Skylanders: Trap Team Reviews

The game apparently has to be online to download new characters once placed on the portal. It is a small annoyance but won’t be an issue for most players. I’d rather that the game do this as it’d be ridiculous to download character data for over 100 Skylanders when most won’t get the full catalogue. The good thing is that you’re able to play the game with no portal attached and you’ll still have access to two Skylanders at all times. You’re also able to play the game without purchasing the Starter Kit through the use of digital packs. These are quite expensive though so i’d opt for buying the Starter Kit.

“Skylanders: Trap Team seems intent on forcing players to open their wallets if they want the full experience of what the game has to offer.”

Trap Team continues the Skylanders legacy in style, serving up an excellent adventure with fun gameplay, lots of variety and top-notch production values both on-screen and off. It’s kid-friendly in every sense of the word, though grown-up gamers will find plenty to enjoy here as well. While it’s true you’ll have to pony up beyond the premium-priced starter kit if you want to see absolutely everything that Trap Team has to offer, there’s more than enough content included in the base game, and you’ll have everything you need for a fantastic two-player co-op experience right out of the box. Don’t let the sticker shock scare you off — Trap Team is a real treat.

It's a trap!

It’s a shame that to complete Skylanders: Trap Team to 100%, you’ll need to purchase around eight extra traps at about £6 each and probably the same amount of Skylanders at £10 and up apiece. That makes for a very, very expensive game for most parents, even if you bring into account Christmas and birthday gifts from relatives and the like. However, the game itself can be more-or-less completed without additional purchases and is such a wonderfully-crafted and enjoyable experience that even without spending extra cash, it will keep kids (and adults…this reviewer is 33 and has about 25 hours logged so far with a lot more to come) busy for a good long time.

With a more intuitive – not to mention, convenient – core gimmick, Skylanders’ fourth instalment is a solid outing for the series, dispelling fears that the Activision power seller is succumbing to fatigue. For fans, it’s yet another all-round improvement, but Trap Team also serves as a perfect entry point for newcomers.

Skylanders is basically Call of Duty for kids in that, no matter what the game includes, it’ll sell a ton of copies and leave parents wondering where all of their money went come Christmas. In fact, the bodycount in Skylanders is probably way higher than in Call of Duty, as the violence against chompers and their ilk is truly off the charts. But hey, if it means our collection of sweet figurines can continue to grow, then I’m all for it.

Activision seems content to not fix my core problem with the game and that’s its unrelenting slow pace. The characters still move at a sluggish pace and you can’t fast forward through text dialog with your only option being to straight up skip them or listen to each lines dreadfully slow delivery. You have to wait for the game to load whatever menu you get into and it’s long enough to drop into annoying territory. The entire game just feels super slow and I understand it’s a kids game but I doubt the horde of children that play this series would riot if they made things play a little faster. Considering they’re just now getting around to adding jumping attacks to the game I’d be willing to bet a sprint function will be added next year.

Skylanders: Trap Team takes what is already great about the franchise and makes it even better with the incredibly fun trapping mechanic that propels the villains into the spotlight.

Skylanders isn’t a series you can dabble in, and $100 or more on the first day is a small investment towards how much the game could potentially cost as you add new characters and toys. But you’ll be rewarded for that investment. Trap Team will give your kids a crash course in gaming basics — and you’ll get an enjoyable and surprisingly deep game to play with a wide range of age groups.

While I never really connected with the trap mechanic or the new Trap Master toys, Skylanders: Trap Team is still a well-oiled machine. On newer consoles it looks fantastic, the action gameplay is still exciting, and the charm is still there. I just hope that Activision and its ilk have more interesting concepts in mind for the next iteration.

What is special about this game is that it is not a companion game or afterthought, it is a full console experience with all the content and most of the features that are found on the Xbox One, PS4, or any other console that it has been released for.  This is pretty impressive when you consider that the game is on DVD and/or Blu-ray discs for the consoles that it is currently playable on.   And if you’re reading this review and wondering what Skylanders is, well, where have you been?  In Skylanders you place toy figures on a portal and they come to life in the game and on screen.  It is as simple as that.

In most ways, Skylanders Trap Team is the best game in the series. The abundance of inventive and genuinely fun characters, and the inclusion of playable villains, means there’s always some amazing new trick to try. The new versions of Skystones and tilting lock puzzles are fun enough that I’d play them by themselves. On the downside, there’s nothing new here for your existing Skylanders, and the overall story just fails to come together. Still, where else are you going to see a Broccoli wizard to fight a heavy-metal werewolf?

Toys for Bob shows that they make better Skylander games than anyone. It's simple, fun, and there is an absolute crap-ton of things to do. Once again, I find myself completely engulfed in the Skylanders world and endlessly exploring these worlds with my daughter.