![]() ![]() That pipe blowing a heavy current you couldn’t swim through in a previous level? Head back there once you’ve found the hermit crab and you’ll be able to hunker down and fight through it. These abilities provide new challenges as the playset progresses, and grant access to new areas in old levels that house collectibles. Every so often you’ll either find a new companion creature with their own unique ability you can use, or get an upgrade of the abilities of one you already have. Trapped enemies will bounce off walls, and can break certain other enemies and structures, allowing you to progress. You start off with the ability to blow bubbles and attack with your tail, which allows you to encase enemies in a bubble and send them flying forwards. The aim of the playset’s levels is to swim around rescuing trapped fish, overcoming obstacles by using different abilities in a sort of light-Metroidvania fashion. There’s a joke here about fish out of water, gimme a sec you have to build up enough momentum and angle yourself properly. One of my favourite things is when you need to move between two separate bodies of water, and so in order to make the distance through the air. For example, instead of having to time a jump between moving platforms, you’ll need to quickly move between rotating coils while a route through them is available. Skills and challenges you normally face in platformers, like timing and positioning, are applied to new scenarios brought about by the underwater setting. They’ve got a unique spin on the idea of a platformer game as you can swim freely in 8 directions, unimpeded by gravity while underwater. The sidescroller levels are where the bulk of the game is. A fully-decorated hub is quite soothing to swim around and experience. The bay can be personalised by placing landmarks and coral in certain spots. None of these are particularly challenging, but they give you a good enough excuse to make use of the swimming mechanics and experience the beautiful locations the playset has to offer. ![]() The hub also features some side missions and the usual kinds of challenges – races, ring collection and the like. There’s also collectibles hidden around the area that you’ll need to use your different abilities to find, which will reward you with new Toy Box toys for your efforts. This area mostly serves as a place to learn and practise new mechanics as they’re introduced – each time a new ability is acquired you’ll return here, where you’ll complete a short quest that shows you how it works. You can swim around freely, exploring a bay within the Marine Life Institute from the movie. The hub area plays like an area out of the more traditional playsets. The playset is split into two distinct sections – a 3D hub that you can roam around, and 2D sidescrolling levels. The news that this playset would be a sidescrolling platformer bummed me out a bit because I thought it would end up being pedestrian and uninteresting, but it actually has some really unique and interesting aspects that make use of its underwater theming. So it’s fitting that the series ends with something the fans have been waiting a long time for. ![]() The developers have always said that these features required a lot of planning and work to pull them off in a satisfying way, and they would take all the time they needed rather than rush them out (especially given the criticisms made about the Cars characters). Throughout the series’ life, underwater characters and quadruped characters are things that have regularly been brought up as something that both the fans and developers alike have wanted to see in the games. It’s still heartbreaking that it’s all over, but there are definitely worse things the game could have been sent off with. The last ever content release for Disney Infinity. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |