Parent's Guide: Skylanders Trap Team (3DS) - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

What is Skylanders Trap Team?

Skylanders: Trap Team is the fourth iteration in the incredibly popular Skylanders series, and is what's known as a "toys to life" game. Mixing real world toys with the virtual world of Skylands, Skylanders Trap Team comes with everything you need to get going - a wireless portal, two figures (trap master Gusto and mini Barkley), and a copy of the game itself. Like other Skylanders games, thanks to a little bit of magic, taking a real life Skylanders figure and placing it on the (included) portal will make the corresponding character appear in the game, ready for you to play. Unlike the home console games, the 3DS version comes with a wireless portal, and figures only need to be scanned into the game once to "unlock" them in the game - so there's no need to lug your collection around while playing on the move.

With a different story, and different set of levels to the home console game, Trap Team 3DS is actually a completely different experience. The game itself is set in the magical Skylands, which have had a sleeping curse put on them by the nefarious Dream Sheep (which is exactly what it sounds like). By fighting their way through his minions, and capturing some of his nightmare villains along the way across a series of platforming levels, players can ring the three Bells of Waking to lift the curse and defeat the evil sheep. It's a suitably silly story, but one that's engaging enough, and is fully voiced, with some fantastic characterisation.

How do you play Skylanders Trap Team?

As a platformer, most of your time in Skylanders Trap Team will be spent jumping between platforms, avoiding perils (spikes, cannon balls, moving platforms etc) and beating up bad guys. From time to time, there are more puzzley sections too, involving steering giant snowballs around mazes, sneaking past guards and connecting coloured circles on a grid. Defeating enemies will earn your Skylanders experience, eventually leading them to level up, and grow stronger. Each Skylander also has their very own array of moves and abilities, which you can unlock by spending the coins you collect in game.

While the full story is playable - and completable - using just the starter pack, you're encouraged to expand your Skylanders collection by way of special, bonus "elemental" areas that can only be unlocked using a Skylander of that particular element, out of the eight elements on offer. While you may miss out on certain treasure chests, hats and other collectibles hidden away behind these elemental doors, you can see 100% of the game by buying just six extra figures - one for each additional element - and seeing as half of the fun with these games is in collecting the figures anyway, that's not all that bad.

How easy is Skylanders: Trap Team to pick up and play?

In terms of accessibility, Skylanders: Trap Team is pretty easy to get to grips with. The controls are easy enough, the moves don't require complex button combinations, and levelling up your Skylander will substantially increase your health, which can only make getting through the levels that bit easier. There's a range of difficulty levels, too, which make a big difference to how easy the game is to get into - on Easy, enemies never do crazy amounts of damage, while you'll need a tough team of Skylanders to make your way through on Hard. Occasionally, the platforming can actually get pretty challenging, particularly in the optional, bonus "elemental" areas, but it's nothing that's too complex.

In fact, perhaps the only thing you'll want to be aware of is that, as in other Skylanders games, your lives in each level are very limited. Effectively, the number of lives you get in each level is determined by the number of Skylanders you own, as once a character runs out of health, they're gone for the remainder of the level. When that happens, you can either switch out to another Skylander, or have to restart the level. That means that if you try and play through using only the two figures you get in the starter pack, you'll only have two lives with which to complete each level - which may pose a problem for those who are less good at platforming, or are particularly attached to a specific figure! Luckily, every figure from the previous games is fully compatible with this one - so you can bring your grizzled veterans along for the fun too!

For younger players, as the game is fully voiced throughout, even non-readers should be able to get stuck in and enjoy the fun here too. It's important to note, however, that Trap Team 3DS doesn't do proper, co-operative multiplayer, unlike the home console versions - while there is a wireless multiplayer mode here, it actually only lets you face off against a friend in the skystones minigame, rather than take on the story together - and you'll still need a copy of the game each, and a 3DS family console to do so. If you want to stick together with a friend, you'll need to pick up the home console version instead.

Additional Notes

• While the game is called "Trap Team", this 3DS version doesn't actually use the traps you can buy separately. Instead, you can "capture" villains by defeating them in levels - but you don't capture them in traps, and you can't play as them, unlike the home console versions. Instead you use the villains as a special attack, calling them in from time to time to help you deal large amounts of damage to the bad guys.

Much like the Lego games, Skylanders is a pretty child friendly title, with nothing untoward at all. There's no bad language, sex or guts and gore to be seen, and any violence is similarly minimal, as the fantastical creatures of the Skylands battle it out with swipes, lasers, glow in the dark arrows and other non-realistic weaponry, with enemies simply flashing when hit, and fading away when defeated.

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Nintendo 3DS