Well, Sunday I headed over to Toys R Us and picked up the 3.0 starter pack and all of the Inside Out figures (well, all except Fear, who just wasn't in stock). Having never played Disney Infinity before, or, really, knowing nothing about it either, I had no idea what to expect. Whether the game was bad or not, I still wanted the figurines of the characters I bought (I had already bought Ralph, Vanellope, Venom, and Donald Duck). My initial reaction to the game was horror, but after playing for a while, I eventually found the Toy Box mode and realized the game actually was pretty awesome and boasted almost endless possibility. I don't really know how into it I will get. At the moment, I'm still experimenting with it, and haven't even made a solid game or level yet. I've mostly just been leveling up my characters.

Well, I guess I'll touch upon the initial reaction, and why it was filled with disgust (no pun intended). Going into the game, I was told it was a sort of game maker. I've never played "sand box" games very much. I've played similar yet far more simplistic games, like WarioWare D.I.Y., which was fun, RPG Maker, which was pretty fun, and Fighter Maker, which fucking sucked. I have always enjoyed creating games. Hell, I even still make board games some times, but video game making has always been a passion of mine, though I'm not very experienced with it. The idea of Sand Box games had never really appealed to me because I always figured, why not just use that time to actually make your own game, but being able to build it simply and have most of the essences of the game pre-made for you is so much easier, plus there's no fucking coding involved. I tried Game Maker for PC several times in the past, and never finished any projects. The only one that reached the stage of even remotely playable was a game I made for my comic "Stupid". Well, before I get too off topic, the bottom line is, I've never really played Sand Box games, and I bought this game simply for the fact that it is a Sand Box game and I could make levels/games. Well, when I first played it, I was starting to fear that it wasn't like that at all. First you play some super simplistic crap involving Star Wars, Inside Out, and Mickey Mouse. Then you enter a generally empty yet massive hub world which leads to an array of painfully bland and shitty mini-games. The game was already very reminiscent of N64/PS era roamers, which most people probably know I've never had any love for, and was boring me to tears. The constant narrator telling you the same tips over and over again, the vast emptiness, the constant lack of music, or noticeable music, the feeling that, well, you're just not doing anything. It was all giving me a terrible opinion of the game. And that's not even mentioning the inexcusably long loading.

Eventually, I put the clear core memory piece that came with Joy and Anger on the base and it loaded up a (very shitty) Inside Out game. Well, first came a hideous cut scene where terrible writers attempted to build off the previously flawless characters and world of Pixar's recent masterpiece, and more or less take a dump on the whole movie. The graphics were honestly the worst graphics I've seen in the past two generations of consoles. They looked like PS2 level at best. Seriously, when it zoomed into Fear's face, his eyes are more pixelated than the trucks in Frogger. Honestly, seeing characters from these great movies like Inside Out and Wreck-It Ralph written so terribly (which is extra painful since most of the original voice talent returns to voice the characters) is sort of insulting to the original material. Those teams worked so hard to make those films perfect, and the characters fine tuned, and then these guys write generic, half-ass video game scripts for them and degrade them into generic video game fighters. It's actually kind of strange seeing the emotions, who were not written to have any sort of roles as the ones they take in this game, being de-evolved into Mario-esque heroes. Like, remember the part in the movie where Sadness jumps in the air and then comes down doing a body slam attack? Or how about when Disgust ran around throwing green energy orbs at people? Oh, and you can't forget the part when Joy levitated into the air and released an explosion of yellow light that lifted everybody into the air and slowed down their movement. I don't know, it's just kinda weird. Anyway, it's still cool to have them in the game, even if they do seem a bit out of place. The real problem is just how badly they were written, and that goes for every character in the game. But, enough about that. Being that I am, above all, a 2D platformer fan (I mostly bought this game to make hard as fuck side scroller stages) I was happy to see the Inside Out stages become side scrollers, but they were still disappointing. They were empty, simple as hell, boring, and uninspired. There's, like, three enemies in one stage and they're all within 10 steps. I played three stages of the Inside Out story mode; one as Joy, one as Anger, and one as Disgust. At this point, I just turned the game off and declared the game a piece of shit.

However, I popped it in again later that night and actually found the Toy Box mode (happened to be the one guy in the hub I didn't talk to) and later found you could access it from the main menu, too. It didn't take long after finding this mode to start to see the great potential this game has. I screwed around with objects and settings, making a couple little test stages to familiarize myself with the game. There seems to be no limit to what you can do with the game, and once you start building, it really starts to become a lot of fun. I will say, though, the game, being that it is geared towards kids, is really complicated, and takes some serious dedication. This shit's for Erector Set kinda kids. I've had to read up on a few things online, and even watch a tutorial on paths to get somethings myself. There is an overwhelming amount of possibilities and pieces for your game, which seems like too much at first, but the more you build, the more you realize how great it is to have all that stuff. I'm still learning it, but I should start making some merciless platforming stages soon enough. I don't know how much time I will dedicate to this game, but if I happen to get into it heavily, expect drawings to slow down. This game eats up A LOT of time. As I said previously, I don't have too much more to say at the moment, as I've mostly just been leveling up my guys (been using Donald the most) by making a ton of enemies and killing them.

So, for now, simply put, I thought it sucked at first, now I think it's pretty damn good. Only bother with the pre-made stuff so you can unlock parts.

DISNEY INFINITY 3.0 CONCLUSION

I've been playing the game for over a month now, bought about 17 or 18 figures, built several man hunt stages, platformer stages, 2D battle stages, and began a top-down dungeon stage. The game is certainly good, but it's not amazing. The potential really is limitless, to a certain extent, and it's fun to play as the characters in the game. The controls are good too. There are, however, a good deal of fatal flaws.

The first thing to take note of is how damn glitched this game is. Holy crap, this is the glitchiest mainstream game I may have ever seen. There are wall-climbing glitches, falling through walls glitches, character swapping glitches, memory glitches, projectile glitches, respawn glitches, mid-air glitches, enemy/item generator glitches, magic wand glitches, and the game even just all out freezes some times. I think the greatest glitch I found was during the Inside Out playset. I grabbed the idea bulb in the second to last stage, and it just skipped to the end cut scene of the game, counting me as completing the game and finding all the secrets in the stage. Seriously, it just happened like that. I touched an item, and I was watching the ending in the blink of an eye. I have no idea how that happened. With all the hundreds of people involved with this game, you'd think they'd have more staff to catch bugs, but nope, this game is glitched to hell. I guess Vanellope can feel right at home in this game - everybody in it is a glitch. 

Aside from the glitch aspect, my other biggest complaint would have to be the builder in general. It's far more complicated than it needs to be, and very fragile and messy. Settings that should be simple options in menus are hidden things that involve stringing multiple items, and many features that other builder games have as simple options have many unnecessary steps involved. Also, this game is OBVIOUSLY marketed primarily for kids, but the builder is extremely monotonous and unappealing. Games like RPG Maker, WarioWare DIY and Mario Paint have fun menu designs, colorful interfaces, and pleasant ways of displaying your tools and work. This game, though, just has (far too small) plain text menus with no pictures, sound, music, or anything. Just empty, boring, bland designs, and everything appears more complicated than it needs to. I'm assuming most cases of Disney Infinity involve parents getting it for their kids, the kids playing the play sets, the kids being overwhelmed and scared of the builder, and their parents building a game for them. I've always loved the idea of building, ESPECIALLY as a kid, but I think even I would have lost interest in this game fast. Also, despite the builder being needlessly complicated, your options are quite limited. The number of traps and obstacles you can use are not many. After a few levels, you'll really be wanting more. Sure, there's plenty to do with each part as long as you're creative enough, but a game designed to be an any-game-creator should boast far more options. It doesn't help that the characters all have so much abilities and mobility that it's damn hard to make a challenge.

Overall, I think Disney Infinity is a great concept, and it can be loads of fun, but it's far more complicated than it needs to be, yet far too limited at the same time. The 1P modes are forgettable, the character graphics are pretty bad, the glitches are insane, and, sadly, it is simply just a scam to make a huge profit off of selling figures. The abundance of glitches and notable carelessness in the game's design makes it painfully obvious that all they cared about was selling figures. It's a good game, and I can see someone getting super absorbed in it, but it just had a lot more potential than they cared to use.

AND REAL QUICKLY.... MARIO MAKER THOUGHTS

I guess since I am talking about game creation, I should touch upon my thoughts on Mario Maker. I have no interest in it. I mean, I can definitely see the appeal, but Mario level editors have existed for 15 years now. Programs like "Mario 3 Enhancement" and "Lunar Magic" allowed me to make awesome Mario hack games over the years, as they did for many people. My proudest creation was "Super Puzzle Bros." a puzzle platformer made up of puzzles solved via order of operations, p-switches, coins, spring boards, and other items. I also made countless other non-puzzle games, like "Bros. in Brooklyn", and had first started making the puzzle style levels and regular platforming levels back in 2006 with SMB3. So, my point is, these custom Mario games have been a free alternative for 15 years (despite Nintendo now trying to ban roms) and with those, we had to learn the rules and programming of the game and see how creative we could be by those limitations, which was actually more than enough room to be creative if you had it. In Mario Maker, though, it's an ugly mess of all Mario titles mashed into one, so none are truly reminiscent of their original game. Also, the rules are limitless and silly. You can put whatever enemy wherever you want, whatever power ups wherever you want, and 1,000 exits wherever you want. There's no creativity involved because there's no limitations. So you get levels that are sloppy jokes, like the wall is made out of giant Magikoopas or some stupid shit. It's just a "fuck around, who gives a shit" kinda builder to me. Now, I am fully aware that a large chunk of my distaste for this game comes from the bitterness towards Mario Maker users being congratulated for making stuff I made 10 years ago, and having a much easier time doing so. As petty as that may seem and how immature it is for me to get spiteful like that, it's true, that does piss me off. Seeing a video of a SMB3 Mario Maker stage being called a masterpiece titled "order of operations" which is EXACTLY like the stages I made in 2006+ does piss me off, but, even aside from my personal butt-hurt reasons, I feel the game is too limitless and gimmicky. I have no plans of getting it.