When Disney Speedstorm was first announced, myself and a few other proud Disney adults were pretty e🌼xcited and instantly started making plans to try it out as soon as possible. We like Disney, and we like kart racers, “What could possibly go wrong?” we asked ourselves, ignoring the elephant in the room eyeing our wallets and💞 making plans to grift us for everything we’ve got.
I’ve been🀅 spending time with Speedstorm’s closed beta, which consists of a few chapters of single-player races, the ability to play online against other players, and a peek at how the free-to-play monetisation is going to work. After playing more than five hours, I’m sad to report that it’s an average racer held back by a ton of sleazy business practices.
To give credit to the one thing that Speedstorm does well - its presentation is on point. Aside from the yassified Hercules and Daddy Woody, each character looks true to form with a unique, almost wonky take on their original form that’s reminiscent of the late, great Disney Infinity. The race tracks look fantastic and instantlyཧ evoke whatever film they’re based on, whether it be Mulan, Hercules, or Beauty and the Beast.
Then there’s the music; oh boy the music. I won&rsqu🅺o;t go into too much detail, as I apparently loved it enough to write up a whole other feature on how much it slaps, but it’s incredibly catchy and surprisingly endearing with a mixture of classic melodies remixed in ways that nobody will be expecting. Sadly, it’s without a doubt the best part of Disney Speedstorm.
The racing is very arcadey and simplistic, but controls well enough and has some unique mechanics, like grind rails you can jump on and unique special items for each character, such as giving Mickey a boost trail or Mulan a fiery burst of rockets. Ironically, Speedstorm lack🍸s the speed its name promises, and feels incredible slugging, especially when drifting or not being in a constant state of boost thanks to the aforementioned items.
There’s also a complete lack of long-range items, so if you’re playing online and someone gets ahead of you, there’s almost no way to catch up to them. On the flip side, single-player matches absolutely stink of rubber-banding, with the AI either letting you win with no challenge or kicking your arse because you’re not at the right kart level. It makes racing feel compl🐷etely pointless, which is a pretty big problem for a game that revolves around it.
This brings us to Speedstorm’s biggest issue, one that features editor Eric Switzer has ꧟already done a great job at breaking down – mo🧸netization. The main reason that Speedstorm doesn’t have long-range items and includes rubber-banding in single-player seems to be so that players spend money on resour🐭ces to level up🌞 their karts and simply be faster than anyone else.
Upgrade systems, crafting, and various currencies all suck the fun out of Speedstorm, and make it very clear you’re playing a game that’s only focused on making you spend, under the guise of all of the Disney characters you love so much. Those expecting a fully-fledged version of Mario Kart with their favou💮rite mascots will be sorely underwhelmed, although it’s worth mentioning that as a closed beta, this is subject to change, however unlikely that might be.
The worst thing about how Disney Speedstorm handles its free-to-play elements is that so many games have proven nowadays that the format can work in a fair way. Live-service games like Fortnite have laid out a good formula for free-🐎to-play games that seem fair on both sides, but Speedstorm isn’t interested in following that pattern and just wants your money or for you to spend an unreasonable amount of time grinding that will turn an otherwise fun game into a tiresome chore.
Disney Speedstorm’s biggest sin, even aside from all of the treacherous monetization, is that it’s simply not very fun. After a few hours of playing and doing the same races over and over again with minimal diffe🐼rences, I’d seen enough. I was bored and had no desire to continue. Racing online against other players just highlighted the core issues I had with the racing, and continuing to do the single-player content just felt like a repetitive grind across the same areas over and over.
A free-to-play Disney kart racing game has a ton of potential and some of Speedstorm’s manages to peek through in its presenta🤡tion, maps, and music, but it’s all Sulley-d by its glacial pace and aggressive free-to-play nonsense.