The Disney Infinity 3.0 Inside Out Play Set tosses young girl Riley into a deep sleep so that the caricatures of her emotions can set off on an adventure to ensure a nightmarish image she glimpsed before nodding off doesn’t cause severe repercussions later on. It’s the first true platforming experience to materialize in any Disney Infinity Play Set, and like the other Play Sets offers a decent albeit insufficiently deep experience catered almost squarely toward a younger crowd.
Whereas the Star Wars: Twilight of the Republic Play Set emphasized combat, Inside Out encourages players to explore their surroundings for numerous collectibles, triggers, and memories required to open new areas in each level. Some of the collectibles are tucked away a little further than anything required to advance, but nothing is hidden to the point where frustration will ensue after fruitlessly looking everywhere.
Each of the emotions: Joy, Anger, Disgust, Sadness and Fear, bring a unique ability to the table that is required to pass distinct areas of select levels. Given each emotion comes in the form of a $13 figure my fear was that you would have to buy all five figures in order to beat the Play Set. That’s not all the case.
Immediately before each area that requires a special ability is a fellow and a terminal. At this terminal you can outfit yourself as any of the emotions and become that character for a limited time without owning the figure. The Play Set can easily be beaten with the Starter Pack emotions of Fear and Joy. I can’t imagine owning only two of the emotions when they look fantastic in toy form as a full group of five.
Speaking of Joy, her ability is to hover similar to how Mario hovers in his Tanooki suit. I was foolish to expect the same airtight controls in a game developed to support a movie and found myself struggling to get Joy to successfully pull off a double jump into a hover move in order to traverse giant floating Oreo cookies.
Oreos are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to some of the unusual set pieces. The various levels of Inside Out are colorfully designed and visually jump off the screen with wild imaginations that Riley has conjured up. Balloons to collect will hover and dance around, while many moving components of Riley’s thoughts and dreams like swinging flipflops give levels depth and make them feel alive.
Level presentation is a mix of 3D and traditional 2D sidescrolling gameplay. The camera is fixed for the 3D levels so there’s no spinning around to look for that one last missing collectible. This is the most obvious example of the gameplay being simplified so that younger and novice players can jump right in.
There’s an alternate version of Tetris in the hub that serves as a key to unlock new levels once the first few are beaten. It’s nothing more than an inconvenience for adults, though kids will ooh and aah at the colorful memory spheres on the screen.
If the combat in Star Wars isn’t your cup of tea or you want a less violent experience in Disney Infinity 3.0, the Inside Out Play Set is worth picking up. Each of the five emotion figures are excellently crafted as with all the Disney Infinity toys, and the gameplay is whimsical and childlike to the point where any kid should have fun with it.
The Disney Infinity 3.0 Inside Out Play Set was reviewed on PlayStation 4 using a retail copy provided by Disney Interactive. It is available as of August 30, 2015 for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and Wii U.
This review score does not include the Disney Infinity 3.0 Inside Out individually sold figures of Disgust, Sadness or Fear.
