darkSpyro

So, I love this series. It is one of my 3 favorite modern game series, easily.
I own tons of toys for it and have played through each game more than once.
That said, I'm a bit disappointed by some of the design decisions in this recent iteration, especially for co-operative play. It really feels like a step back in that regard.

My main issues:
1) The treatment of falling and platforming. We lost the ability to teleport to the other player intentionally, which was a boon in the last game. Not only that, but falling in platforming, more often than not, takes BOTH characters back to the beginning of the challenging area. This is ESPECIALLY bad in the water sensei realm. Try co-opping this with a young gamer to see how much this design choice just sucks.

2) Nothing like the vehicle sections anymore The vehicle sections in Superchargers were co-op gold - one person steering, the other person aiming and firing? This is a classic formula for co-op joy in my book, and we really don't get anything akin to that (except the guacamole monster ...but that's a far cry from the vehicle levels in supercharges)

3) RIP Spark Locks - the new turn-based co-op lock thingy is ok, but those spark locks were a blast in co-op.

Other little things - like how sky-chi powers sort of just take of the whole screen, and with all the new functionality there still isn't any baked in interactive elements to the powers, new puzzle modes that avoid co-op altogether (egg rescue? Skystones is now a puzzle?) makes this game a bit of a step back in the co-op realm.

This plus the loss of a bunch of little details that made Superchargers great imho (skystones as a puzzle instead of actual deck building is a bit of a downer as well, no more portal master levels, and the writing is just not as clever as it was, thrusting of the racing way off to the side, loss of traptanium functionality - except as a way to get infinite gold, which is itself a kind of too-bad game deflating blunder), and I find myself a tad disappointed in many of the actual game elements of this new outing, despite my utter delight at the actual imaginators part. I DO really dig the direction the M.A.P. represents, and I hope that is indicative of where the series is going...

As an adult who dropped tons of money on SI JUST so I could play it with my 7 year old kid, I couldn't agree more with all 3 of your points. Though we are enjoying the game a lot, the devs, for some very strange reason, seem to be intentionally making it harder to co-op. Sigh.

Is the cord that connects both players there again (I'm sure it is, but if it isn't that would be a pleasant surprise), and if it is, is it notably longer or shorter?

I agree with points 1 and 3. but the vehicle stuff was crap and I'm glade its gone. The you drive while I shoot stuff can be fun but it is very lazy.

My main concern with co op, is that it's no longer online.

I was naive enough to think that they implemented it in SC as something which would remain for future games, but it didn't.

Online co op was not only about playing but also about showimg other players skylanders they didn't own, something which, with imaginators, would have been even funnier.

Online co-op I'm fine with being removed. After getting stuck on the portal while playing with HIHD and multiple sync glitches with other users, it's pretty obvious it wasn't stress tested enough.