I have an unpopular opinion because Trap Team is by far the worst one to me. Believe me I can rant about that in itself for ages! I was there back when the series was still called “Spyro’s Kingdom” (I used to be a Spyro fanboy, and I didn’t like Skylanders at first but gave it an honest chance, now the roles are reversed and I don’t like Spyro) and I get why people liked Trap Team the best because it had this sense of scope to it but honestly, going back to it was extremely rough. My favorite is SWAP Force followed by the first game. Actually I also think Giants is kind of overrated (still solid), and Imaginators is overhated. I still don’t really hate TT honestly, like it’s very frustrating to play, and I get very mad at it, and I’d rather not play it, but I can still appreciate enough of it.
Don’t even get me started on the Spyro fan reactions lol, I think a lot of them just hate the series because of their expectations for it. They had these expectations Spyro would at least be really important, when it’s more of a cameo than anything. That isn’t a bad thing. Skylanders is its own thing, and tbh, I’m glad Spyro is just kept to a cameo and the series had a healthy amount of inspiration without being too overt. And honestly I don’t even think his design is bad in the first game, some of the art makes it look really bad but for the most part I think the model animations are adorable and give off gecko vibes, and he has fun overall proportions even if the face needed more work. It’s really sad to see people continue harping on the reveal screenshot and shows they wouldn’t move on- the Academy design also has a lot of tweaks and is often overlooked, and tbh I think the Imaginators design for Spyro is hideous, but people don’t even know about it and this just again shows people being stuck on something from over a decade ago- there’s also the nonsense about Skylanders “killing” Spyro and the same people praising Reiginited where without Skylanders TFB wouldn’t have had the experience to make Reignited. I don’t like Reignited either, which is why I said TFB dipped for me, but that’s another topic.
I completely get being disappointed, but it’s just really obvious a lot of those people never even played a Skylanders game, watched them, etc. or are just arguing in bad faith. It’s one of those things where in the AC fandom by comparison I’m glad people can healthily criticise NH without being like that or something. So it’s helped me move on from being as fixated on this but overall I still love landers and given the chance I can ramble on.
There are also all my memories of hunting for toys, and even trading online and stuff. Definitely some frustration with all the releases the US got months earlier, but I pulled through and collected them all lol. That series was like, the last time I could indulge in collecting something like that, it really was part of my childhood (even though I was a teenager as the games came out). I’d feel too guilty collecting physical stuff now, and ironically I don’t think I would get into a reboot expecting the same kind of monetisation. Too expensive. And I feel like they wouldn’t hone in on what I liked about it anyway. Aside from that playing the series so much and assessing characters and learning strats and just mulling over my favorite parts of the games played a huge role in shaping my critical thinking.
