(Broccoli Guy is particularly amusing company, with his laid-back attitude and funky soundtrack whenever you tag him in for some action.) Even though they’re lacking their own plastic counterparts, the villains feel like the most fully fleshed-out characters in the Trap Team experience, with their own, unique perspectives on the narrative and skill sets. Instead of being annoying, the commentary is actually pretty entertaining, with each villain providing a unique spin on the situation. Once trapped, villains offer a steady stream of advice, criticism, and random observations about the player’s on-screen activities, using the portal’s speaker. The villains feel like the most fully fleshed-out characters in Trap Team. It’s a clever audio trick that adds another level of personality to the characters. Naturally, villains aren’t thrilled about the prospect of being trapped, and the captured character’s on-screen protests can be heard moving from the television’s audio channel to the tinny speaker embedded in the portal device as the character is transferred from the in-game world to the digital confines of the plastic shard of Traptanium. To “trap” a villain in the game, players must first defeat the enemy character and then insert a shard of Traptanium corresponding to that villain’s element class (i.e., air, water, fire, etc.) into a new slot on the Traptanium portal. It’s clear early on that Skylanders: Trap Team developer Toys For Bob focused much of its attention on the game’s villains. As impressive as the new figures are, though, it’s the villains that are the true stars of the game. Of course, each installment of Skylanders is accompanied by a new line of collectible figures, and Trap Team continues that trend with its over-sized, translucent plastic weapon-wielding “Trap Master” characters.
#Skylanders trap team air series
True to its name, the latest installment of the series gives players the ability to “trap” enemies using shards of “Traptanium” (translucent plastic pieces that can be slotted into the portal device) and play as the villains during the game. Instead of battling the diabolical machinations of franchise villain Kaos this time around, Trap Team tasks players with saving Skylands from a host of even-more-diabolical villains that have escaped from Cloudcracker Prison. Players place the figures on the peripheral “Traptanium Portal” device and the characters become playable (using a near-field communication interface) in the game. It’s an elusive formula that the Skylanders developers have seemingly perfected – and it makes the lack of balance in the latest installment of the franchise, Skylanders: Trap Team, that much more conspicuous.Īs in previous Skylanders adventures, Trap Team puts players in the role of “Portal Master,” the defender of the world of Skylands and the gatekeeper between the Skylanders’ toy figures and their active, in-game counterparts. Skylanders: Trap Team feels like a soft reboot of the franchise.