If the idea of fighting a sociopathic, purple-hued and slightly grittier version of Buzz Lightyear fills you with glee, then Disney Multiverse is the game you’ve been waiting for. Especially if you like far-from-challenging combat, myriad currencies and glowy-upgrade-things and energy systems. If, on the other hand, everything you just read made another part of your soul shrivel up and die, it’s probably best that you give this one a miss.
The game is set in an alternate, or mirror, universe, where Disney characters are a bit different. Sully from Monsters Inc is clad in armor and waves a shield around. Rapunzel from Tangled whomps people with a pan wrapped up in her hair. It’s like a violent, edgy fan-fic come to quite-nice-looking life.
Something happens involving a mirror smashing and a wizardy Mickey Mouse getting worried, and then you’re off hitting crystalline monsters who are trying to steal the magic from the Mirrorverse. That’s honestly as much of the story as we could be bothered to try and understand.
You actually have a decent amount of control over the fights – it’s basically an ARPG lite. You can run around the fenced off battle area, swiping to dash and avoid attacks. Tap the attack button and you’ll fire out your basic attack, press it and you’ll charge up a more powerful one. Then you’ve got an ultimate move that charges up as you scrap.
You’ve got other team members too, who potter around, controlled by the AI, and you get buttons to unleash their super moves. Tap on the character portraits at the top of the screen and you’ll swap to a different character. Sure, it’s mostly button mashing and the occasional bit of running away, but it’s pretty engaging all the same.
The rewards you get from the fights can be spent on powering up your guardians or unlocking new ones. There’s an energy system as well, and you’ll get new juice to keep fighting there. There’s a predictability to the whole thing that anyone who’s played a big budget f2p game will understand, and while it’s not the most egregious monetization system we’ve seen, it’s still going to put a lot of people off.
Disney Mirrorverse does exactly what it sets out to do. It’s big and brash, it looks lovely and pretty much anyone can pick it up and have some early success. But it’s also a prime example of the general ick that suffuses popular culture in general and mobile gaming in particular nowadays.
There’s nothing original here, nothing that will make you think in a different way or feel anything other than a vague nostalgic twang. As massive and polished as it is, it’s essentially empty. And sure, it’s an emptiness that satisfies with little dopamine hits, but when you finish a session you’ll have no memory of anything you just did. And it’s kinda weird so many people are going to be okay with that.
Graphics:
7.1
Controls:
6.9
Gameplay:
4.8
