I am so happy that I got to participate in the Disney Infinity 2.0 experience. Because that is what playing this game is: an experience. I didn’t get the first game last year because a lot of the characters that were presented in the sets were not appealing to me. Only Toy Story seemed cool, but it was hardly worth the investment. But with Disney 2.0, Marvel comic book characters are front and center. This series is literally on every platform imaginable, with the only exceptions being the original WII and the PS Vita. This game can be found on any other platform, including your PC.
There are two primary functions in this game, participating in the Playset and the other being the Toybox. Playset adventures consist in specific worlds; Avengers, Spider-Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy. The Toybox allows you to create worlds, allowing you to mix and match figures that are exclusive to each Playset.
I have the Playstation 3 version of Disney Infinity 2.0. The starter pack includes the Avengers Playset, a Thor and Black Widow figure, and two toy box games: a Thor-based strategy game and an action based Guardians of the Galaxy game. I’m not a huge fan of strategy games, so the Thor Toybox game left me cold, but the Guardians game was loads of fun!
In the Avengers Playset, the characters available consist of the aforementioned Black Widow and Thor, along with Captain America, Hulk, Hawkeye and Iron Man. It’s a shame that the Disney Infinity 2.0 came with the Avengers Playset, because that is easily the weakest of the three Playsets currently available. The other Playsets focus on Spider-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. Missions were repetitive and I often found myself bored playing this game. Having said that, look at all these amazing characters that I was able to play with.
There are challenges mixed in this game and it’s fun to play a co-op video game (especially when the gaming partner is my lovely wife). There’s a cool feature in this game where some characters can cross-over to other play-sets if you get their coins. So in the Avengers Playset, I was primarily Rocket Raccoon. By the time I got to the Guardians of the Galaxy Playset, Rocket was incredibly powerful, so this feature really proved to very fun and unique. Other characters that crossover the various Playsets include Iron Man, Nova, and Hulk.
Loki is the primary antagonist is the Avengers Playset, set in New York City. As much as I enjoyed playing as Rocket Raccoon, I wish I played more as favorite characters of mine like Captain America and Hulk. Rocket is just so damn adorable in the game!
There are several glitches about which to be mindful: Sometimes the game will freeze. You can get stuck in a wall. Things like that. But the game autosaves frequently, so if you lose anything, it won’t take long to get back to where you were previously.
Of all the Playsets, Avengers takes the longest to beat, but it still isn’t very long to play. Just as in the first Disney Infinity, you can buy power discs separately which can either augment your character or add unique features to the character, the land around you, or other neat additions. I was very lucky with the power discs that I received; two of them being the “rare four” to collect. You can put up to two power discs underneath the character you are using in Playset or Toybox mode, and use them however you wish.
I was fortunate that the power discs that I did get were so powerful; the Yondu discs and the Nick Fury disc. With Yondu, you can call him in to battle, and he’ll kill anything on site. With Nick Fury, he uses a Hellcarrier strike to destroy his opponents. Honestly, these discs really aren’t part of the big appeal for the game, and considering I get such dominant discs, I don’t imagine that I will purchase any more moving forward.
Before talking about the other Playsets, let me first talk about the Toybox and the designing interior of houses with a new feature called My INterior. My INterior was not found in the first version of Disney 2.0, and it is really a cathartic experience to play this function. Just as you get missions in the Playsets, My INteriors also gives you missions, but of the decorating kind. It is funny how one can go from destroying Asgardian Ice Giants to decorating walls so easily, but that’s the beauty of Disney Infinity 2.0. The more you do in My INterior, the more characters and features you can unlock in the Toybox.
A wonderful delight is a builder that welcomes Disney/Marvel characters into your house. These characters are smaller and absolutely adorable. Seeing all these great classics would make my wife and me yearn to be back in Walt Disney World.
You have the option to purchase many items for the Toybox and My INterior with the points that you earn while playing the game. So the Toybox becomes more involved and more dynamic, the more invested you get in playing the various missions. There are still many features that I need to purchase with the points that I have earned, but there are nifty items to purchase that can actually build theme-based worlds in the Toybox.
For instance, if you purchase the Sultan from Aladdin, he can build you Agrabah! In the Toybox you can also play as any character you want, from Disney 1.0 and Disney 2.0 as well. Disney 2.0 is backwards-compatible in every way, except for the fact that you would need to purchase the Disney 1.0 stand, video game disc, and appropriate Playsets and associated toys from 1.0. But other than that, everything else is fair game. All the characters and power discs from the original are fully playable in the 2.0 Toybox. So far, only Elsa from Frozen is in our collection, but I definitely plan on getting the Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mickey figure as well as the Wreck-It Ralph Toybox game set, because that is also backwards compatible.
This really makes me excited for next year’s 3.0, because Disney has made it no secret that the focus will be on Star Wars characters. I love Star Wars. Not even close to how much I love my Marvel characters, but I know it will be an incredible amount of fun. Especially because from what I read, a lot of problems with 1.0 were rectified or improved with 2.0. And while I already have mentioned that this game isn’t perfect, I have faith that future versions will only improve further.
Now, for anyone who waited on Disney Infinity 2.0 if you weren’t interested in the Marvel characters and would rather play with Disney originals, Wave 2 has just come out with its own starter pack and associated Toybox games set in the world of Brave and Lilo and Stitch, with the starter pack coming with Merida from Brave and Stitch for you to play with.
Unfortunately, since I already have the stand and the Disney Infinity 2.0 disc, I have the characters, but I don’t have the Toybox games that were provided in the newer starter pack. I’m sure those games are fun, but it would have been an unnecessary purchase for me since I already had the necessary assets. But like I said, this game is backwards compatible. So I do plan on getting the Wreck-It Ralph character from Disney 1.0.
Other Disney characters that were released in 2.0 include Donald Duck (he’s incredible fun!), Aladdin, Maleficent, Tinker Bell, Baymax and Hiro from Big Hero 6. There are also associated power discs with the Disney characters, but just as with the Marvel power discs, this really doesn’t hold that much appeal to me, especially because of all the cool things that you can “purchase” with the experience points that you gain.
The sculpt of these toys are also something that needs to be discussed, because some of these are just so incredibly well-crafted. The Donald Duck, Aladdin, Hulk, Captain America, and Merida are among some of my personal favorites. I honestly think that if you bought these toys separately just as toys, the retail price would be more expensive, given the immaculate design-work put into creating themes. But because the characters are a part of a larger set, allowing you to take these characters and play with them as you never could with your standard toy, anything you imagine with these characters can become reality.
The only drawback of all of this; the starter packs, the characters, the power discs, and any other future upgrades and updates are that playing this game involves an incredible investment. But if you can afford it, it is worth every penny.
In the Disney Infinity 2.0 menu, there’s another new feature; a newsfeed. The feed displays your personal accomplishments from the game; for instance, it will display a high-score that was received in a Challenge Mode event in a Playset. It also makes announcements about exclusive downloadable Toyboxes and Toybox games made by other players or Disney developers. Yep, that’s right. You can create your own Toybox and other gamers can play in it! There is a cloud that allows you to save a total of 300 Toyboxes. The fact that this game is called Disney Infinity is very apt, because there’s really an unlimited amount of potential of what you are able to do.
The Spider-Man Playset is the most fun of the three Marvel Playsets. It has constant action and it is more diverse in a way that I wish the Avengers Playset was. Characters for this set include Spider-Man (obviously), Venom, Iron Fist, Nova, and Nick Fury. Venom is easily the most fun character to play. Go try him out; you’ll see!
The villains in this game are Green Goblin and Mysterio. There are two primary functions in this game, participating in the Playset and the other being the Toybox. Playset adventures consist in specific worlds; Avengers, Spider-Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy. The Toybox allows you to create worlds, allowing you to mix and match figures that are exclusive to each Playset.
There’s a lot of symbiote-fighting in this game, which means that your co-player might confuse you as the enemy. But Venom is so bad-ass, he’ll get back up to kick some more symbiote butt in no time. The setting, much like Avengers, is New York City.
I wish the playtime of this game matched the length of the Avengers film, but just like with all Playsets, even though you beat the game, you can still go back into the Playset and explore the world to find more secrets and play exciting challenges.
The Guardians of the Galaxy Playset is also great fun; better than Avengers but still not as good as Spider-Man. It is also the most unique of the Playsets because it takes place in outer space rather than in New York City. A drawback in this world is that everything kind of looks the same, but that is just a minor quibble and nothing major. The playable characters in this game are Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Drax, Starlord, and Gamora and the opponent is Ronan. My wife and I played this game as most people probably will, as Rocket Raccoon and Groot, and with my Rocket Raccoon powered up so much from using him in the Avengers Playset, he was quite dominant. In addition to the points (blue energy) that you can get to buy items in the Toybox, there are three other ways to increase your odds of success. There’s green energy, which restores health. There’s orange energy, which increases XP (Experience Points) which enables your character to level up once you reach a certain point. Every time your character levels up, and the character can only level up to a max of 20, you are able to upgrade your character in the Skill Tree and make him more formidable. For instance, every character has a special move, which in turn can be replenished by purple energy.
A frustrating thing playing as Rocket Raccoon, and a definite fault in the game, is that you are punished if your character cannot fly. And me being Rocket, not only could I not fly, I am also height-challenged. This is something that definitely needs to be recognized and fixed in Disney Infinity 3.0 and beyond. However, you are provided with aircrafts if you absolutely need to fly for a certain reason.
Disney Infinity 2.0 changed how I look at video games. It isn’t the greatest video game, like I feel the Batman Arkham games have been the last several years. But this game is an experience. And it is an experience that will be able to be appreciated for years to come. Disney already announced that there will be a third wave of playable characters including Princess Jasmine, Falcon, Yondu, Loki, Green Goblin and Ronan. I don’t know if that will be the culmination of Disney 2.0’s releases, but the future possibilities are simply endless.