There are many questions that many people have asked over the years and were never given answers to. “How did our species get to where it is?,” “Are we alone in the universe?,” and “Why are so many people still voting for Donald Trump?” are only three famous questions that may ever be perfectly answered in our lifetime. Yet there is one question that many people have had different answers to over the years that we might finally have an answer to. “Why did the chicken cross the road?” For many years people have pondered this question, yet I believe this question has finally been given closure. The answer? It didn’t. Mickey Mouse did.
Disney Crossy Road, created by Hipster Whale, the same company responsible for Pac-Man 256 which I’ve previously reviewed, is a spin-off of the popular mobile game Crossy Road, with one notable addition. All of the characters are from Disney (yes, shocking, I know.) The characters range from a rather wide selection of characters from the most popular Disney franchises, includingMickey Mouse & Friends (it just isn’t a major Disney crossover without them,)The Haunted Mansion, The Lion King, Toy Story, Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6, Inside Out, and Zootopia. In these franchises we have representation from basically every character in each of them that you paid attention to for at least thirty seconds in each film (or in The Haunted Mansion‘s case, amusement park ride,) so you have a lot to choose from. Although this does seem like a very small range of franchises in Disney’s history which will hopefully be expanded upon in the future. I mean, were those really the only great Disney franchises they could think of?
Alright, game devs, for your orientation I’m gonna clue you in on the history of this company. As I’m sure you all know, it all started with a mouse {blah, blah, blah} and then in 1969, The Haunted Mansion was opened and became {blah, blah, blah, blah, blah} most of the top animators expected The Lion King to fail in comparison to {blah, blah} we partnered with Pixar and made Toy Story, the first fully CGI {blah blah blah} Jackson, have you just been playing Crossy Roadthis whole time?
JACKSON: Ummm… maybe?
Pay attention or you’re being transferred to Junction Point Studios.
JACKSON: I thought they didn’t exist anymore?
Exactly.
Even some of the choices of characters within those franchises were strange to me. For example, the Haunted Mansion cast of course includes famous characters like the hitchhiking ghosts and Madame Leota (you know, that head inside a crystal ball who summons ghosts,) and also includes the old groundskeeper with the dog that appears right when you enter the graveyard jamboree (odd choice, but makes sense) a maid (…I think the movie might have had one, but the ride didn’t,) and … a spider. Not a special spider, just a normal spider. … Why?
The gameplay is mostly the same from Crossy Road. You move one space at a time on the grid and have to move as far along the road as you can before you’re squished by cars or whatever obstacles happen to be blocking the road. There is some variety depending on what world you’re in. For instance, in theToy Story world you will have to dodge bouncing balls (well, more like blocks, thanks to the voxel-based art style) that bounce on springs, adding more challenge. Also some of the coins which earn you more characters if you collect enough of them are in harder to reach places, so you can’t just only move forward and side-to-side anymore if you want to get more cool stuff.
The art design is really great looking. The characters and locations are all represented in an 8-bit voxel-based style that looks amazing. They also did a great job of making each character and object recognizable even though they are rendered completely differently than normal. Some of the characters also have some parts of how they work that make them unique, like how the Imaginary Boyfriend from Inside Out creates clones every step he takes (and can even jump on top of them!) All of the worlds in the game also look completely unique and look like they’re supposed to, all the time set to chiptune remixes of famous Disney songs.
Disney Crossy Road is fun, but not perfect. The characters and environments are great and give a lot of variety and the levels don’t just feel like Crossy Road with different characters, but the small number of franchises represented is sort of distracting. The graphics and music on the other hand are very good. I give this about a 7 out of 10.
Disney Crossy Road, created by Hipster Whale, the same company responsible for Pac-Man 256 which I’ve previously reviewed, is a spin-off of the popular mobile game Crossy Road, with one notable addition. All of the characters are from Disney (yes, shocking, I know.) The characters range from a rather wide selection of characters from the most popular Disney franchises, includingMickey Mouse & Friends (it just isn’t a major Disney crossover without them,)The Haunted Mansion, The Lion King, Toy Story, Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6, Inside Out, and Zootopia. In these franchises we have representation from basically every character in each of them that you paid attention to for at least thirty seconds in each film (or in The Haunted Mansion‘s case, amusement park ride,) so you have a lot to choose from. Although this does seem like a very small range of franchises in Disney’s history which will hopefully be expanded upon in the future. I mean, were those really the only great Disney franchises they could think of?
Alright, game devs, for your orientation I’m gonna clue you in on the history of this company. As I’m sure you all know, it all started with a mouse {blah, blah, blah} and then in 1969, The Haunted Mansion was opened and became {blah, blah, blah, blah, blah} most of the top animators expected The Lion King to fail in comparison to {blah, blah} we partnered with Pixar and made Toy Story, the first fully CGI {blah blah blah} Jackson, have you just been playing Crossy Roadthis whole time?
JACKSON: Ummm… maybe?
Pay attention or you’re being transferred to Junction Point Studios.
JACKSON: I thought they didn’t exist anymore?
Exactly.
Even some of the choices of characters within those franchises were strange to me. For example, the Haunted Mansion cast of course includes famous characters like the hitchhiking ghosts and Madame Leota (you know, that head inside a crystal ball who summons ghosts,) and also includes the old groundskeeper with the dog that appears right when you enter the graveyard jamboree (odd choice, but makes sense) a maid (…I think the movie might have had one, but the ride didn’t,) and … a spider. Not a special spider, just a normal spider. … Why?
The gameplay is mostly the same from Crossy Road. You move one space at a time on the grid and have to move as far along the road as you can before you’re squished by cars or whatever obstacles happen to be blocking the road. There is some variety depending on what world you’re in. For instance, in theToy Story world you will have to dodge bouncing balls (well, more like blocks, thanks to the voxel-based art style) that bounce on springs, adding more challenge. Also some of the coins which earn you more characters if you collect enough of them are in harder to reach places, so you can’t just only move forward and side-to-side anymore if you want to get more cool stuff.
The art design is really great looking. The characters and locations are all represented in an 8-bit voxel-based style that looks amazing. They also did a great job of making each character and object recognizable even though they are rendered completely differently than normal. Some of the characters also have some parts of how they work that make them unique, like how the Imaginary Boyfriend from Inside Out creates clones every step he takes (and can even jump on top of them!) All of the worlds in the game also look completely unique and look like they’re supposed to, all the time set to chiptune remixes of famous Disney songs.
Disney Crossy Road is fun, but not perfect. The characters and environments are great and give a lot of variety and the levels don’t just feel like Crossy Road with different characters, but the small number of franchises represented is sort of distracting. The graphics and music on the other hand are very good. I give this about a 7 out of 10.