High Five – Skylander Review
High Five is a new core Life Skylander making his debut in Trap Team. He grew up as one of the most skilled racers of all the dragonflies. He was the fifth son of the Royal High Flying Dragonflies, but he was too young to enter any of the racing tournaments. He watched as his four older brothers competed for the famous Trophy of Sparx. During the biggest race of the season, High Five learned that the Troll Racing Team had stolen the Trophy of Sparx and were going to use the race to cover their escape. High Five jumped into the race and used his amazing flying skills to make his way to the front where he caught up with the trolls and brought them down. For his bravery and skill he was given the Trophy of Sparx. He was also made a Skylander where he can now run circles around evil.
High Five was originally just a potential Skylander as part of a Frito Lay Contest to name a Skylander in 2014. He was not the winner, but after the contest was over, it was announced that all three of the potential Skylanders would become actual characters. It’s a good thing they did, because High Five is now the fastest Skylander to date, and he is a blast to use. He is a pretty basic looking Skylander. He is a Life Dragonfly Skylander with a green body. But he has four nice clear blue wings and a racing helmet with a large number 5 on it. He doesn’t wear any armor and by the looks of him, he does look like he will be fast. He doesn’t wield any weapon, so at first glance I wasn’t too excited for a plain fast Skylander that might be all speed and no power. However, as soon as you use his dash attack, you realize how special he is. His speed is off the chart. So the main question becomes, how powerful will he be and can he be useful?
From a power standpoint, his general attacks don’t do a lot of damage. However, they are very rapid so they can accumulate a good deal of damage. His main attack is called Poison Pellets and by pressing Attack 1, Poison Pellets shoot from his mouth. It’s a decent ranged attack by itself, but if you hold the button down, the attack adds rapid fire which is extremely fast. His secondary attack might be his most useful. By pressing Attack 2 he will do a Buzz Dash. This dash is lightning quick, and it will only get better with some upgrades. His third attack comes from an upgrade and it’s called Fly Slam. It’s another ground pound attack, but when coupled with the Buzz Dash, it makes for a very potent combination. The cheapest upgrade is called Poison Cloud and adds a poison cloud to the Poison Pellets attack. The cloud will damage nearby enemies, and it adds extra damage to those slow enemies who get caught in the cloud. The Buzz Charge upgrade does exactly what it says, by holding the Attack 2 button, you can charge the Buzz Dash for some extra damage. Finally you can get the Buzzerker Overdrive upgrade. This is leads to one of the most powerful moves that I’ve seen. 
For the cost of some HP, you hold Attack 3 which will build up the Fly Slam. When you let go of the button, the Slam will deal extreme damage. It takes a while to build up to the max level though, and it will drain your HP if you over use it. However, another upgrade and the Soul Gem will help alleviate some of the HP cost.
There are two upgrade paths you can choose from, but I really like Speedy Slammer path. This path improves the Buzz Dash and Fly Slam attacks. Without this path, the Fly Slam attack would be more of a risk to use. This first upgrade in the path is called Spin Cycle. It causes nearby enemies to be sucked into the Fly Slam zone. The next upgrade is called Buzz Buzz Buzz, and it allows you to use Buzz Dash after Buzz Dash just by holding the button down. It’s this upgrade that brings out the full speed potential of High Five. If you want to speed run through levels, this is how you do it. The last upgrade in this path is called Slam Apples. This upgrade adds apples to the Fly Slam attack which will heal you a little once you slam into the ground. The Soul Gem ability is called Organic Slam Apples and it does pretty much the same thing. When you have both of these upgrades, then High Five can actually get all of the HP back that it cost to use the powered up Fly Slam attack. If you get hit or interrupted, then you can still loose some of the healing power, but it helps nonetheless. The other upgrade path doesn’t sound bad, but it lacks the speed upgrade, and I doubt it has an attack that will do as much damage as the Fly Slam. It’s called the Pollen Prince path and it will improve the Poison Pellets attacks. The first upgrade will allow for five poison clouds to be active at once. The next upgrade allows High Five to Buzz Dash through the clouds to power them up and extend their life. The last upgrade makes the clouds bigger and gives them more damage. Since High Five can fire the pellets so fast with his rapid fire, it stands to reason that this would be a very useful path. However, I would still prefer the speed and power of the Fly Slam attack.
Overall High Five is much more impressive than he looks. If you care about your Portal Master Ranking and want to have an easy time of getting through the levels under the listed time, then he is a must have character. His speed is unmatched and once upgraded you can hold down the Attack 2 button to zip right across the screen. He would easily beat any other Skylander in a race. He might lack armor and defense, but since it’s so easy to dash out of range of the enemies, you shouldn’t have any problems staying healthy. Since he has a pretty nice ranged attack with the Poison Pellets, staying away from enemies and taking them out from a distance isn’t hard to do. However, if you want to mix it up in the middle of a bunch of enemies, then a fully upgraded Fly Slam attack can deliver some of the most impressive damage that I’ve seen. High Five is one of the best surprises of all of the Skylanders this year. I wasn’t expecting much, but now he is one of our go to characters and I would highly recommend him.
SkylanderNutts gives High Five…
9.5 out of 10
High Five Video Review
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