https://youtu.be/gVzNYCXPMY4

Disney Infinity is a series of games celebrating (what else?) Disney. From the classics like Aladdin and Mulan, to live action movies like Pirates of the Caribbean and Tron, to Pixar movies like Toy Story and Inside Out, and even recent movies, like Frozen, Tangled, Big Hero 6, and Wreck it Ralph. Not to mention Disney's other branching properties like Marvel and Star Wars, and even ESPN and Kingdom Hearts. But there's a catch. While the game allows you to play as over 50 characters from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars, each character must be bought individually as a collectable figurine. Think of it as physical DLC. Is the game really worth the increasing price tag? Well, let's see if Disney can really go infinity and beyond.

Background and BTS:

The main mechanic of Disney Infinity is the Toybox, which was actually brought over from the Toy Story 3 video game. We'll go more into the Toybox later. Much of Disney Infinity was actually inspired by the Toy Story series. Essentially, the game really is about playing with toys, hence the Toys to Life characters. Toys to Life as a genre can be traced back to the early 2000s, but it really gained popularity with Activison's Skylanders, a game which was originally planned as a spinoff to the Spyro the Dragon series. While the first Skylanders game did feature many elements from Spyro, the series eventually became its own entity with many original characters. Disney Infinity was the second major game in the Toys to Life genre, and was followed by Nintendo's line of Amiibo's, which don't have a specific game tied to them, and Lego Dimensions, which features lego representations of Batman, Scooby Doo, Doc Brown and Marty from Back to the Future, the Doctor from Doctor Who, and even Chell from Portal alongside popular Lego original lines like Ninjago and the Lego Movie. Out of all of these games, Disney Infinity is the second most popular, next to Amiibo. Unfortunately, the series was cancelled after the third instalment, which is unfortunate seeing as there were many more characters and playsets in development, such as Peter Pan.

Plot Summary:

Disney Infinity as a whole really has no plot. The whole game is themed around the power of imagination, and how anyone can create worlds, go on adventures, and do anything in their minds. And yes, while the game has a few limitations, that is essentially what the game lets you do, in the Toybox at least. The Toybox is a sandbox world creation tool which allows you to create your own 3D levels and games with whatever characters, music, background, or terrain you want. Some popular options to are racing levels, platformers, and beat-em-ups, as those are easier to make. However, that's not the only thing you can do in the game. There are also Playsets, which feature characters and situations from various Disney Properties. The first game comes with Sully from Monster's Inc, Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Carribean, and Mr. Incredible from the Incredibles. It also comes with 3 playsets themed around each movie. In addition to that, you're able to purchase separate playsets themed after Cars (with Lightning McQueen and Holly Shiftwell), Toy Story (with Buzz Lightyear and Jessie), and the Lone Ranger (with the Lone Ranger and Tonto). Only characters from the same franchise as the playsets can be used (you can't use Mater in the Monster's Inc playset, you can't use Woody in the Lone Ranger playset, etc.)

The second game, which is themed around Marvel comics, specifically the Cinematic Universe, comes with Iron Man and Thor, along with an Avengers themed playset. Separate playsets themed around the Ultimate Spiderman cartoon (with Spiderman and Nova) and Guardians of the Galaxy (with Starlord and Gamora) are also available. You can also purchase the Avengers Playset separately (with Black Widow in place of Thor), because there's a second cheaper option for the game with comes with Stitch from Lilo and Stitch and Merida from Brave.

Finally, the third game, which is themed around Star Wars, comes with Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, and a playset themed around the Clone Wars and prequels. There are two other Star Wars playsets, one for the original trilogy (with Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia), and one for the Force Awakens (with Finn and Rey). There's also an Inside Out playset (with Joy and Anger), and two original Playsets called Toybox Takeover and Toybox Speedway. Toybox Takeover is a Diablo-style dungeon crawler where characters from every franchise can be used. Toybox Speedway is a basic kart racer like Mario Kart or Modnation Racers. There's also Marvel Battlegrounds (which comes with a new version of Captain America) in which four players can fight with every Marvel character from the last game, along with Hulkbuster Iron Man, Ant Man, First Avenger Captain America, Ultron, Black Panther, Vison, and Black Suit Spiderman.

Characters:

There are way too many characters to describe. My personal favourite characters from my own collection are Jack Skellington, Wreck It Ralph, Spiderman, Iron Man, Donald Duck, Kylo Ren, Mulan, Darth Maul, and Ultron. Obviously, all the characters in the game are memorable, and you probably know most of them already. Starting in the second game, you can level up your character's skill trees with different abilities, powers, and attacks. Some characters even come with vehicles and weapons. For example, Elsa from Frozen comes with throwable snowballs, Vanelope from Wreck it Ralph comes with her car from the movie and throwable cherry bombs, and Jack Skellington comes with throwable pumpkin bombs. In the first two games, if you have every character scanned into the game, you can receive the secret ultimate unlock item, which ends up being a lightsaber. But since Star Wars characters were introduced in the third game, the ultimate unlock was switched to a Keyblade from the Kingdom Hearts series. In addition to characters, you can also buy power discs. These discs come in blind bags of two or themed packs of four. Discs can range from unlocking weapons, vehicles and mounts, themes for toybox terrain or sky, and even non-playable assist characters and alt costumes.

Good and Bad:

There's a lot of good in this game, but also some bad. I'm actually gonna start with the bad first, since most of the problems in the first game are fixed in the future two games.

The first game was really glitchy. There were a lot of problems in the Toybox, which were clearly caused due to the game being somewhat rushed. There was obviously more of a focus on the toy aspect than the game itself. The game was also a little boring, since the world building was so sparse and limited. The playsets are basic and easy, and can be completed in a few hours at most. But to be fair, the game is for children, and I can understand how a kid would get a lot of enjoyment out of playing in these playset worlds. My little cousins definitely loved this version of the game.

The second game improved a lot on the first game. Most of the glitches were fixed, and more focus was put on levelling up your characters. Instead of just levelling up, you can now use skill trees, making it feel almost like a Bethesda game. In the first game, there wasn't much unique about some of the characters. But now, certain characters have different effects and abilities that others don't. Spiderman and Venom can swing on webs, and smaller characters, like Hiro Hamada from Big Hero Six and Rocket Racoon from Guardians of the Galaxy, can jump on the backs of larger characters, like Baymax and Groot. Every character feels unique and different, and it makes you want to buy every figure so you can play as them. The world building was fixed by the builders, little assistants who will build certain things in your Toybox. This makes building massive worlds much easier, and you can build something relatively impressive in a few hours. Another added feature is InTeriors, which allow you to build closed-off areas like the inside of buildings. You can also link levels together, enabling the player to create full games.

Finally, in the third game, more focus was put on gameplay, specifically combat. In the second game, there were a few more combat skills added, like special attacks which cause a lot of damage in a large area. In the third game, every character has completely different combat styles. My favourite is Ultron, who has an attack where he launches an enemy into the air, and juggles them with a barrage of punches before launching them down into the ground. A few character even have Force abilities, due to the Star Wars aspect. Anakin and Kylo Ren have a Force Pull, while Darth Maul and Obi Wan have Force Push. A few non-Star Wars characters, like Ultron, also have Force abilities, though they're called something else. After levelling up and upgrading your characters, you can even string together some really impressive combos. More world creation and ToyBox tools were added as well, making level creation really intuitive and allowing you to create some really impressive stuff. There are some ToyBoxes people have made that are insanely cool.

Final Verdicts:

I'll give my thoughts for each version of the game separately.

I'd say 1.0 is only for Disney Fans, but it's really not. There are a lot of Disney characters, but the only characters from a movie before the 2000's are the Toy Story characters, Jack Skellington and Sorcerer Mickey, and all the other characters are from Pixar, live-action, or modern movies like Tangled and Frozen. The ToyBox world creator isn't that great, and the playsets are a little boring. Not that great for older gamers, but great for kids.

2.0 obviously aimed at a slightly older audience, both with the Marvel aspect, the upgraded gameplay and ToyBox, and the older characters, like Aladdin, Stitch, and Donald Duck. If you're a Disney or Marvel fan, and a semi-serious gamer, you might like it.

3.0 really takes the cake. The developers really went all out with this game, adding Star Wars, more Marvel, and more classic Disney. Mickey and Minnie, as well as Mulan and Baloo from the Jungle Book all make appearances. I'm not sure how they could get better than this game for what they're going for. Same verdict as the last, if you like Disney, Marvel, or Star Wars, you will like this game. The gameplay in the ToyBoxes and Playsets are extremely varied, and if you don't like one, you'll like another.

Final Grade:

1.0: B

2.0: A

3.0: A