Disney Speedstorm

Disney Speedstorm is a fundamentally good kart racer currently buried beneath so much gacha garbage and so many currencies that it almost seems like a parody of the entire free-to-play genre.

Disney Speedstorm is certainly “on a roll” with its electrifying stages and game design, but it’s certainly not “undefeated.” The confusing microtransactions pull it down and become an annoying distraction to what’s great in this kart racer. While a love for the Disney product is certainly present in Disney Speedstorm, there are a few annoying aspects of the game to be mindful of.

Disney Speedstorm is a fun game that we're glad to see has quite a bit of quality to it. There are some reservations about how well the free-to-play monetisation will work as we move forward, but looking just at the game itself, it's not a bad time. There is room for this title to become very popular, especially if the right additions are made. At the very least, this can become a fun game for friends. If you're a Disney fan, it's a good way to mash together some of your favorite old movies and battle it out on the racetrack.

Disney Speedstorm delivers solid karting action with fantastic handling and clearly spends a lot of care and attention on its characters and courses. Its performance on Switch lets it down, though, especially on handheld where it's a blurry, stuttery mess, and those not interested in the live service setup will struggle to get along with it.

Despite being drenched in familiar IP, Disney Speedstorm isn't the kind of idle kart racing shovelware older gamers grew up with. There's a clear reverence for the characters it features and their fantastical worlds, evidenced by the passion in Speedstorm's art direction and soundscape. When coupled with Gameloft's previous racing hits, the result is something that caters for casual gamers and genre die-hards alike. Just beware that whilethis virtual Disneyland-on-wheels is free, some of its main attractions come at a cost, whether spending time grinding away in queues to meet your favourite Disney mascots, or paying cash for that VIP fast-track.

Though the microtransactions create an abyss between players, Disney Speedstorm is a decent racing game. Having such illustrous, charismatic characters and their universes inserted in the races, along with the diary, weekly and thematic events, manages to hide the grinding necessary to obtain a new world a little. Besides that, it doesn't stop being an excellent free option to play with friends, be it separately or locally.

Disney Speedstorm is an arcade racing game that errs on the side of micropayments, making the advancement system too cumbersome for something that should be simpler in a game like this. Apart from this, the game is entertaining and the races are fun so if you like Mario Kart and also Disney, you will like this game, it is also free and has online multiplayer (with crossplay) and local to have a good time accompanied.

I don’t hate Disney Speedstorm, worse I just feel kinda cheated. I didn’t mind that it was a F2P game, but the fact that the founders pack doesn’t unlock everything available at launch is disappointing. Especially when you look at how much grinding has to be done to get a toon up to a receptible level for multiplayer races. I loved the tracks and the music that blasted over them but being hit over the head constantly with so many of these free to play mechanics just makes this game frustrating to play and its really a shame.

Disney Speedstorm is a solid racing game that falls victim to the free to play format, with a repetitive reward system full of loot boxes. The lack of content and slow progression make it get boring in no time.

With a potentially boundless universe of characters, worlds and more to tap into, Disney Speedstorm could conceivably provide fans of the House of Mouse with a steady diet of endless Disney themed content to get stuck into. Gorgeous to look at super satisfying to play, Disney Speedstorm's pay to win mechanics aren't sufficiently weighty to substantially detract from everything that it does right and for fans of both all things Walt Disney and kart racing, Disney Speedstorm will likely prove to be an irresistible proposition that could largely mitigate the grind of its longer term prospects.