This year, the powers that be at Disney Interactive made the wise decision to continue supporting their flagship. Disney Infinity 3.0 is last year’s edition of the number one toys-to-life platform. Rather than put out a 4.0 the company chose to build out this version with $30 add-ons. Lucky, lucky me: the very first of these expansions is all about Marvel.
When I say I’m lucky, I mean it. I adore Marvel Comics and (most of) its adaptations on the small and silver screens. That being said, a nagging doubt chewed at the back of my mind while I tore through the plastic and cardboard surrounding Marvel Battlegrounds. The same doubt that’s stalked me from Marvel game to Marvel game for a decade.
The House of Ideas (that is, Marvel) dominates film and television, at least financially. Since being swallowed up by Disney, however, that general level of quality has rarely translated to games. A good Marvel game is a rare thing indeed. A great Marvel game is, sadly, still theoretical.
That’s where Battlegrounds has a built-in advantage. Disney Infinity is already a fun, if perhaps overly friendly, family game. The 3.0 edition features combat designed by Devil May Cry developer Ninja Theory. As such, it’s a respectable mix of combo-based air juggling and brawling. Which is great since, as you might guess from a product with “Battlegrounds” in the name, this expansion is all about combat.
It’s all about yop-down, arena-based, multiplayer combat to be specific. If you remember Power Stone on the Sega Dreamcast (as the developers certainly did) you’re not just on the right track. You’ve pulled into the station and unloaded your luggage. If you’re not familiar, know that Battlegrounds features a whole lot of running in circles as you try to wallop opponents with fists, superpower pickups, and parts of the environment.
Players, as well as computer-controlled allies and adversaries, jump around various locales pulled almost exclusively from the Marvel movies. I punched, clawed, repulsed, soared, and unibeam’ed my way from New York to Knowhere. Exactly how I locomoted was, of course, determined by which 3-inch figure I’d summoned through the USB base. As one does in these sorts of games.
At $30, Marvel Battlegrounds is five bucks cheaper than your standard Disney Infinity playset. Even so, it featured far more to actually do once I’d roped together some fellow players and a pile of toys.
There’s a story mode, for instance. It quickly and very loosely attempts to tie the plots of Avengers and Age of Ultron into one, galaxy-trotting prelude to a cliffhanger. It seems Disney Interactive was going for a Saturday morning cartoon vibe, though they only superficially succeeded. What’s there is simply too hurried and disjointed — even for what’s essentially a children’s highlight reel. The result made me think less of a kid’s cartoon, and more of an adult’s idea of one. It’s just like the kind of unlicensed prop you’d see child actor glued to in the background of a cable drama.
But that’s (mostly) alright. The string of hand-selected matchups is clearly there to introduce the not insignificant number of mechanics at play in Battlegrounds‘ multiplayer.
The Marvel love I brought with me into Battlegrounds came with a lot of expectations. None of which included comparisons to Street Fighter V and League of Legends. But that’s exactly where the expansion’s multiplayer modes drove me. It’s also where my assumptions fell short.
Battlegrounds’ brawls likely won’t attract esports money anytime soon, but they’re more intricate than I’d anticipated. Besides the three-hit combos and ranged strikes found elsewhere in Disney Infinity, Battlegrounds has brand new charge moves, flashy finishers, and even wake-up attacks. This was likely done to balance 2.0 characters with their new, more fleshed out counterparts. That meant my entire Marvel roster was not only viable, but full of new surprises. In fact, I wasn’t even limited to my toys.
And we’re back to the League of Legends comparison. Upon entering the character select screen for Battlegrounds‘ multiplayer I saw exactly what I expected: a jumble of grayed out heroes and villains, contrasted by a full color Black Panther and Captain America. Those were the two figures I had placed on the base. Obviously they’d be the only characters available to me.
Except they weren’t. Black Widow, Ant-Man, another, less Chris Evans-y Captain America, and Ultron were all stuck in a sort of limbo. Not fully colored, but not completely monochrome, either. These were “trial characters,” which cycle out once per week. That’s enough to get a full, four-player match going. It’s also great advertising for the $14 lumps of pastel plastic, which I’m certain wasn’t lost on Disney during development.
If that weren’t enough, “trial tokens” — consumables which let you play as any Marvel character — are earned over time. You’re limited to just 20 at a time, but they’re still a friendly alternative for those without the space, money, or inclination to house a horde of Norse gods and space-faring mammals.
For some — myself included — the one glaring flaw with this sentiment is the “Marvel” modifier. This isn’t Super Smash Bros.: Disney Edition. Rey and Mickey Mouse can’t tango with Black Panther and the Hulk. No more than they can interact in any of the Disney Infinity play sets. That’s old news to those who’ve already bought into Infinity, but it’s harder to accept than ever before. Partly because this is the ongoing game’s best set yet; partly because its more open-ended nature seems ripe for blending the many brands together in one soupy mess of fan service.
A less obvious, yet more painful omission from Battlegrounds is online multiplayer. Unless you’re only interested in bot matches and the slim story, you’ll need a friend or three in close proximity. Given the game’s family demographic, that’s not likely a sticking point for everyone. It was for me, though. It’s rare for me to have friends or family over. At least ones willing to sit on the carpet and throw explosive barrels at me.
I was at least able to wrangle my younger brother into mixing it up across Wakanda and Asgard. We had a great time discovering new finishers, stage transitions, and what parts of the environment were destructible (which is a lot, as it turns out). Though it doesn’t speak well of Battlegrounds‘ longevity that half the fun is being surprised by its spectacle, the other half remains an unforeseen wealth of features and tactics.
Marvel Battlegrounds, then, feels achingly close to the total package I wanted. No online multiplayer is a bitter pill, while not being able to interact with other franchises remains Infinity‘s greatest weakness. If this were its own game I’d be able to pin at least some hope on future updates making this the Marvel game I know is possible.
But Battlegrounds is the update, and so what it offers now is all I’m ever likely to get. Happily, what is there is very good. Just maybe not truly great.
Verdict: Yes
