Tuff Luck – Skylander Review

Tuff Luck – Skylander Review

Tuff Luck is a new LifeTrap Master making her debut in Trap Team. Tuff Luck always had incredibly good luck. Some believed it came from her years of guarding Fortunata Springs which was the source of all good luck in Skylands. Fortunata Springs was located in the Random Canyons, which move without warning to cover the hidden entrance to the springs. Despite this, Kaos’s minions found the entrance and flew in sponge-tankers to soak up every drop of the lucky liquid. Luckily Tuff Luck was patrolling the area and saw the minions trying to steal the water. With her awesome skills and unbeatable good luck, she drove away the minions and saved the springs. She then drank from the springs as was custom for her tribe. That’s when she realized she had a greater calling. She decided to leave her tribe to join the Trap Team where she could help protect all of Skylands.

Tuff Luck is a female fighting Mabu, who looks a lot like Cali. She is thin and athletic looking and is covered in green armor and a green skirt. She also has green eyes and two giant Titanium Green Warblades. There is no mistaking her for a Life Trap Master. Sitting in the middle of her chest is a large four leave clover chest plate which both protects her and symbolizes her ability to have good luck.  She has sharp looking claws and teeth which make her very dangerous, whether she has her Warblades out or not. She is one cat you probably will not want to mess with.

Tuff Luck’s main attack are her Traptanium Warblades. Pressing Attack 1 will attack nearby enemies with powerful long arcing swipes. She even has a combo built into her basic attack by pressing the attack button three times in a row. Its a powerful melee attack that can damage many of the nearby enemies. Her secondary attack is called Pounce Mode. Pressing the Attack 2 button will enter Pounce Mode making Tuff Luck invisible. This really isn’t the case. Pressing the Attack 2 button will create a field of clovers behind Tuff Luck as she moves. If she then runs into this field of clovers she will then disappear. She can then attack from this mode causing extra damage. It’s not a very easy move to pull off, since you have to backtrack and enter into the clovers before anything can happen. Even though she’s invisible it seemed rare that enemies were actually confused by where she was. An early upgrade called Green Thumb will allow Tuff Luck to stay in this mode longer. One of her most powerful attacks comes from the third attack upgrade. The Warblade Stab will have Tuff Luck jumping forward stabbing her Warblades into the ground causing serious damage to anyone nearby. Another upgrade will give her the ability to control where she lands before she jumps. The last basic upgrade will add an energy wave to her basic Traptanium Warblade attack. This adds a little bit of a range attack to her most used melee attack since this wave shoots out in front of her for a short distance.

When it comes to Tuff Luck’s specialized upgrade path’s you will have to choose between improving the Pounce Mode attacks and improving the Traptanium Warblade attacks. We chose the Pouncy Pouncer path which improves the Pounce Mode attacks, but we don’t really like the Pounce Mode attack. What this path does have though is the ability to restore HP when in Pounce Mode. This was what drew us to the mode. Unfortunately even this upgrade doesn’t heal HP as easily as other character’s abilities to heal HP. It seems like you have to continuously walk in pounce mode and there can be times where it takes a long time before you get any healing. It can still be useful in-between Kaos Doom Challenge waves, but it won’t be very helpful in the middle of a battle. Another upgrade in this path called Poison Ivy will cause the clover patches put down in Pounce Mode to stun enemies. This can be useful as a trap laying strategy. The last upgrade causes the Warblade attack coming out of the Pounce Mode to be more powerful. If you just want more power for Tuff Luck, then you’ll probably want to choose the Warblade Whacker upgrade path. Two of the upgrades in this path are just introducing more combo attacks. Lucky Spin and Winging Warblade are each their own upgrade. The other upgrade called Waive Goodbye will add more damage to the Glaive Wave energy wave that comes out of the Warblades when doing a normal melee attack. If you like using combos, this is the path for you. The Soul Gem ability is called Garden of Pain, and will do considerable damage if you can pull it off. Performing the attack requires you to hold the Attack 3 button down while pressing the Attack 1 button. This can be hard for smaller hands, and may require use of both hands, meaning that you will have to stop moving and reposition your hands in order to perform the attack. If you do, though, an area of spiky blades of grass will spring up from the ground causing heavy damage to all those that are in it’s radius. It’s a good move to use when Tuff Luck is getting overrun by multiple enemies.

Overall Tuff Luck is a fairly average Trap Master. Most of her attacks and upgrades are not extremely useful. She is best used as a simple melee character where you can just mash away at the main attack button. Her Traptanium Warblades do considerable damage in a wide arc around her. The Warblade Stab is a good attack to use for a little bit of extra power when taking on the bigger enemies or to jump into the middle of a large group of enemies. Her luck will help keep her protected as it seems to make some random attacks on her to miss. Her specialized healing ability is slow and disappointing so you are better off just adding more combo attacks with the Warblade Whacker path.  You can try to use her soul gem ability as it will do a lot of damage, but you may not need to as her attacks are quick and powerful and her Warblade Stab can do almost as much damage and is easier to pull off.

SkylanderNutts gives Tuff Luck…

7.0 out of 10

Tuff Luck Video Review

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