mode. That said, if you are looking for a character to use in all modes of Skylanders, Jawbreaker might be one you want to skip for a while. If you can only have one Tech Trap Master, our recommendation would probably have to go to Gear Shift.

SkylanderNutts gives Jawbreaker and Legendary Jawbreaker…