Disney Speedstorm Early Access PC Review

User Rating: 7
Disney Speedstorm Early Access PC Review

Disney Speedstorm is a third-person free-to-play racing arcade game recently released in which you can play as popular characters from cartoons and movies from the Disney universe. Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Mulan, Sully, and others will be available as characters. Game locations will also be inspired by the worlds of Disney and Pixar. Cars can also be customized, but it’s not just about cosmetics. It’s also about items that affect vehicle parameters, such as control and speed. We took the game out for a spin and are here to offer you our Disney Speedstorm Early Access Review.

Responsible for the development of the Gameloft studio, known for the Asphalt series and Disney Dreamlight Valley, the game was released recently and is available on PC Epic Games Store, Steam and Microsoft Store, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.




Since this is also a live service game, the game will include seasonal updates to add more content and possibly more characters to their racer roster.

Disney Speedstorm 1

As you might expect, the game is a racing game with no storytelling whatsoever. There are chapter divisions, but they combine different races to create a racing theme and showcase the characters. Everyone just ended up in a world where race tracks were built into the different worlds these characters came from. Characters range from Mickey and his friends, without them, to Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean and even the recently announced Fiction, the theme park’s primary mascot.

The whole focus of the game is on the racing gameplay as it is meant to be, and this is just one of the main features of Disney Speedstorm. Racing brings the thrill you expect from a racing game. Racing around the tracks, drifting around corners, and using your skills to blast your opponents undoubtedly, give pleasure, but here lies the problem: the whole gameplay cannot be easy for people not familiar with the genre is only addictive at the beginning.

Even though the game is just starting with 18 racers available, there is still enough variety to play with, and more can be expected as the game receives more updates in the future.

Disney Speedstorm 2

If you don’t accept a card game like Mario Kart or the once popular greats Blur or Team Sonic Racing, you should probably move on as you won’t be happy with what you find here. You will not understand what and how it works, and most importantly, why all this.

After beta testing at the end of that year, Disney Speedstorm was enthusiastically received by many players. Already at the testing stage, it became clear that the gameplay could be interesting not only for fans of karting racing but also for ordinary gamers familiar with this style of racing, but some aspects that raised questions immediately emerged, such as pay-to-win or the fact that some the characters were too strong compared to the others.

As for the first one, right now, the only option is to get a lighter start by buying the upgraded edition, which gives you some free characters and currency, 60-70 dollars in a “free game” for a better start does not sound very good, plus all the pumping of characters goes just for the internal currency. And as for the balance, everything can change at any moment.

Disney Speedstorm is Gameloft’s attempt to break into the kart genre. The company had the long-dead Rayman Kart mobile games but is now backed by Disney. Racing games aren’t new to the publisher thanks to its longtime Asphalt series, but those who find these titles unfamiliar should rest assured that this isn’t just Asphalt with a pair of Mickey Mouse ears on the hood and Jack Sparrow on the back.

Disney Speedstorm 3

At launch, there are 18 characters to choose from spanning eight different worlds, from the obvious Mickey, Donald, and Goofy to the slightly unexpected ones like Elizabeth Swann from Pirates of the Caribbean, Li Shang from Mulan, and Mowgli from The Jungle Book. Each character falls into one of four groups – Speedster, Brawler, Trickster, and Defender – each optimizes the racer’s performance according to his racing style but also influences his play style.

For example, the Brawler racer will stun another racer when he crashes into them and can increase his boost bar faster by attacking enemies. Meanwhile, the defender instead gains a shield when attacking another and can increase his boost bar faster while sitting in the opponent’s slipstream. Add to this the fact that each character has their own choice of four power-ups from the eight available, as well as their own unique individual skill that they get after a little level up. It’s not an exaggeration to say that each character is different, and everyone can find someone comfortable in the gameplay.

Disney Speedstorm 4

Gameloft has huge potential for future updates, as Gameloft doesn’t seem to want to play it safe and throw out the usual favorites: instead, they don’t seem to be afraid to delve deeper into Disney to keep die-hard fans happy. Case in point: Figment, the Epcot Center mascot and purple dragon, is the most obscure starting character.

What I liked the most is that the tracks are fun, even if they are limited at launch. Whether you’re racing through a monster’s castle, blasting your way through a Pirates of the Caribbean island, or stepping onto a black and white Mickey Mouse-themed cinema screen, and what’s more, each track has variations, whether it’s a track in reverse or a completely different variation familiar from learning tracks.

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The soundtrack deserves a special mention as well, it’s sure to cause controversy, but we like how fearless it is. It’s a big dose of dance and electronic remixes of classic Disney themes, and we take turns nodding our heads to the beat and laughing out loud at how ridiculous it all is. You didn’t hear anything until you heard the heavy dubstep remix of The Bare Necessities. Really. To say the music is great is an insult. Some songs made me feel like they were Marshmello mixes, and everything is in the game. The songs fit and create drive, but not everyone may like them, and the number of songs is not that much, and all are tied to a certain world of the game—track, which is not so much.

So, the game works well, sounds great, and the characters and tracks have received a lot of attention. What’s the catch? Here we return to the beginning of the review and these two potential stumbling blocks. First, Disney Speedstorm is hard at work when it launches on Switch. While the other console versions hit a pretty good 60fps, the Switch port aims for 30fps, and it’s sometimes very hard to keep up, especially early in races when there are a lot of characters on screen and power-ups kick in.

And now that we’ve discussed what the game is:

  • there is karting, which is not for everyone,
  • Disney characters familiar to everyone since childhood
  • Minimal customization and character upgrades that directly improve your car and its performance, and the currency comes only from the battle pass and completing campaign levels and events.
  • Races in a ranked game, where there are problems with synchronization and, of course, with some characters, such as Mike, who teleports a decent distance with his ability, and many others

Another major problem – and this is more a matter of taste than tolerance – the game strongly insists on its real-time maintenance model, which means that you can’t just farm 24/7, only what they give us, and everything in limited quantities. Every game element aims to improve your characters with various collectibles and currencies you win in story races. Everything goes to keep the player coming every day.

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Incidentally, characters are unlocked through the shard system that many free mobile games use, where you have to collect a bunch of character ‘shards’ before you can earn them or increase their star rating.

But Disney Speedstorm’s most important and interesting mode may or may not survive, depending on players and balance, being the online multiplayer game (which already seems to have bots). The game has both a ranked multiplayer mode and a “regulated multiplayer mode,” where everyone has the same level of karting, each with its own progression system, where you are rewarded with a special currency for opening chests and resources for pumping.

What I also liked since the launch of the game was that there were no long queues, and it was possible to quickly find online races in both ranked and regulated modes, largely because Speedstorm is a cross-platform game, which means players from other consoles.

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The game’s controls are simple: sometimes sensitive to touch but responsive with a brilliantly satisfying drift system. If we compare it with any other karting game, we can say that it is the closest to the Team Sonic Racing series. Yes, there are times when the help system, which is also there, killed the whole race, but managing what is on the gamepad and the keyboard is convenient, but I would give a point in favor of the keyboard (it is much more convenient to send skills back).

As for the gameplay, it’s simple. Get an item icon, use power-ups to gain an advantage, improve your knowledge of maps and turns, and improve your drifting until you find one character you like in terms of gameplay.

Disney Speedstorm 9

The game is not bad, but not for everyone. The game has many options for personalization and pace. For fans of the Kart series, this game that supports crossplay will open many doors, and the content that should be added with each update will not make you bored. But for many players, the game will seem strange and slow, even though everything looks very cheerful in all the trailers, but as a certain genre of games, it requires special gameplay and time to figure it out, and now this is not given to everyone. And the statistics of 600 players on a paid release in early access speak volumes.

Summary
Disney Speedstorm is not bad, but it is not for everyone. The game has many options for personalization and pace of the game is terrific. Fans of the Kart series will love this game. The fact that it supports crossplay will open many doors, and the content that should be added with each update will not make you bored. But for many players, the game will seem strange and slow.
Good
  • Disney characters
  • Unusual race game in a rare style
  • Interesting maps
Bad
  • Monetization in the form of "buy the improved edition"
  • A lot of grind
  • Unfair matchmaking where level 1 can be paired with level 10
7
Good

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