Disney Infinity 3.0 opens the Star Wars saga with Twilight of the Republic play-set for Episodes I-III. Combining Ninja Theory's combat smarts with vehicle improvements from Sumo Digital this looks impressive.
If you've not caught up with Disney Infinity previously, it's similar to other “toys to life” games like Skylanders. It gives access to on-screen characters when collectable toy figurines are placed on a USB peripheral. Twilight of the Republic unlocks content for the first three films along with additional characters from Clone Wars.
Ninja Theory are developing the play-set and form one part of the UK trio of developers (Sumo Digital and Studio Gobo) bringing some development specialisms to this year's game. The combat was already improved last year for the Marvel characters, but now gets an additional layer of AAA development finesse that extends to aerial combat and spark generating sword clashes.
While Ninja Theory's heritage of Ensalved and Devil May Cry may not be an obvious development choice for a young audience,in practice this has always worked well. Combat is both faster and more involving than before. Rather than triggering a series of static moves, you can chain combos and charge attacks while slowly unlocking moves through the enhanced upgrade tree. Happily, it does all this while keeping things squarely at a E for Everyone rating.
The Starter Pack provides the Play-Set itself and two characters, Ahsoka and Anakin. They can be joined by Obi-Wan, Yoda and Darth Maul by purchasing addition figurines. The game follows a story around uncovering a secret plot, battling villains and generally bringing peace back to the galaxy — temporarily at least.
The Star Wars figures themselves will be hard to resist for adult collectors. In fact, if you remember the original films and related merchandise these will take you right back. In the game these characters appear in the same toy-form. In fact everything looks like it has been sculpted from plastic and is ablaze with buttons, switches, hidden ducts and compartments to explore.
While I could go on in more detail about the ins and outs of the various components, perhaps the most important thing is that this all feels like Star Wars. Combine the opening theme with bringing Yoda or Obi-Wan in to the fray and you are immediately transported into that familiar world.
There are also some sensible retail decisions from Disney this year. The price of the game has come down by $10 and blind bags have been replaced by predefined themed sets of discs. Also, if you already own a Start Pack for Infinity 1.0 or 2.0 on your console you can now just buy the 3.0 game disc on its own. Finally, you can use any of the characters in any of the Star Wars characters in any of the Star Wars adventures regardless of the era.
There are negatives of course. The total price of the game and all the figurines would run to a lot of money. The additional Toybox mini games will be sold separately this year (Toy
To fuss too long over these minor points is to miss the point though. Disney Infinity 3.0 could have relied upon Star Wars to sell itself. However it has done much more than that. Even with the expansive line-up of Lego Dimensions (Doctor Who, Portal, The Simpsons and Back to the Future) Disney Infinity 3.0 looks likely to be popular with families again this year.
