It’s hard to review a game when there’s something that some players don’t mind but others consider a problem. Disney Speedstorm is a particularly challenging course to navigate, as there are two of them.
So let’s get this out of the way first, so we don’t waste some people’s time. If you’re the type of person who won’t accept a karting game if it doesn’t run at 60fps, you should probably move on at this point, because you won’t be happy with what you’ll find here.
Likewise, if the thought of a live service game breaks your hives, we recommend that you pretend this review doesn’t exist and go straight to the next article on this page, because if you can’t agree with seasons and grinding and all that the pain you’ll leave at the starting line with this one.
Still here? Still interested? Then let’s continue. Disney Speedstorm is Gameloft’s attempt to enter the karting genre, and we mean a real attempt (its long-dead mobile games Rayman Kart and Shrek Kart were quite irreversible). The publisher is no stranger to racing games thanks to its long-running Asphalt series, but anyone who disagrees with those games should rest assured that this isn’t just Asphalt with a pair of Mickey Mouse ears on the bonnet.
The game’s handling is solid: touchy at times, but responsive with a brilliantly satisfying drift system. If we were to compare it to another karting game, we’d say it’s closest to the Sonic & Sega All-Stars / Team Sonic Racing series developed by Sega and Sumo Digital: certainly not a bad thing, as some gamers (including this writer) would put that particular series to second place in the genre after Mario Kart.
At startup you can choose from 18 characters covering eight different IP addresses. They range from the obvious (Mickey, Donald and Goofy are there, of course) to the somewhat unexpected (such as Elizabeth Swann from pirates of the CarribeanLi Shang from Mulanand Mowgli from The Jungle Book).
It’s an eclectic mix that bodes well for future updates, as Gameloft doesn’t seem willing to just play it safe and ditch the usual favorites: instead, it seems unafraid to go deep in the deep end to keep Disney happy. Case in point: By far the most unusual character to launch is Figment, the purple dragon who is one of the mascots at Disney World Epcot Center.
The most popular series on the first day is Monsters Inc., with four characters to choose from: Mike, Sulley, Randall, and Mike’s snake-haired girlfriend Celia. This isn’t because of any bizarre team favoritism, it’s because the first season of the live game service is dedicated to Monsters, Inc. and presumably that means Randall and Celia are introduced as part of it. We expect, then, that future seasons will focus on different IPs and add new characters (and, hopefully, tracks) for each one, similar to how Disney’s Dreamlight Valley adds a new batch of characters every few months.
What makes us most excited about this potential isn’t just the promise of more familiar (and forgotten) faces, but the fact that Speedstorm is making sure each character plays differently with the introduction of character classes and unique moves. Each character fits into one of four groups – Speedster, Brawler, Trickster and Defender – each of which adjusts the racer’s stats according to that racing style, but also affects the way the game is played.
A brawler runner, for example, will stun another runner if he crashes into them and can increase their boost bar faster by attacking opponents. Meanwhile, the Defender will instead gain a shield if he crashes into someone else and can increase his boost bar more quickly by racing into the opponent’s lane.
Add to this the fact that each character has their own choice of four power-ups taken from the eight available, as well as their own unique, individual power-up that they earn after leveling up a bit, and it’s no exaggeration to say that every runner really feels different, with almost every player there is sure to be a favorite that suits their play style.
The roster is interesting and the tracks are just as fun, although the number of environments at launch is a bit limited. Whether you’re racing through the castle of Beasts from Beauty and the Beastfloating through the island of Pirates of the Caribbean or entering the cinema screen and floating Steamboat Willie-inspired song, it’s clear that a lot of imagination has gone into making sure each course reflects its source material well. There are, unfortunately, only nine environments on the first day, although most of them have multiple rounds. The Hercules The circuit, for example, has eight different track layouts.
The soundtrack also deserves a special mention: it’s definitely going to be divisive, but we love how fearless it is. It’s a heavy dose of dance and electronic remixes of classic Disney themes and had us alternately nodding along to the beat and laughing out loud at how ridiculous the whole thing is. You haven’t heard anything until you’ve heard his heavy dubstep remix of The Bare Necessities. Yes really.
So it plays well, sounds brilliant and clearly a lot of care and attention has gone into the characters and songs. What’s the catch? Here we go back to the beginning of the review and those two potential untouchable points. First and foremost, at launch Disney Speedstorm is running pretty rough on the Switch. While the other console versions hit a pretty solid 60fps, the Switch port aims for 30 and really struggles to maintain that at times, especially at the start of races when there are a lot of characters on screen, power-ups activating, that sort of thing.
As a result, it’s not unplayable on the dock, but it’s certainly noticeable, and anyone used to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s virtually flawless 60 frames per second may find it hard to adjust at first to a game that feels like it’s constantly straining . These performance issues extend to the main menus, which are sometimes quite clunky while trying to keep up, and the local split-screen multiplayer, which is limited to two players on Switch, as opposed to four players on other consoles.
Racing is particularly bad on handheld, where the choppy framerate is accompanied by a level of blur that makes DOOM Eternal look like an eye test. As you can see from the handheld screens on this page, it really doesn’t look all that great, and we’d go so far as to say that if you have a Switch Lite or otherwise plan to play mostly in handheld mode, the whole thing is so poorly optimized that you should probably stop fire and see if the updates improve things. Consider this a strictly limited experience when it comes to what is acceptable.
The other major issue – and one that’s more a case of taste than tolerance – is the game’s heavy insistence on its live service model. Every element of the game is built around leveling up your characters with various collectibles and currencies earned through racing. There’s a basic starter circuit where players encounter a series of races and unlock goodies along the way (and take an hour or two to beat), and this is supported by more limited-time Season Tour events where you get a new batch of single-player races each week during the season .
However, once those are ticked off, the only thing left to play at launch are the numerous events that appear every day and last a short time. These make things change every day, but they also mainly serve to help the player earn more upgrade items and currency so they can improve their existing characters and try to unlock new ones. By the way, unlocking characters uses the Shard system used by many free-to-play mobile games, where you have to collect a certain number of character ‘shards’ before you can earn them or increase their star rank.
This is a game that could really do with a standard Mario Kart style Grand Prix mode for people who just want to race and can’t be bothered with the constant grinding and collecting. There’s a Local Freeplay mode, which lets you race single-handedly on any track with any character (even ones you haven’t unlocked, which is a two-player split-screen godsend), but there’s no incentive to do so because there’s no sense of progression.
The other major area where Disney Speedstorm can live or die, depending on your taste, is its online multiplayer. The game offers both ranked multiplayer (which seems like it could become a worrying pay-to-win over time) and ‘regulated multiplayer’ (where everyone apparently has the same map level), each with their own progression system with more things to unlock. Ranked in particular has separate unlock paths for each character, meaning a large chunk of the game’s playtime can be found there if you’re into that sort of thing.
Since the game’s launch, we’ve been able to find online races pretty quickly in both ranked and regulated mode, mostly thanks to the fact that Speedstorm is cross-play meaning players from other consoles are included. Of course, though, performance issues and handheld blur mean you’ll still be at a disadvantage when playing against some others (we also played the Xbox Series X version and it runs at a solid 60 frames per second, which makes handling more responsive).
That said, fair play to Gameloft for at least ensuring full feature parity (split-screen multiplayer aside), which means that while the Switch can sometimes struggle to make things run smoothly – and that’s a real mess on a handheld – the development team didn’t Don’t just drop some mods and give Nintendo players less of an experience in terms of options.