I am a fan of Skylanders. It is just plain casual fun for me. To sit down, explore levels that aren’t exceptionally difficult and unlock the hidden items and secret paths is something that helps put me at ease. Not that there are a lot of mainstream games that are hard anymore with a few exceptions, there’s something I just enjoy about kicking back and playing Skylanders or checking out the stack of them on my shelf. But there is one thing I don’t like: The Release Schedule

When I play a game, I binge on it. I start playing it and I am content to go from start to finish and in most cases, that’ll be the majority of the time I spend with the game. Though I will go back to occasionally achievement hunt or if someone wants to hop on multiplayer or even have a party game while over my place, things usually wrap up once I have beat the game and move onto the next.

But because of the level design of the games and release schedule of the Skylanders figures, there are times that it is actually impossible for me to get as much out of the game as I want until months after release. This time with Skylanders: SWAP Force it ended up being three months and one week before I had the proper combination of figures to experience the majority of the title.

At its inception, one of the first things I thought Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure needed was an app to help keep track of which characters anyone had. At first, a fan made app popped up but before Skylanders Giants was out, the app stopped getting updates. A few others popped up but often didn’t have special edition figures or get updates as new waves were released. But, after long wait, Activision has released the Skylanders Collection Vault app for iOS and somehow turned it into yet another game.

One of the things Activision has done right through its iOS releases for Skylanders like Skylanders Cloud Patrol, Skylanders Lost Islands and Skylanders Battlegrounds was linking the characters in the game to their real life counterparts that the player needed to have. Whether it was the code received when purchasing the figure or one obtained from the characters in game profile, people needed to unlock characters in the game which of course has lead to the “gotta buy ’em all” mentality that has skyrocketed the franchise. That same collector itch is scratched when players can compare their full collection to that of their friends by showing the characters they have unlocked because they actually own them, not just playing for hours on end or using in app purchases.

So as previously mentioned, yesterday was the new release for Skylanders SWAP Force. As expected, it was not a cheap endeavor. One special edition Starter Pack, one Adventure Pack, one Battle Pack, four SWAP Force, three Lightcore and one standard Skylander later and my tally between Gamespot, Toys R Us and Target had hit the $250 mark. Now, I am not complaining. I bring it upon myself and I enjoy it. That’s what the appeal of Skylanders is. Combine a video game with the ongoing geek desire to collect things and you have an addicting formula. And that’s why we have a fantastic unboxing video for you to check out to check out and help decide which Skylander SWAP Force starter set to get yourself.

There is one piece of the Skylanders formula that does get a little frustrating though. To access all of the game’s content, it does require you to purchase real world products. To play through all the areas that are travel power based, you need eight different SWAP Force characters. Granted, two come with any Starter Set you buy but that leaves six more to go at $13 each, and at launch there are still two modes of transportation not yet available as only six of the sixteen are available so far.

Now I understand the arguments that they are releasing them in waves to keep up demand and all that, but my problem lies with content being locked. The other argument that this is to keep players coming back later and maintain replayability. Let’s be clear, (gravelly old man voice, “Get off my lawn”) back in my day we went back to games often even when there was no such thing as expanding shy of a sequel.

The collection mentality is a dangerous thing, especially amongst the geek world. Nowhere else do you see the level of completionist mentality as you do amongst gamers. Trophy Whores and Achievement Hunters are both signs of this obsession to get them all. On Saturday the 12th and Sunday the 13th, both the Pokemon and Skylanders franchises intend to bankrupt me in both time and financially.

I bought my first copy of Pokemon Blue back when it first released fifteen years ago in 1998. With that, I set out on my mission to get all 151 of the original Pokemon. Though I never finished the list, I still spent way more time than I should have on that mission. Two years ago, I got my hands on Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure and a few hundred dollars later, an entire shelf in my room is filled with the damn things.

Next weekend, I get to deal with a double whammy as both Pokemon X/Y and Skylanders SWAP Force are released.

Right now, I am counting down the days until my savings account basically becomes non-existent. On one side, I have a new console generation so there goes a few hundred bucks instantly. On the other, we have the next version of Skylanders with the largest launch lineup of new characters since the game’s inception in Skylanders SWAP Force. In other words, “Goodbye monies.” But I can’t complain. I am the one choosing to buy them after all. But of course, Vicarious Visions can’t help but make the wait and anticipation worse by showing off the new characters.

Skylanders SWAP Force will take place in a new location called the Cloudbreak Islands. Here, there is some mystical volcano that erupts every hundred years and this is the source of the SWAP Force’s SWAP ability. Back to his old habits is the series’ antagonist Kaos. But this time he isn’t alone as he is accompanied by his mom. Because if there is one thing more intimidating than a horrible wizard, it is one that needs to bring his mom to a fight.