Disney Infinity 2.0: Toy Box Madness

In this week's installment of "Charlie loves Disney Infinity", we will cover the one aspect of the game that should be reason alone for your purchase: the toy box. Last week, I gave a fair review to the Avengers playset. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad either. The toy box is a whole new ball game my compatriots. Tag along as I implore you to discover the magical features of this game mode.

Firstly, it is in no way comparable to the original toy box from vanilla Disney Infinity. Everything was altered in the game mode, even the controls.  It takes some getting used to if you've been playing the original up until the release of the second. That being said, every change was carefully thought of and perfectly executed. Everything I had wanted in the original has made an appearance.

The new toy box allows you to port over all your previous items and unlockables in a genius manner. By simply placing your figures and playsets, the game automatically ports them over with whatever data you left them with. In other words, if your Cpt. Barbossa was level 15, he'll retain his level and you'll get all his unlocks too. It's a wonderful system that allows you to feel that all those hours spent with your characters weren't wasted. Hypothetically, this will also allow people a chance to unlock items without having to track down playsets you don't own. Say if your friend has the Cars playset, you should be able to just borrow it and place it onto your base to get all the items unlocked for the toy box. Genius; did I say that already? Well it is. Alternatively, using the in-game currency, you may also just purchase the items you need for characters through a new option that allows for the vanilla items to be in game stock.

Secondly, there is indeed a plethora of new items that will accompany your Marvel heroes quite nicely. You get fantastic new structures like the Avenger's tower and some new vehicles to boot. Disney original items have returned alongside some brilliant new ones. The first unlocks was King louie's throne. It's a beautiful piece to drop just about anywhere in your created world. The biggest surprise was the addition of the dragon's den, an item that was an exclusive to Disney theme parks. Not having to spend the crazy amount of dough to get it in-game is a well appreciated bonus. Something entirely new however, is the concept of pre-built games to customize your unique world. They offer pre-built templates for different games that you may have played at one time or another within the playsets. Some of these include gathering, destroying or combat. It adds another layer of fun and playability to your universe. Let's face it: sometimes the construction of your world was more enjoyable than running around within it. That's never the case here. Another option that they added was the builders. You may now place builder units to randomize and create specific structures for you. For example, you may place city builders to build you a city rather than manually placing buildings until you get something you deemed a city.

In addition, they added an interior design mode. In essence, you get to build the interiors of buildings you place in the world. You can place couches, lamps, change the wallpapers and tinker with a vast amount of other editable aspects. As if you thought you spent enough time building a world, these interiors will take hours as you perfect your very own house. Similarly, the power disks make a return with brand new time wasters. I spent a solid hour running around as Drax with the Ghost Rider's Whip disk. I whipped me a mess of baddies. It's mindless, but it's fun. Something different with the power disks is that they have two new classes of disks. You have the costume change disks that if coupled with the right character, they'll change their appearance, e.g. Iron man's third movie costume. They also added team-up disks. This allows you to summon an ally to come to your aid. It requires you to fill a meter but shortly after, you can unleash Yondu or Winter Soldier to wreck havoc.

All in all, the Toy box left me with no regrets. This was clearly the focus for Disney infinity 2.0, as it should be. It's a whole lot of fun and can even be outrageous at times. Try stacking multiple layers in your world and toss in some baddies to see what happens. Maybe you just want to fly around an obstacle course or re-envision the Grand Canyon. It's all here. All the tools you could possibly need are given to you. Now go get the game and create whatever your wee heart desires!