Flip Wreck – Skylander Review
Flip Wreck is a new Water core Skylander making his debut in Skylanders Trap Team. He is an adventurous dolphin who comes from Bottlenose Bay. While his friends and family liked to swim and play in the waves, Flip Wreck was always exploring underwater. In fact he named himself the “Protector of the Undersea.” One day he was exploring a nearby graveyard of shipwrecks, when he noticed that there was a giant Ice Viking ship in the mix which didn’t look wrecked. Before he could think too much about it, Ice Vikings started swimming from the ship. They began to attack the unarmed dolphin residents. Flip Wreck quickly made some armor, a shield, and a sword out pieces of one of the old shipwrecks. He then single-handedly drove the Ice Vikings from the bay, and they were never seen from again. For his heroic actions Flip Wreck was made a Skylander and now he turns the tide against evil throughout the Skylands.
Flip Wreck does not immediately strike you as a powerful or interesting Skylander. He almost looks like he could have been one of the first year Skylanders, with a simple sword and shield which happen to be made out of old ship parts. We’ve also seen many fish type Skylanders before. However, he is the first Dolphin Skylander and that is pretty cool. Unfortunately, I don’t think he is going to become popular on his look and design alone. The whole sword and shield weapon combination has been used before, and has probably been used better. It’s just too plain. That begs the question, will his moves and attacks be as plain as he looks?
His main attack is his Sea Saw. Pressing the Attack 1 button will swing the saw sword. Again, this is a little generic, but we were surprised to find that it was very effective. Early on before any upgrades, it certainly gets the job done. His second attack is called Wheeling and Dealing. By pressing Attack 2 you can hop on the wheel shield and damage anything in your path. It’s not extremely powerful, but it can be used to deal some damage as you dash through or away from a groups of enemies. Purchasing a basic upgrade will grant you the third attack, which is called Wheel Shield Bash. If you couldn’t guess, by pressing the Attack 3 button, you can bash enemies with the shield. It’s pretty much the same difference as swinging your sword, but it doesn’t have as much range, and it’s not as powerful. This makes it not very useful to use. One upgrade that is useful is the Splash Damage upgrade. By holding the Attack 1 button you can blast enemies with water from your blowhole. It will cause s
ome pretty heavy damage and it will damage anyone who is in the water’s path. The Super Sea Saw upgrade will give the saw sword increased damage while the last upgrade called Shield Mode will allow you to hold the Attack 3 button down to make you invulnerable to enemy attacks.
When it comes to choosing a specialized upgrade path, you’ll have to choose between the Fish Commander path which improves Wheeling & Dealing, or the Sword Specialist to improve the Saw sword attacks. The Fish Commander path has three upgrades that add fish to the Wheeling & Dealing attack. The first upgrade called Fish?!? will add fish projectiles when riding the Wheel Shield. The Homing Fish upgrade will make those fish projectiles hop towards enemies. And the Endless Fish upgrade will allow you to hold the Attack 3 button down while riding the shield to shoot an unlimited stream of fish. That sounds like the more interesting and unique path, but we chose the sword focused Sword Specialist path. This path uses upgrades to add three combo attacks and a more powerful blowhole attack. The Sword Swells upgrade adds a combo that adds a gush of water to the sword attack. The Sea Saw Combos upgrade adds two more combos to the Sea Saw. Finally the Blowhole Blaster makes the Splash Damage attack have more range and do more damage. If you simply want to engage in melee combat with the sword, then this is the path for you. If you find Flip Wreck’s Soul Gem in Chapter 9 – Mystic Mill, you’ll be able to perform the Sea Slammer attack. While riding the shield press Attack 1 three times to slam down on the ground. It’s a slightly more complicated way to perform the typical ground pound attack and it doesn’t look very interesting.
Overall, Flip Wreck is no more interesting to use, than he looks. His attacks are your average basic melee attacks and none of his upgrades really make a big splash. Still despite his lack of flash or overwhelming power, we found that at least during his early levels, he was a go to Skylander. He got the job done when others couldn’t and he quickly earned his upgrades. If you really need another water Skylander, then I’m sure Flip Wreck will do the job, but if you are looking for something unique or different, you won’t find it here. Flip Wreck is just your typical basic Skylander.
SkylanderNutts gives Flip Wreck…
5.0 out of 10
Flip Wreck Video Review
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