The phrase “console-quality graphics” has been overused and abused in the mobile games world for close to a decade now.

Why? It’s often due to an assumption that mobile gaming will only be truly credible through comparisons of polygon counts and shading sorcery with “proper” games devices, regardless of whether that’s what’s motivating people to play on their smartphones or tablets.

Actually, the most popular and lucrative mobile games – from Candy Crush Saga and Clash of Clans to Kim Kardashian: Hollywood – still tend to have graphics that could have comfortably been handled by consoles two or three generations back.

Even so, in 2014 the argument that the current generation of smartphones and tablets have console-quality graphics – as in current consoles – is more convincing than ever.

Listen to Karthik Bala, chief executive of developer Vicarious Visions, talking about the next Skylanders game, for example. Due for release in early October, Skylanders Trap Team is the first in the series to be released simultaneously for console and tablets.

“iPad 3 is our minimum spec: graphically, it’s a little bit better than Wii I’d say. That was our low-end renderer,” says Bala, while showing me the tablet edition of Trap Team in London, ahead of its launch.

“Then we wrote a mid-range renderer which was for iPad 4-class hardware, and then iPad Air and Mini Retina is like Xbox 360 quality in terms of visual effects. Right now, the highest-end tablets that are out there are converging on Xbox 360, I would say. And we’ll see in the next couple of years how far they advance towards PS4 and Xbox One.”

This isn’t just hot air: Skylanders Trap Team running on one of the latest iPads really does look (and play) like an Xbox 360 game, complete with cut-scenes, depth of field and the kind of water effects and crystalline refraction that tend to get mentioned a lot when games are previewed for new console platforms.

“After we finished Skylanders Swap Force, we wanted to figure out how to bring the full experience to tablet. We’ve had to wait a little while for tablet hardware to catch up to our vision, in terms of raw processing power,” says Bala.

“This doesn’t feel like a port. Typically, a port came out first on one format, and was designed for that format, then when you try to jam it onto a tablet, it becomes a less-then experience because it wasn’t designed for it. This isn’t a port though: we’ve been working on it simultaneously with all the other platforms. This is a full HD console experience.”

Console-quality graphics are all well and good, but what about console-quality controls? Skylanders publisher Activision had already announced that the tablet version of Trap Team will have its own £54.99 starter pack akin to the console editions.

It will ship with toys, traps – more on those later – a portal that doubles as a stand for your tablet, and its own gamepad stored in the bottom of the portal – these devices both connect wirelessly to the tablet using Bluetooth low energy (Bluetooth LE) technology.

The pairing process is simple – important, given that children are Skylanders’ target audience. The controller, smaller than a standard console joypad as it’s designed for children’s hands, feels more solid than most of the iOS controllers that have gone on sale in recent months, too.

Bala stresses the flexibility of Trap Team’s tablet edition, though. Players can opt for touchscreen controls if they prefer – a virtual analog stick appears wherever they place their thumb, with virtual buttons in the opposite corner.

“The primary way of playing is with the controller, but some kids are growing up super-comfortable with touch controls on glass, they’re more used to that than a gamepad,” says Bala. “We wanted to be able to accommodate that play pattern as well.”

If they don’t have the portal and/or toys to hand, they can play with two digital characters instead, with their own stats and upgrade trees. Bala suggests that this may suit children who want to continue playing a level on a journey where setting up the portal isn’t feasible, for example.

“There are four ways to play: with toys and the controller; touch and toys; no toys and no controller; or controller but no toys,” he says. “It’s entirely a function of what’s on and off.”

On a business level, tablet is bringing something new to Skylanders: a freemium model. On iOS, Android and Kindle Fire, the game will be free to download, with its first level playable for free using the touch controls and digital characters. When people buy and set up the starter pack, they’ll get the rest of the game.

“When you’re spending £65 on the starter pack, it can be a barrier to entry. This is a great way for people to try it out,” says Bala.

Skylanders’ big numbers – $2bn of revenues from console games and toys to date – tend to make headlines, but giving away the first level of Trap Team on tablets has the potential to greatly widen the audience for the franchise by removing that initial barrier.

One challenge may be file size. Those console-quality graphics come with a cost in terms of how much space Trap Team will take up on tablets. The initial download will be around 1GB in size, with Bala saying that the game then uses a cache of around 3GB to download later levels while people are playing.

“As soon as you pair the portal by turning it on, it authenticates with the game, and starts streaming the other levels in the background while you play. As yuo’re playing level two, level three’s getting downloaded, and then level four, and so on,” he says.

Bala notes that for the average Skylanders player with around 12 toys, the 3GB cache will be enough to pull down “pretty much the main story levels and the characters as well”, but players with more than 6GB free on their tablet will get the option for a “premium” install, which Bala says will suit those with more toys.

It’s notable that Skylanders Trap Team is launching for Android tablets – as well as the Android-based Kindle Fire devices – simultaneously with iPad.

It’s an ambitious decision – Bala describes optimising the game for individual Android tablets as “a nightmare” – but one borne out of feedback from Skylanders fans for the series of mobile-only games released by Activision over the last couple of years.

“Here’s the painful lesson that we learned: we did the mobile Skylanders games like Cloud Patrol and Lost Islands, and launched on iOS first. And we had so many fans who were on Android who were very upset,” says Bala.

“We eventually got there, launched on Android and things are great. But for Trap Team, we knew that while life might be easier on iOS alone, it would disappoint fans. So we’ve been working directly with the chipset manufacturers and each vendor to make sure we can get the best out of the devices.”

The game is shaping up very nicely, although as a parent, I’m slightly nervous about Trap Team’s new layer of physical peripherals – traps – which are used to capture villains in the game who then become playable characters.

They’re Skylanders’ equivalent of Pokemon’s Pokéballs, essentially, except they’re physical products that you buy, and if you don’t have the right elemental trap, you can’t capture certain villains.

Together with a new set of “Trap Master” toys, they could see Trap Team provoking plenty of pestering from children. In fairness, the game continues the Skylanders tradition of toys from previous games working with the new ones, so children will be able to use their existing characters too.

Skylanders Trap Team may look like an Xbox 360 game on high-end tablets, but come October, we’ll find out how many parents are willing to opt for tablet over console.

Bala laughs at the suggestion that the tablet version’s marketing slogan should be “You get your TV back!” but if Activision can prove there’s a decent-sized audience of parents willing to pay upwards of 50 quid for Trap Team’s starter pack, other publishers will be taking the notion much more seriously.

• Skylanders: a parent’s guide