Ramblings About the Ring of Heroes Portal Masters Part 1: The Portal Masters as a Whole

(This is a cleaned-up repost of a series of essays I wrote in 2022)

Skylanders Ring of Heroes, the gacha game that was basically Skylanders’ lifeline at a time when everything else Skylanders related had been pushed to the side. Love it, hate it, feel neutral about it, but whatever your feelings are about it, it definitely housed a very important spot in the lore and roles of portal masters in Skylanders canon. After all, while Earth portal masters playing prominent roles is nothing new, as it’s been emphasized in staff interviews that the player or “main” Earth portal master is just as much of a character in the series as the actual characters themselves, nor was it the first to introduce Earth portal masters besides the player—that position would belong to Leo and Madeline from Trap Team’s reveal trailer—it was the first to not only give us playable portal masters, but it was also the first to have prominent Earth portal masters besides the player and ones that were proper in-game characters in their own right, rather than just some vaguely omnipotent force behind the controller or a few one-off characters for a trailer. As for how that happened, that requires a bit of backstory in and of itself.

Earth portal masters had always held a heightened role in Ring of Heroes’ story. The whole story of the game is that thanks to Kaos’s latest scheme going horribly awry, Earth portal masters were yanked away from their homes, stranded in Skylands, and left helping the Skylanders clean up the mess Kaos left behind so they can go home. But, back then, the Portal Master character was much different. A bit similar to how the Earth portal master is in the mainline games, the version one portal masters were customizable silent protagonists who essentially functioned as self-inserts for the player themself, with little involvement beyond summoning Skylanders and cheering them on from the sidelines. While the intention was good, and there were plans to give them more relevance (see: the portal master being slightly more involved in the Episode Dungeon storyline, the plans for future customization options, unused animations suggesting more involvement in the story and the introduction of Portal Master Talents), the limitations that came with Ring of Heroes being a grind-focused gacha RPG with not that many avenues for story meant that, for all intents and purposes, the portal master… Sort of felt like window dressing at best. The portal master themself never showed up in the main story campaign and all address to them was done directly to the player, with the portal master avatar really only showing up to wander around your island and cheer on your Skylanders—heck, you could replace them with a lamp and not that much would change!

Com2us seemed to recognize this as well, so when they revamped the game they gave the portal masters the role that villain effigies held in the original game, being characters who would support Skylanders from the sidelines with powers charged up over the course of battle, and to further integrate them into the story, the portal masters were reworked into wholesale original characters. The original portal master avatars became Eugenie and George, the Air and Earth Element portal masters, and over the course of the game’s revamp, four more original portal masters were added—Bruno, the Tech portal master; Ryeo, the Fire portal master; Oscar, the Water portal master; and Adriana, the Life portal master. A seventh portal master, named Nine ironically enough, was also found in the game’s files with an unfinished model, but they were sadly never released before the game’s shutdown.

Now, as this is meant to be an analysis of their character design, let’s start with the overall aesthetics of the portal masters’ design philosophy and how they intertwine with the artstyle for Skylanders Ring of Heroes, and by extension Skylanders as a whole. The character designs feel very heavily influenced by the aesthetics of Korean RPGs, as they’ve all got the capes, the belts and armor and all the little fantasy influences Skylanders has, but they don’t quite match up with the Dungeons & Dragons/kiddie Warcraft-esque aesthetics of Skylanders itself. Rather, their designs feel right at home in games like Maplestory and Ragnarok Online, as well as the various Korean gacha games that favor this style. For example, take this graph.

A decently-sized sample pool to choose from, but they all have similar philosophies when it comes to character design and aesthetic—high fantasy influences and lots of little accessories to showcase character, with differences between class and abilities being shown moreso through stock fantasy designs with little twists. Now, to take a closer glance at the art style of Skylanders Ring of Heroes, and how it works with our portal masters. At first glance, this style seems a little strange when compared to the art style and direction of the Skylanders games, which lean more into a quirky and whimsical style that borrows influence from American pop culture high fantasy—rather, the general art style aesthetics of Ring of Heroes lean a bit more into Com2us’s usual artistic territory, which, when not focused on realism, borrows heavy influences from Korean animation and thus has a sort of “aeni-esque” edge to it. This means that the art style of Ring of Heroes comes off as cartoony or stylized even by Skylanders' standards, and also makes it seems much more at home with Com2us’s library of titles than with the cartoony realism of Skylanders and the series that it borrows influence from. For comparison, here’s some shots of Com2us’s other games.

While it is a bit of a contrast when compared to the regular Skylanders style, I’d argue that the art style distinction doesn’t make the game, or the portal masters wholly out of place in the Skylanders universe—rather, I’d say their general Korean fantasy rpg aesthetics helps them fit into their own little wedge of Skylanders canon in their own way! See, Ring of Heroes was billed first and foremost as a collaboration with Com2us, especially after the revamp. In fact, “The Ultimate Collaboration” was one of the game’s taglines in the days leading up to its revamp update! The Earth portal masters also face heightened importance in Ring of Heroes and essentially function as the game’s protagonists. After all, the crux of the story centers around their attempts at getting back home and helping the Skylanders, and throughout the story. it’s the Earth portal master/the player who our heroes focus on and address when they don’t banter among themselves. While the gameplay part of it is focused on the Skylanders due to them being the gacha characters that Com2us wants you to roll for, at the end of the day, the star of the story is the Earth portal masters. So, as the protagonists of a game billed as a collaboration between two companies/studios/what have you, it would make sense that their designs would act as a marriage of the studios' design philosophies. The design philosophy for the portal masters matches up with the art style used commonly in other Com2us games, but it seems to borrow its fair share of influence from the aesthetics of Korean fantasy rpgs and the stock fantasy settings they use—which, in and of itself, have roots in 1980s American fantasy rpgs like Dungeons and Dragons, Ultima and Wizardy, the same ones that would influence the high fantasy media and series that would act as artistic influence for Skylanders itself!

By combining the two, they essentially built an artstyle befitting of a collaborative game of its nature, and this is reflected in how the portal masters are designed, combining the art style of one party with the influences and aesthetics of another. But I’ve rambled enough about artstyles now, so let’s kick this into gear with a general analysis of design and motifs amid the official group!

As you can see, the six of them, though fairly unique in their own right, all have a few unifying design rules and motifs that really unite them as a team. To name a few:

• All have a portal amulet located somewhere on the upper region of their body, going no lower than the waist.

• Boys have short hair while girls have long hair.

• All of them have a few subtle design elements pointing to their respective character motifs.

• All have something that partially covers their hands, such as gloves, gauntlets or even oversized sleeves.

Though these design motifs are subtle, it pulls them together and sells them as a team without necessarily making them look too same-y. They all have their unifying elements that people recognize, but they all look super distinct still. And to further sell it, let’s take a look at the mid-teenaged portal masters!

As you can see, though they all have widely different varieties on it, they all follow a similar pattern!

• Loose and flowing clothes paired with tighter-fitting accessories and armor.

• All have some kind of belt or cloth around the waist.

• They also have something that partially covers the lower region of their body, such as a skirt, cloth or even shorts, over some kind of pants or tights.

• All of them wear knee-high or nearly knee-high boots of some kind.

Of course, Oscar deviates from this a lot, but that will be covered in his section when that comes. But, you can see where this is getting at—they all follow a basic design philosophy, but they all have their own individualistic takes on it to really sell them as their own individual characters with their own specific roles in the team. And to further elaborate on that, I will be breaking that down into individual design analysis for each portal master! (Well, almost individual, as you’ll see soon enough).