darkSpyro

The bright spotlight being shined on its core figures and villains makes Skylanders: Trap Team feel like a fresh start for the franchise. Without completely abandoning the characters and concepts introduced over the past three years, it feels more like a self-contained experience rather than a continuation.

What's great about the Skylanders series is that, beyond the humorous story and light action RPG gameplay, the games are so chock full of content that players can spend weeks trying to play through it all.

Skylanders Trap Team on tablets matches up well with the home console version of the game. While the tablet version doesn't look quite as good as the next generation version of the game, Skylanders Trap Team still packs a whole lot of high quality content for a tablet release that most other mobile games simply can not compare with.

Skylanders Trap Team is a fantastic, well-made game. The lengthy story mode is filled with excellent gameplay set in gorgeous environments with top-shelf graphics and sound. The bonus modes, while focused mostly on combat, are a lot of fun.

Even with its creative zigzags that shift Kaos' allegiance for a time to provide new enemies for the Skylanders to chase and jokes for Flynn to crack, Trap Team feels more like a standalone reboot ordered from the top of Activision's food chain; a reaction to increasing competition in the Toys to Life genre that shifts the target demographic back a few years.

But what exquisite pieces of plastic they are! The designs for the Trap Team Skylanders all have a translucent weapon that's undeniably cool. The expressions on the faces and the poses of the figures telegraph movement and style, and the new Mini Skylanders are all cute as hell.

If there are two things that always astonishes me about any Skylanders game it is the creativity that goes into it and how they don’t rely on licensed characters, and Trap Team carries on this heritage. The new Trap Master characters are great.

As with all Skylander games, there is a lot of variety here in the gameplay department. In addition to battling enemies you will do a lot of (simple) puzzle solving. Remember, this is a game designed for the younger gamers in your household so don't expect anything that will truly tax your brain.

Giving Toys for Bob an extra year to work on this sequel paid off, not just with the concept of villains partnering with heroes, but the world they inhabit feeling more alive.

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.

Gameplay in Trap Team feels distinct from previous series entries as a result. The trap-and-swap mechanic works well, and it makes combat more eventful and strategic than before.

Skylanders Trap Team's main gameplay is very mediocre. At its best, it's a passable 3D platformer, and at its worst, it's a stiffly controlled and boring mess. The other gameplay aspects, that is, the focused villain challenges and Skystones card game, are fun, but it's not enough to wash away the tedium of the main game.