Disney Crossing…

One of the most seemingly random announcements of a recentish Nintendo direct was for a Switch port of an older Disney game originally released on the 3DS, Disney Magical World 2 (also for a pretty high price of $50). Granted, we get ports of lots of games for many systems seemingly no one really asked for but it’s the highlighting of this in a Nintendo Direct that seemed bizarre.

Granted, 2021 hasn’t been the best year for the console in terms of exclusive software but if this was in a half-second of a sizzle reel I don’t know that anyone would have given it a second thought really, but Nintendo chose to highlight this game in a Direct that means there must be something to it right?

At this point, I’m only a couple of hours in on Disney Magical World 2: Enchanted Edition, but aside from just basically being what if Animal Crossing but with Disney characters peppered in, there’s not anything that stands out here. It’s definitely a more guided experience. You can decorate your house, run a cafe, make new outfits, fight ghosts in various quick dungeons, fish, etc. And also just kinda hang out and have a Tangled-themed party with various Disney characters if you so choose for example. You earn stickers by doing these various things and the stickers allow you access to new places, recipes, blueprints, etc. Again, a little more structured and guided than Animal Crossing but it’s a lot of the same kind of stuff.

And it all works fine and I actually to some extent might prefer the structure of Disney Magical World 2: Enchanted Edition over Animal Crossing, there are easily identifiable goals to reach with the stickers and achieving them instead of the kind of vague freedom in Nintendo’s popular life sim though it definitely seems at most this game might entertain you or your kids for maybe a month and then they’d just run out of things to do as opposed to Animal Crossing which people are still playing with new things to do.

One other minor complaint I have is that the controls seem a little complex in some situations, especially for a game definitely aimed at the younger set. For example, you are heavily encouraged to take photos (screenshots) quite often, and this usually involves doing an activity, holding the screenshot button, and pressing a third button to take a photo, occasionally trying to do a pose as well. It seems like a lot when so many games have way more competent photo modes that offer way more options but also there are other activities that often ask you to use multiple buttons when other games have had this context-sensitive stuff figured out for years now.

But honestly, the biggest flaw that is incredibly clear when it comes to comparing Disney Magical World 2: Enchanted Edition to Animal Crossing is personality. Simply put, Disney Magical World 2: Enchanted Edition is pretty lacking in that department. The world and characters of Animal Crossing have always been bursting with personality from the very first game in the series, it’s one of the biggest selling points.

And it’s not like Disney characters don’t have personality, these are some of the most popular and enduring characters in entertainment, but Disney Magical World 2: Enchanted Edition doesn’t make much effort to bring that aspect of the characters to the game, they are simply kind of just there. Donald Duck isn’t a foul-tempered fowl, he’s a doormat for Uncle Scrooge, Stitch isn’t a nearly homicidal alien experiment, he’s a rascal that draws graffiti because… reasons?

This is all to say that Disney Magical World 2: Enchanted Edition for Nintendo Switch is an oddity that doesn’t serve a whole lot of purpose. It’s Animal Crossing, but not as good (though certainly not bad) and not a whole lot cheaper so I could only recommend it for very young diehard Disney fans, and even then parents should probably wait for the price to drop. I do intend to keep playing it as it’s kind of a dead time for releases now and in the near future so I may write about it again if warranted but with many other better options of the same kind of games (many cheaper) on the Switch alone it’s hard to recommend right now.

That’s all for today, but I definitely have some ideas on some stuff for this weekend so expect a new post Saturday or Sunday and see ya real soon!