I liked the skylander design in this one, and the levels were pretty off the wall at times (especially Future and the Zeppelin one) but I think this is the only game in the series that really feels incomplete without all of the traps. From what i recall, after every boss fight the game prompted you to trap them, and if you didn't buy the thing, then, rough I guess. From what I recall these guys also corresponded to unique areas, meaning that a good portion of the game was just inaccessible. And the worst part was that when you did trap the dudes, they were incredibly boring to use. They had designs reminiscent of the basic enemies with an element attached to them or were INCREDIBLY dumb. Like who tf cares about "cross crow"? And usually when you did get ahold of them they were extremely basic, and you couldn't even upgrade them like normal skylanders.

oh dear, oh boy, oh no. buckle up because this is probably going to be a longer review than usual...

So some preface as to why in the everloving hell I am playing a skylanders game in the year of our lord 2023: I played the first 3 games in the series a LOT in my late elementary school/early middle school days and sunk a lot of money into the series. By the time this game came out, I had my fill of the series at the time (yearly releases do cause quick burnout). As the rest of this series came and went, I was always curious as to how the games were and basically told myself that if I could find a way to affordably check out what I'd missed, that I'd do so and check the remaining games out. Now that the series has been dead for 7(!) years and the power of NFC card character spoofing exists, I finally decided that it was about time to make do on said curiosity and see what I missed out on.

Playing this game made me rediscover in a very short time both why I really liked the series back then and also EXACTLY why I stopped. The fun in skylanders games is a sort of sense of discovery, I'd say. The large roster of characters got me going as to what each character could do, what kind of tools they have in combat, how strong they would be in different situations, that kind of nonsense. Dressing that sense of curiosity towards these weird original characters in the whole toys-to-life genre gave this series a kind of special intrigue to me and made me like the assortment of playable characters, questionable visual designs aside. Having all 36(!) new characters to mess around with as well as my whole army of previous characters to use made the beginnings of this game rather fun. They even added 2 brand new elements with Light and Dark, which was super cool to see ngl. Even though at the end of the day the combat of skylanders is essentially "whoever can do the highest DPS at the farthest range while moving fast is the best", seeing the variety in how each character achieves that is where the fun is IMO. This game still has the arenas from the previous games and honestly that's probably where I could find the most fun.

So now onto the bad. oh my god i couldn't tolerate the writing at all whatsoever. Everything from the dialog, to the situations, the cutscenes, the plot, if there was ever words coming from characters mouths I was cringing the whole way through. It just feels.... corporate? Like they did a bunch of market research into "what does the 5-7 year old boy crowd like" and just regurgitated whatever results came out. Half the reason why I stopped after the third game was because I wasn't liking the direction they were taking the writing, and this continues to go even further in that direction. Luckily, you can skip some cutscenes, but there's also a LOT of stuff that is unskippable and the amount of just nonsensically written cringe I had to go through in this games 18 long levels could be considered a form of cruel and unusual punishment. I couldn't even see myself falling for this kinda trash even if I was in the right age range for this. It's written like a bad dreamworks movie, or a shoddily-made cartoon network show. I guess some people could vibe to that kind of thing in a cathartic "junk-food" kinda way but I sure couldn't.

As for the actual gameplay/design itself, it's mostly okay. Levels do go on a bit longer than I feel they should which combined with the aforementioned cringe writing made the game pretty exhausting to play, and they did change a few things in some odd ways. This games whole gimmick is the trap system, where every miniboss and regular boss can be put in these little trap crystal things and you can swap between them at any time while playing. I didn't really use the system too much mostly because while the villain characters definitely are capable in combat, there's not really any way to level them up or upgrade their abilities outside of finding the sole upgrade side-quest every villain has. Combine that with the fact that THE PORTAL HAS AN UNMUTABLE LOUD SPEAKER ON IT that basically shouts loud nonsense at you for no reason at random points of the game if you use trapped characters, which means that I really didn't use the titular mechanic all too often in this game. There are also new characters known as trap masters that not only have absurd power creep (level 1 trap masters were doing as much damage as my old level 10+ fully upgraded original guys) but also are the only ones that can access most secret areas in the game, as only they can break certain crystals in the levels that block off areas, and only they can access the elemental-exclusive areas instead of any character from that element being able to go there like the previous 3 games. It basically undermines the whole sense of curiosity and character discovery when the game basically has 18 characters that it WANTS you to play as. Not only does it essentially render any figures owned before as obsolete but it also makes the other 18 regular new characters feel kinda meaningless? They definitely just wanted you to buy more dumb figures even if you've already invested enough into the series, and I think this game is where they went too far.

Overall, I didn't have a good time here. It feels kinda obvious to say "this skylanders game isn't that good", but I'm still glad I at least satiated the curiosity of wondering what this game was all about. Despite not liking this game very much at all I am still probably going to play the remaining games in the series as I'm still curious about those games, but not immediately after this. It was just a pretty mediocre kids game plagued with writing that I found absolutely insufferable.

Ok, so this game was my SHIT back in 2014. I was really into Skylanders as a whole actually, specifically Skylanders Giants. I actually never played Swap Force because I played Giants through the entire life-cycle of Giants and Swap Force. I didn't have a million Skylanders like others had, but I cherished the ones that I had. I really liked the whole toys-to-life gimmick for that matter. I liked the idea of having toys that also acted as gateways into these worlds, and this game took this concept to its peak for me. The new gimmick with this game was my favorite. Instead of bringing something from the real world into the game, now you take something from the game into the real world. Now, kid-me was losing his shit at this. "HOLY SHIT! KAOS IN MY HOUSE???? THIS GAME IS CRAZY!!!" I LOVED this game as a kid, to put it lightly. I've soaked so much time into this game. It's a little embarrassing, to be honest. Recently, I've been playing games that I really liked as a kid to see how they would hold up now, and this was a game that I couldn't skip.

When playing this game now, I had a sudden realization. I had an epiphany. Maybe, this game isn't good as I thought it was. Shocker, right? Yeah, it's no secret that the Skylanders series is commonly regarded as being just ok, and this game isn't a miraculous exemption. But I didn't just play this game in the normal way. No, no, no. I decided I was going to play this game with my sister to change up the experience. Not only that, but I decided to play the game on Nightmare difficulty for my first time ever because I had played this game so many times that I know every nook and cranny, so I needed a challenge. This newfound difficulty would become a factor throughout my playthrough.

When starting this playthrough, I knew what I was getting into. The same story, characters, blah blah blah. I knew the gist by now. For me, this game wasn't really thought of as being great because of these aspects. I just liked the villains talking to me through the traps. Playing this game now, after basically being numbed to the whole gimmick, was a major reality check. Yeah, the game is just kind of ok. The game really has some major elements that I think help it a lot; Specifically, Nightmare difficulty. If I ever play this game again, this mode is the only mode I will ever play this game on. The boss fights, usually, don't really feel like they have much impact. Now, there are actual stakes since the bosses actually provide a pretty decent challenge. Nothing makes this more clear than the final fight: Kaos.

I've only heard about how difficult Kaos is on Nightmare difficulty. I've never played the fight on that difficulty. I think his entire level is really good, but his fight is easily my favorite of the franchise. It was incredibly fun, but it was never really difficult. But, oh my god, when I tell you that this fight is hard, I don't just mean "hard." I mean it kicks you in the nuts and leaves you there to cry to yourself. I'm not going to act like this is the hardest fight in video game history, but it's still a pretty hard fight. There is so much stupid bullshit happening all at once. You have 0 chance to breathe. You always have to jump over some shit. Kaos has no fucking chill on this boss fight. Without Broccoli Guy constantly healing my team, me and my sister would've never beaten the bald-headed punk. My sister, for the matter, lost every Skylander around the midway point of the fight, so I had to do the entire fight with just Wallop and all of my trapped villains. Thank GOD that Wolfgang has that ranged attack because I don't know what I'd do without that move. Don't get me wrong, I still really enjoyed the fight, but my god. That shit was tough. That is probably Trap Team's biggest upside, but there are some major duds.

Trap Team just loves having the most boring, mind-numbing levels I have ever played. For every Kaos fight, there are 8-fucking shooter levels. The game would've been infinitely better if it was just a boss rush of all of the Doom Raiders + Kaos. If that were the case, the game probably be a 4 1/2 out of 5. The Doom Raider fights are pretty fun and challenging, but since there are only so many of those, there non-Doom Raider fights are just kinda there. I mean, I do like the designs of the non-Doom Raiders like Hood Sickle and Blaster-Tron, but their fights are kind of bland when you sandwich them in between actual Doom Raider fights. This also goes for every level after Kaos's. Those levels are BORING. I am ASLEEP during those levels. Those levels SUCK. Midnight Museum is the worst level in the game, and I will hear absolutely no one out.

Overall, the game's cool and has some highs but some actually atrocious lows. I think if the game was more focused on the fights, the game could've been pretty darn cool, but as of now? Eh, it's fine. A little above average, but I'm not losing my shit over it like I used to. Oh, and I didn't feel like mentioning the story, characters, and plot of the game because no one gives a fuck about the Skylanders: Trap Team plot.

I went into this one not really sure what to expect. I'd heard it was one of the weakest in the series, and also one of the buggies so I was expecting to be polarised, and instead came out... having really enjoyed the experience?

Trap Team feels like a direct improvement to the weaknesses of Swap Force, and it's all the better for it. Levels are whittled down in size to mostly just the right level and each one has fun and varied objectives which keep things feeling fresh from beginning to end. The new gimmick of the game does provide some entertainment, but for the most part can be ignored if you so wish, which I appreciate. While I did encounter a few bugs, nothing gamebreaking occurred so maybe I should count myself lucky?

Still, as always Trap Team is another fun mindless co-op brawler. Nothing mindblowing or GOAT worthy, but one that I enjoyed way more than feared.