The Spyro the Dragon franchise has been nowhere to be seen for two years, which lead many to believe the fading series had quietly put itself out to pasture. Fortunately, it seems that in the wake of all the recent franchise killing, Activision decided to revisit the series with the new game Skylander: Spyro's Adventure. The game is being developed by Toys for Bob and touts not only a new look, something that the series has seen before, but an entirely new concept that will drastically stray from the way other Spyro games have been played in years past.

When gamers purchase Skylanders later this year they will receive a copy of the game, a few trading cards, three toys, and a

"Portal" mat. The "Portal" mat will plug directly into whatever system the game was purchased for, and will interact directly with whichever toy the individual has placed on it. These toys, when placed on the mat, will then be transported directly into the game as playable characters. When one decides to remove a toy character from the mat and place another one on, the toy will actually save all the character data and experience that was gained while "in-game."

Take a look at the newly released trailer right here.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C-RoQHs_b4

The game may only come with three of these characters, but there will be over 30 different plastic characters available to purchase after the game's release. All of these wonderfully collectible "toys with brains" are also broken up into different elements, and certain elements can get you into secret areas that are otherwise inaccessible in Skylanders. The toys' ability to actually store and contain data also allows them to be brought to friends' houses, and all the character's stats, data, and abilities can all be transferred to the friend's copy of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. It hasn't been announced if character abilities can be transferred between console versions, but one would assume that's certainly a possibility if the toys store the data.

Check out some screens from Spyro and friends' latest outing just below.

[gallery link="file" columns="2" orderby="ID" exclude="66563"]

If none of this sounds impressive, then the fact that the toy story is being written by Alek Sokolow and Joel Cohen, who were both nominated for an Academy Award due to their part in writing the original Toy Story script, should certainly add a little bit of assurance. The music is being composed by none other than Hans Zimmer, who has helped compose soundtracks for films such as The Lion King, Gladiator, and The Dark Knight, to name just a few.

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure seems to be shifting the focus from Spyro and more onto all the characters that can be collected and played with. Clearly the title is more of an experiment to see if bringing both video games and toys together in an interactive way can be a financially successful venture. The peripheral seems almost too perfect for other franchises such as Pokemon, so if the game is deemed successful, then it's easy to see other companies jumping on the bandwagon as well.

Do you think Skylanders could be successful? Does Skylanders look like a fun game?

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure hasn't been given an official release date, but the game and all other content will cost $70 when it is released.