Disney Star Wars franchise, releases themed ‘Disney Infinity’ game

written by Joseph Cardenas//Contributing Writer

Disney has fully embraced the pop culture juggernaut everyone has at least heard of–the Star Wars franchise. This fact becomes ever more apparent with new announcements about Star Wars in Disney parks and Disney characters decked out in Star Wars costumes.

Disney’s wildly popular video game franchise “Disney Infinity”  traveled to a galaxy far, far away just last year with their third major update, promising a playset – essentially the equivalent to an actual video game with story modes containing six hours of gameplay – for “The Force Awakens.”

Before we move on any further, please be aware there might be spoilers, this is a complete and honest review.

On the movie’s opening day, the playset was out, along with its corresponding characters: Rey and Finn, the protagonists, and Poe Dameron and Kylo Ren. Reminiscent of previously released Star Wars playsets, it’s mission heavy, requiring a lot of fighting and leveling up.

The interesting part is that much of the gameplay and missions don’t require characters to use the force, allowing a character like Rey to not be force sensitive in order to get the most out of her character. In fact, the story mode doesn’t actually give away any spoilers whatsoever. It follows the basic plot of “The Force Awakens” with Finn and Rey needing to escort BB-8 to the resistance in order to deliver a map with coordinates to Luke Skywalker.

Poe Dameron disappears after the TIE Fighter crashes on Jakku, Rey and Finn bump into Han on his freighter with the Millennium Falcon, Rey is captured by the First Order and Finn goes to rescue her from Starkiller Base, which inevitably blows up.

Crucial spoilers, like the identity of Kylo Ren, the killer plot twist that ensues because of his identity, and more importantly Rey’s big moment, all are omitted from this playset.

One could argue that it’s more of a general plot designed for those who already watched the movie and just want to have fun–and really that’s what it was. It was entertaining to play with these characters and to see the things they can do. It wasn’t necessary to relive the story, which is really the point of the Disney Infinity franchise.

The gameplay was smooth, while also fairly well complex in each character’s combo attacks.
Though lacking somewhat in diversity in their individual abilities, the playset makes up for it in a variety of activities that require certain characters to achieve three stars on replayable missions. The playset is now available, as well as all other separately sold components. In order to play it, you’ll need the Disney Infinity 3.0 game, which can be bought through starter packs or downloaded to the console.

Image courtesy of Disney