Continuing my way through the Toys to Life Market craze, we turn to Disney Infinity which combines Marvel, Disney and recently added Star Wars into one game. That by itself would make for one very collectible game and a nightmare for parents. Infinity’s main marketing point is the “Infinity” in the title, but how far you go depends on how much you spend.
Figuring it out:
Infinity at this time is at version 3.0 which is how the game designates series of characters and features. Unlike the Amiibo and Skylanders’ lines, it’s a little more confusing how things are unlocked and what the content is.
Disney Infinity regardless of what version you buy is not a “game” in the sense that you are buying a story or campaign like in Lego Dimensions and Skylanders. Instead, the game itself is the wrapper and means of using the figurines and physical content.
Each version of Infinity comes with three types of physical content: Character Figurines, Playset Figurines and Power Discs. A character figurine is self explanatory; if you don’t have one, then you can’t do anything with the game. Each figurine to the game’s credit offers deeper character customization and utility compared to Skylanders. While every character controls the same way, they have different attacks and a complete skill tree for unlocking new abilities and moves.
If you want to actually play something in Infinity, you need a playset figurine which gives you content in the form of story missions to do within that figurine’s specific world. Here’s the thing, the playsets lock what figurines you can use within that campaign; so you can’t have Donald Duck doing the Guardians of the Galaxy campaign.
Combining characters and details from the various Disney, Marvel and Stars Wars properties, is the big selling point of Infinity
Finally are the power discs which act as expansion DLC. These discs unlock new items for the Toybox (more on that in a minute), along with mini games. You can also get power discs that compliment other figurines, giving them new costumes or special abilities.
Up until Version 3.0, power discs were sold in blind booster packs, making it very hard and expensive to get everything. In 3.0 however, they now tell you exactly what you’re buying and is a far welcomed change.
Whatever you buy (and there is a lot here,) will help you towards unlocking content in the Toybox, which is the other major piece of content with the game.
Build a Game:
While Disney Infinity doesn’t have a true set game like Skylanders or Dimensions, it does feature the Toybox. The Toybox is an extensive world editor that lets you place environmental details, items, characters and more, to let you create anything you want. With multiple characters and items, you can set up unique games for you and your friends to play thanks to the variety of items characters can interact with it. Unlocking content in Toybox requires a two step process. First, is that you need to have the respective figurine or power disc to unlock it. Second, you need in game resources to buy the item and have it available.
For people with children, this is probably the most attractive option as it lets you simply create things with your children without worrying about anything dangerous. The editor is limited, as each piece, character, item etc is preset, meaning that you can’t alter it beyond its original use.
For those looking for something to do with these respective brands, the Infinity series is great, but it’s also the worse in terms of price per content.
A Pay Cliff:
Once the initial allure of playing with these characters wears off, you’ll find that there just really isn’t a lot here for your money. All the figurines that you can buy don’t fit into playsets which again is where the actual game design is. The Toybox is a cool idea, but it’s not as powerful or as intuitive like Super Mario Maker and it’s really only going to find use with families and sets of friends with Infinity.
The amount of secondary add-ons that you need to buy to get the most out of an Infinity game is huge. Figurines cost around $12-$14, getting a playset pack that comes with two figurines cost $33, power discs were originally a grab bag and now just cost $10 for an entire set. I’m not even going to try and do the math of what it costs to get everything for one version of Infinity.
There are a wide variety of figurines for Disney Infinity, but not all of them have playset functionality which is where the gameplay is
What’s worse is that despite the content being tied to these figurines, not everything is forward compatible. Characters and power discs are forward compatible, but the playsets aren’t. This means in order to use them, you need to keep the original games handy or they’re just used for unlocking Toy Box pieces.
Because the Playsets are what gives you actual gameplay and missions to do, not having them work in some kind of capacity really limits their use, unless you plan to keep every version of Infinity on hand.
This is where Infinity and Skylander’s (haven’t seen Lego Dimensions yet) philosophies collide and will determine which one of these series you will gravitate towards. Each Skylander game comes with a story, gameplay and things to do, with the figurines providing supplemental content to the game experience and more importantly you don’t need every figurine to see the entire game.
Infinity gives you more variety in terms of character abilities and play, but its limited by the playsets and the huge cost to get everything.
Whether or not Lego Dimensions goes toward Skylanders of Infinity remains to be seen, but it sounds like the game comes with base content on top of the expansion from the figurines and playset styled ones.
Broken Toys:
Disney Infinity is a great idea, but it seems to deliver far less while asking for more money. The basic components have a lot more functionality than their Skylanders counterparts, but too many of the figurines just don’t have a purpose unless you want to go into the ToyBox. If you get everything there is in one version of Infinity, there will be a lot of content there, but it’s going to cost you a lot more compared to Skylanders.
While the Skylanders figures offer a lot more functionality and forwards compatibility compared to the content you get with Infinity series 1 through 3
This is why Skylanders’ more generalized design has helped their figurines keep their value through each of the game; no matter who you have, you’ll be able to use them in each subsequent game.
If I were working on Disney Infinity, for Version 4.0 I would have some kind of a grand campaign that lets you just play as any figurines that you want. That way, every figurine has utility and helps to give them value compared to these previous versions and you can still have the Playset figurines as “Expansion DLC.”
With Infinity 3.0, the developers have learned their lesson about the power disc grab bag and I’m curious to see how things move forward from here, considering Lego Dimensions coming out and being the direct competitor in terms of brand awareness. While the wonderful world of Disney may be a magical place, just like the real Disney World, it’s going to cost a lot for you to see everything.
