Skylanders Trap Team Starter Pack (Tablet Edition) Review
Gameplay and Peripherals
The level design and flow of the chapters in Skylanders Trap Team is solid. There’s rarely time spent guessing where to go next, even with the space they give you for pure exploration of the level. The mechanics of the characters are easy to figure out. The small guys move quickly and the larger characters mosey along. Those that have projectile weapons are typically weaker, but get hit less.
The bulk of the chapters included fighting mixed with some light puzzle solving. The puzzle solving portions include block puzzles and lock puzzles, which will be familiar if you’ve played previous Skylanders games. As with earlier games in the series there are full chapters and parts of chapters dedicated to shooting a canon at bad guys either from land or from your airship.
New Skylanders called Trap Masters are required to open element-based gates that open new areas of the game to the player. One Trap Master figure of the water element is included with the Starter Pack. Additional Trap Master figures of other elements may be purchased separately.
Traps are required to trap villains for play in the game. These are small, shaped physical “crystals” that are placed in the Traptanium Portal. Traps exist for each element (Life, Undead, Fire, Water, Earth, Tech, Air, Magic) and a special one for trapping Kaos. Water and Life Traps come with the Starter Pack. Additional Traps must be purchased separately.
As with previous Skylanders games, Adventure Packs are available for purchase that will also open up additional game content. Those interested may seek out the Nightmare Express and Mirror of Mystery Adventure Packs from their preferred online or local brick and mortar retailer.
To be clear, these additional purchases are not required to beat the game. They are available should you wish to explore more areas and complete quests beyond the core story.
There is additional content available for Skylanders Trap team that does not require any additional purchase. These are offered in the form of Arena battles, a tower defense mini-game called the Kaos Doom Challenge, a rhythm-based mini-game as well as in-game mini-quests that allow you to evolve your captured villains.
The two boss fights at the end of Skylanders Trap Team were visually impressive and held up against previous games in that it requires a mix of strategy, timing and stamina. It will help if you have some additional Skylanders figures lying around.
Skylanders Trap Team needed to connect to servers in order to access the arena and Kaos Doom Challenge. This was annoying as the servers were unavailable the first few times I attempted to connect. Thankfully, this required server access seems to be only for the initial download of content for these mini-games as I was able to play them offline later on.
The game controls are incredibly responsive. They’re so good that you forget you’re playing on a tablet and become immersed in the game as you would on a console. This is by far the most impressive aspect of the Skylanders Trap Team tablet edition.
Skylanders Trap Team falls short with the battery life of the Traptanium Portal. The portal requires three AAA batteries to operate. The panel that holds the batteries in place must be secured using a screwdriver. So, it became particularly frustrating that I went through the supplied batteries, an additional set and then needed a third set to complete the game. If you’re going to buy the tablet edition of Skylanders Trap Team, I would highly recommend investing in a couple of sets of rechargeable batteries so that you don’t lose out on much gameplay time due to the frequent battery replacement. The controller had no problems and lasted the entire game without issue.
The physical figures have been consistent in quality throughout the Skylanders series. I was unaware that the experience and money my characters had gained in previous Skylanders games on the PS3 would carry over between platforms. So, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the character stats seem to be contained in the figures themselves and my maxed out characters made it over to Trap Team with no loss of information.
In previous Skylanders games, the developers bumped up the maximum level your characters could hit to 20. Unfortunately, you cannot level your characters beyond level 20 in Trap Team. That’s slightly unfortunate in that it gives you one less reason to bring them back into Trap Team. Every character I brought into Trap Team from previous games functioned without issue.
Conclusion
Skylanders Trap Team is a very well-produced, fun adventure. The tablet edition makes the right sacrifices in graphics and animation to deliver a gameplay experience comparable to the consoles, but they really need to do something about the battery life of the portal peripheral in future Skylanders games or provide players with a way to charge it without additional expense.
The concept of having to purchase additional figures and items to explore a game fully might seem gimmicky and put off some players, but it’s the equivalent of purchasing DLC. It’s available if you want it and there’s a satisfying amount of game content available for exploration without these additional purchases.
Skylanders Trap Team is available on all major consoles and tablet devices. For more information on the game visit the official website.