Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24184651-20150122232152

It's finally here. I just completed Trap Team on the PS3 a couple days ago. Despite my bitter first impressions, I have warmed up to it. Anyways, here we go:

Story
The plot of Trap Team is pretty simple, but it works, so no real problems here. Kaos is no longer the big threat, as Golden Queen takes the position of leader of the Doom Raiders, even kicking him out eventually.

Unfortunately, it was too predictable. I knew what was going to happen from the very beginning.

The cutscenes are some of the worst I've seen. The animation is AWFUL. At least they let you skip these. There are the occasional CGI bits, which still look great. Too bad they couldn't be bothered to make more of them. Can't say I blame them, though.

Characters
As I have stated before, the Skylanders are arguably the best the franchise has seen. The designs look great, and for once, I find myself enjoying some of the heavier characters.

But what about the NPCs? Well, I have mixed opinions. I'm not sure who thought bringing back Persephone was a good idea, although Rufus being gone is a HUGE time-saver. It's not that I specifically hate the character. I just get annoyed that you can't simply buy multiple upgrades in one go! Come on!

The villains all have their own unique personalities. They did a great job here.

I could go on and on about the rest of the characters, but I'll just move on instead.

Gameplay
Oh dear. Here we go. The gameplay is both the best and WORST part of Skylanders: Trap Team. The first level is pretty good. The whole game is a huge throwback to Giants, which I just LOVE. I have very fond memories of Giants, despite it being not so great.

It plays just like Swap Force, but with a few differences, such as air attacks. The biggest issue lies in the multiplayer aspect. I'm just going to go ahead and say it:

THEY DID NOT DESIGN THIS GAME FOR MULTIPLAYER. Seriously! It's bad! Some levels will be very enjoyable, while other times my brother was forced to drop out JUST so I could make it through a puzzle without failing everytime. You no longer go straight through each other. Instead, you'll just get in the way of the other player, which is extremely infuriating.

Let's ignore that part for now. How does it play normally? Well, it's excellent! Trap Team is a good mixture between Giants and Swap Force, and it will cater to pretty much any fan of Skylanders.

My biggest complaint is how inconsistent the levels are. It starts out okay, becomes awful through the second, third, and fourth levels, and hits a peak somewhere halfway through. I started really liking it at that point. And then, guess what? You find yourself in the middle of the WORST LEVEL IN THE GAME. You go to the future to stop Wolfgang (which makes no sense whatsoever) and, while doing so, traverse through a terrible stereotypical futuristic city, complete with a sickening atmospheric feel and tedious puzzles.

That's actually a good word to describe some levels: tedious. They go completely overboard with the shooting segments towards the end, and they aren't even good in the first place!

Summary
Overall, I'd say Trap Team is a great game that suffers from an abundance of glitches and minor annoyances that take away from the full experience. Is it the best Skylanders game? Maybe. For me, it's just as good as Swap Force, simply because of all the features that ruined it.

The story is decent, the characters are pretty good, the soundtrack is almost as stunning as Giants', and the gameplay is great, yet ultimately, very flawed.

My final rating for Skylanders: Trap Team is......

 7.3/10 

Thanks again for reading. If you like this review, and want to see more like it, let me know. What do you think was the best and worst part of Trap Team? Be sure to give me your thoughts in the comments, and I'll see you soon.

- BHCreations 