darkSpyro

I'm only about 4-5 levels in, so this does NOT quantify as a 'review', but there are several items I feel I need to be a little vocal on (good and bad) that might help others.

First I want to clap my hands to whomever made the new boxes. For those that don't know, you don't need scissors anymore or have to violently open the boxes. On the right hand side (trap masters), there is a nook, tear away the cardboard on top and behind it. You'll see two plastic tabs, pull them in opposite directions. Pop, you've opened the box with minimal fuss. It's a little thing, but very welcomed.

On the other side of the coin, while I like the look of a lot of the new characters, they are HARD and SHARP. The Kaos Trap can cut you. Food Fight's spikes will scratch you. Wildfire's back combined with weight, is very uncomfortable to hold. This entry has more spikes and blades with a higher density than the previous entries. IT's not a major issue, but when dealing with the figures, something to be mindful of.

The traps are small, depending on age, a child 'might' be able to choke on them, but the 'designer' side of it is kind of wide, making this difficult i.e. your child will have to do something majorly wrong to choke, but they can.

I have this on XBOne. It could be my XBOne as Disney Infinity 2.0 is having the same issue, but, - especially early on, the portal went in and out several times. Not a good look.

Whomever was responsible for the speaker setup did a wonderful job, as an audiophile, I will say they did a tremendous job with the transition form the TV to the trap speaker with villains, and the villains come through much cleaner than they do in ads for the game that make it sound like a Tiger's electronic handheld game.

The menu system is super simple, super fast, and load times are minimal. while this isn't meant as a 'compare to DI2.0 post, since I have both within 2 weeks of each other, it is on my mind...and the load times - one the XBOne at least are terrific, compared to 'lunchbreak' DI2.0.

Controls are way better than SF where I often found my character attacking in an arbitrary direction if I didn't HOLD the direction to attack in.

The lipsynching has been hit and miss, for the most part its been REAL good - especially compared to previous entries, but the first in-game rendering of Kaos went right back to the Giant's levle of lip-synching. I'm not far enough (on pepperjack fight) to say if that is a continual issue or not (and I'm not racing through the game either).

Gameplay feels much closer to Giants than SF, my wife is actually playing this one (she didn't like SF at ALL). Graphics are tremendously better than I anticipated. I know I was getting this for a 'Next Gen' console, but the LOD was far beyond my expectations.

Taking ownership was automatic for me, and quick, drop a figure on the portal 'BOOM!', loads figure, put new one on.

The game is - so far - 'easy', but the game play is in a good place.

Financially, the Trap MAsters - frankly piss me off. I'd like to use harsher words honestly. A large number of the new Trap Masters are the EXACT same size as Giants - for all intents and purposes - this game IS Giants II. However, they cost MORE than Giants AND despite glowing in game when near villains or traptanium, they have NO lightcore like features - like the Giants had. They NEEDED to put lightcore style LEDs into the weapons for the cost, otherwise these are just oversized cores. It would have made 'great' sense if they reflected (glowed) their state in the game, and I'd be 'mildly' happy with the cost if that was the case. But yeah, this is Giants II, without the ability to just walk over chompies. The cost of traps is high as well. Yes, I was able to get everything on sale so my pockets didn't sting to the same magnitude as someone who buys them say next week, but it still stands that they are pretty pricey. After using the traps for a day, I can firmly say - you'll want 2 full sets. One set will NOT do the job, especially during phase 1/first play through of the game (trapping everything). However, you won't need more than 3 sets, it will feel 'handy' at times during the 'trap phase'/playthrough, but you really won't need more than 17 (2*8 plus Kaos).

Deals. I purchased my stuff from TRU. I have a 3 year old who's been in love with Trap team for a while as his favorite thing to do is 'change/swap' characters. Thanks to seeing the Skylanderdad videos *sticks tongue out*, he REALLY wanted the Krankcase Castle. After doing some digging, I found out that TRU's BOGO 50/40% sale ALSO worked on ALL the Power A products. So I was able to buy the castle for $50 instead of $100, and both Flynn's ship an the funplay Waterfall can be had at large discount. There is also a $20 box designed for holding your gems. Save your money. I went to Walmart, took my gem thing out the dark starter, took it into Walmart - folded up to stand up, and found a plastic bin to put it in side of for $4.94. This also provided a home for all the cards, and I went with a slightly taller box so that if we do end up taking some figures somewhere, I can just take out the trap cardboard and put figures in there. Thinking outside the box a bit, but after spending almost $300 at TRU, I'll take my savings. Target also was SELLING the 'exclusive' pre-order trap, and my TRU had TONS of the 'pre-order only' Gearshift (who is WAY better than I imagined).

All in all, I HIGHLY recommend the game, its better than I imagined - though easier and feels a bit slower due to trap master speeds (need ot find a fast villain). Be smart about how you spend your money as they have lots of money traps with this game., but now is a GREAT time to spend money, I bought the castle and traps to use for Xmas - as you 'can't go wrong' - buying traps, even if you end up not needing them, it wil lbe super easy to return them to whatever store you bought them from.
-Unreall