Skylanders: Trap Team reveals a new and dangerous evil. The Doom Raiders are a group of misfits that have been locked up in Cloudcracker Prison. The evil Kaos breaks them free, and together, they set off to conquer the world. The newest batch of heroes who step up to stop them are the Trap Masters, who put away the Doom Raiders long ago by using a metal known as Traptanium. With help from the other Skylanders, the Trap Masters must stop the Doom Raiders and save the world.

Trap Team has the usual Skylanders charm in spades. Most of the familiar characters are back, and a barrage of new ones have been introduced. The new villains are exactly what the franchise needs. They have tons of personality and style and help make the somewhat-generic Skylanders foes really pop. They suffer a bit from "monster of the week" syndrome, where many end up being likeable but forgettable. The writing is still charming and enjoyable, and there's a lot of humor for both kids and adults. The Doom Raiders never feel like particularly huge threats, and the evil Kaos is a lot more fun than most of them, even though he plays second fiddle to them in the story. It's a good game for kids, but the characters far outstrip the story, even by Skylanders standards.

Trap Team follows the traditional Skylanders game style and will feel very familiar to family members who've played the previous games in the franchise. It's a mix of simple action and platforming that's designed for players of all ages. The core idea is that players can swap characters in and out on a whim by placing or removing them from the included Traptaium Portal. Parents who bought the previous versions should be aware that Trap Team requires the new Traptanium Portal and is not compatible with older versions. There are a few minor adjustments, but there aren't any serious gameplay changes from the previous Skylanders titles. Co-op is a lot better about loot distribution, so that encourages cooperative instead of competitive play. The addition of Trap Masters doesn't have a huge impact on the core gameplay because for most of the game, they play very similarly to regular Skylanders.

Trap Team has a much heavier combat emphasis than the prior game, Skylanders: Swap Force. The stages are far more linear and tend to be made up of simple areas gated behind rooms of enemies. This isn't in Skylanders' favor because the combat doesn't stand up to heavy repetition, even though it's fun. Swap Force was better about keeping things fresh with a mix of exploration, combat and minigames, but Trap Team has a heavier focus on beating the crap out of enemies. This is probably because of the new Trap mechanic, which is the centerpiece of the game. There are platforming challenges and minigames in the game, but they've taken a backseat to combat.

One big problem with Trap Team's design is that it gates a lot more content behind unlockable figures that the previous games. The majority of the Elemental Gates in the franchise are new Trap Master-themed gates, so you need a Trap Master of the specific element to open them. This is a real step backward for the franchise, which had previously been pretty flexible. Swap Force required you to have specific combinations of heroes in certain cases, but the single-element gates opened for any Skylander, new or old. To access a good chunk of the content in Trap Force, you'll need Trap Masters. The base set comes with a single Water elemental Trap Master, and each additional one costs $15 a pop. In my experience, the Trap Masters are significantly more powerful than their older siblings. I tried using some of the older Skylander toys for the arena mode and found that going back to a Trap Master made for a smoother and easier experience.

Of course, Trap Masters have roles other than opening gates. They're big and tough, but their biggest ability is the power to trap villains. You fight the enemy and, once they're weakened, you place a new Trap into a special slot on the portal. As long as the Trap is of the same element as the enemy, the foe will be captured. This is a pretty cute effect, since the enemy "inhabits" the toy as long as it's plugged into the base. The toy glows and comments on your game as you play. While only one villain at a time can inhabit a trap, other villains are sent to your home base and can be swapped between missions.

Trapped villains can also be brought into combat. A villain has a time bar instead of a traditional health bar. It decreases when they're on the field and recovers if you tag them back out. Taking damage also reduces the timer. Aside from this, they play very much like traditional Skylanders characters. They're an extremely powerful addition to the team due to their inability to take damage. Any fight that a kid has trouble with can be made much easier by summoning a villain to tank hits. Villains can compensate for Skylander weaknesses, such as using a ranged villain to support a melee character or a tank villain to soak up hits for a vulnerable character.

Villains level up differently. The only real way to power up a villain is to complete its redemption quest, which changes the villain into a new design and boosts its powers. Some quests are fun or interesting minigames, such as a thinly veiled knock-off of Angry Birds, but others involve nothing more than walking up to a character and hitting some buttons.

It's a little difficult to judge villains. They're instantly capable of combat, and they add some flair to the proceedings. Due to the way they're designed, they tend to have distinctive moves and abilities. However, in gameplay terms, they feel a little limited. Each of the villains is geared for fighting, and that fits with Trap Team's combat-heavy focus. However, they feel more like sidekicks than full-fledged characters due to their limited leveling and lack of self-contained toys. The wacky running commentary gives them more personality, but it always feels like they play second fiddle to your Skylanders. On the other hand, you get multiple characters for the cost of one Trap toy, making them the best bang for your buck in the Skylanders franchise.

The main story will take you around 10 hours to finish, depending on how much time you spend exploring or playing minigames, which range from simple tower defense arenas to musical minigames. The real star of the show is Skystones Smash, which is a simple CCG where you select stones, which are earned by capturing foes, and use them to defeat your opponent's stones. Each stone has its own attack power and heath. It's not very complex, but it's great for kids because it's easy to learn but has just enough intricacy to keep them coming back.

The Trap Master toys are nice additions to the Skylanders lineup. They're big, solid and well posed, and they stand out even among the other large-sized Skylanders figures. They're stuck in static poses and on the bases so the figures can function in the game. Considering the big selling point of Skylanders is the real-world figure that goes along with the in-game toy, it really hurts that the trapped villains don't have their own toys. It's going to be hard for a kid to get attached to Chompy Mage when his figure is represented by an interchangeable statue that can also stand in for a number of other monsters. It's especially sad, since some of the villains have fantastic designs.

Skylanders has always been a nice-looking franchise, and not a lot has changed in Trap Team. Most of the visuals and designs are very familiar and expected from the series. The new enemies and characters have great animations and a lot of style, but there's not much new here. Trap Team is a cross-gen game, so there isn't much to make the PS4 version stand out from the last-gen versions. The voice acting is also quite excellent. It would have been very easy for the villains' constant chatter to get annoying, but most of them are fun and likeable. Even if one is annoying, you can easily swap it out for another character.

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. There's a lot to like, and there's a great amount of content for your dollar. However, a few design decisions hold it back. The game feels less inviting than Swap Force due to an over-emphasis on combat and a lot of content being locked behind Trap Master-themed gates. The new toys are a bit lackluster, and villains aside, there isn't a lot that's really new about Trap Team. Additionally, the high cost of entry may make it a hard pill for parents to swallow. Kids who love Skylanders will still find it to be a treat, but it certainly feels staler than the previous entries.

Score: 7.5/10