Skylanders Trap Team

This year's iteration seems a little less polished than last year's, and the basic formula is beginning to feel repetitive, but it still holds up as one of the more enjoyable family friendly gaming experiences available this year.

Taken as a toy, Trap Team overshadows everything I had as a kid.

One word sums up this game, fun. It truly is a lovely game to play, with enough adventure and fun to keep kids happy.

Activision manages to keep their franchise fresh to an almost abnormal degree. The best part of the series so far.

This is the best Skylanders game. It's funny, it's sweet; it's just everything. Every gamer needs to buy and play this. But be careful, the gameplay is addictive.

A new Skylanders, a new compelling story for the fans of the series. Trap Team is not a revolution, but it's still a lot of fun to play.

Trap Team delivers a new gimmick on top of an old gimmick and does it damn well. The strong scriptwriting and voice work keep both adults and children interested in the story, even if you have to spend a lot of money to get the full effect.

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.

Skylanders comes back with new mechanics. Villain's inclusion as playable characters add even greater dynamism to the successful platforms+combat+puzzle formula. The fact that you can use the whole figures catalogue to date improves the value of this product, aimed for the children of the house but, due to it's charisma and possibilities, has turned into something worthwhile even for grown-ups.

Gaming at its best if you can afford to track down the extra characters. Trap Team (along with any other Skylanders game) is fun for gamers of any age as long as you can put down that bloody shooter and play something more akin to the platformers of gaming past.

Skylanders Trap Team is the best game of the series, with convincing gameplay and a fantastic characterization. But it's also the most expensive Skylanders game ever, and older toys are much less relevant than before.

Skylanders: Trap Team is packed full of clever ideas and sharp design. It's well presented and well executed, but be warned: if you let your guard down, it'll also crit your credit card for massive damage.

A magical adventure filled with colourful characters and a level of interaction that sucks you right in, Skylanders: Trap Team is a unique experience that once tried won’t be forgotten.

Skylanders Trap Team successfully implements new gameplay mechanics to make this one of the best games to date.

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.

Enough has changed here to warrant a lazy capture. [December 2014, p81]

There's plenty of joy to be had for grown-ups in Trap Team, and more than a few laughs as well.

Arguably the best entry in a franchise which shows no signs of withering.

Skylanders Trap Team may break the bank a little, but it’s still a great game for kids, little and big alike.

The figurines of Skylanders are not as recognizable as the Disney or Nintendo ones, plus they are pretty expensive. That being said, Skylanders: Trap Team is the best one in the Skylanders franchise, with great variations in gameplay and tons of fun.

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.

You already know the drill, but the development team found a way to make it fresh and fun once again. You'll probably have to spend extra money to squeeze all the fun out of it, but that's part of the story, of course.

A strange kind of beast. Its level design is as strong as ever and the villain trapping gimmick is a strong addition with some great gameplay implications. At the same time, the character designs are getting tired.

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.

Skylanders Trap Team is by far the most completed game in the series, thanks to the bad guys of Skylands, which weren't expected in this party. They make the gameplay deeper and the fun they bring allows you to forget the linearity of the journey, still in place. Sparkling graphics, hours of play and hundreds of treasures: Skylanders Trap Team has all that is needed to be a new success.

Another superb entry for one of the best-sellers sagas out there. Really fun to play, and not only by children.

It’s weird to think that with the fourth game, Skylanders has fully earned my trust.

Skylanders: Trap Team is not the game that will win you over if you never enjoyed Skylanders in the first place, but this is a well-polished entry in the series. Especially the Trap Master figurines are good looking toys that look great in real life. It's still a kid's game, but it is the most likeable, pretty and diverse game in the franchise.

It’s a well made children’s game that suffers from the fact that a large proportion of the content is locked behind the toy-paywall.

This is the last year when mere iteration will cut it; we're gonna need to see something truly new soon. [Issue#250, p.68]

Skylanders: Trap Team is a mixed bag. The core gameplay is still enjoyable, and the new villains are some of the most charming, creative and fun characters in the franchise.

Skylanders Trap Team still works perfectly for kids. Hunting enemies is wonderful and produces variety of playable characters. The Skystones return. Colorful 1080p on PS4.

Skylanders Trap Team’s biggest surprises lie not in its gameplay, but in how it uses sound to completely sell its gimmick. It’ll bleed you dry, but somehow, that doesn’t seem so bad.

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.

An enjoyable adventure, but it’s really starting to show signs of fatigue.

It's a highly focused game designed explicitly to fill up the Christmas list of the child in the household. But it is a well produced game, well above the standards of most children's games, and those miniatures are highly collectible stuff. The kids will love having this under that pine tree.

The revised focus on the new toys can make your previous investments feel disappointingly redundant.

Skylanders: Trap Team brings enough new tricks to keep Activision’s cash cow entertaining for another year, but we sense that there may need to be some more meaningful changes next time around.

Charming and cute with great depth in gameplay. The camera is still annoying, though.

The gimmick is great, and playing as a villain works extremely well, but as a game this doesn’t play as fair or as fun as previous instalments.

Despite its many worthy additions, Skylanders Trap Team is the first game in the series to disappoint me. The new villain characters are charming - seriously, who could hate a floating, magical vegetable named Broccoli Guy? - and the talking portal accessory puts a fun spin on traditional series elements, but the uninspired level design really drags down the overall experience.

Another enjoyable adventure clouded by an ill-judged soft-reset for existing collections everywhere. [Christmas 2014, p.73]

The inclusion of playable villains does just enough to prevent a tried and tested formula from turning stagnant, but with Disney Infinity and Nintendo's Amiibo amping up the competition in the toys-to-life category, future Skylanders titles may have to do more to cement the series' position as market leader.

Knowing what I know about the series thus far tells me that Trap Team will remain a solid product and gift for any child with video games in the living room.