Disney’s Magical Kingdoms Fun But…

Disney and Gameloft’s latest money making scheme –  I use that word in gest here! – is Disney’s Magical Kingdoms, a free-to-play game where you get to organize and build your own Magic Kingdom, complete with characters and some of your favorite Walt Disney rides and attractions. Overall, things are mostly good…when I actually get to play it.

Freemium games can have a major flaw: Certain items are 100% tied behind a paywall where there is no ability to earn premium currency. Fortunately, there are lots of ways to earn premium currency here, so if you are willing to grind it out, nothing is really out of your reach. Visually, the game is stunning for a mobile launch, and the audio is great, even mixing in a few Disney themes throughout. Yes it is a Disney game, but I never expected to hear portions of “When You Wish Upon a Star.”

This game has a major, MAJOR problem. It often just won’t work. I’m experiencing this as I write. I load the title up – which can take forever… – and play for 30 seconds before it just crashes. Rinse and repeat. I want to get into this game so badly, but this is really holding me back early on. That, and I haven’t received my bonuses yet for signing up early, but since I don’t see anyone else complaining, I won’t yet…officially.

Hopefully the bugs get ironed out soon. I really want to play this!

Update: March 31st, 2016

It appears as if the major bugs in Disney’s Magic Kingdoms have all been worked out, and everything us running really smoothly. I reiterate the beautiful graphics, the wonderful music, and the delightful game play. But, it still falls short for me and I’m not sure I will return. There is a lot going on this title, some of it is good, some of it is bad. The worst, by far, is the quest managment and character managment. As far as we can tell, there is no way to find out what your characters are doing and where they are on the map. The only characters you can quickly key in on are characters currently waiting for a task. We really hope this gets fixed.

Issue number two is, well, it’s not that fun? I correct myself: the game is fun, but the planning of the park and the placement of items is not enjoyable. THis is because the game does not work on a standard square, grid system. Weird corners and curves all over the map make designing a “clean and neat” park nearly impossible, and with so many buildings and decorations early on with very little room to place it, things only get worse.

There is still time and room for this game to improve, and we will continue to check in every so often to see what is up. For now, though, it’s not high on my free-to-play list…