Round 3: Maleficent versus Hiro
Above: Maleficent pursues Hiro, who has inexplicably chosen to escape on a Tron cycle instead of using his way-cool nanobots.
Maleficent’s abilities are nicely related to the evil-witch movie. While this character is no Angelina Jolie, she can summon a raven, raise a thorny wall that blocks your enemies, and heal while blocking with a nifty green smoke that looks too evil to be feeding the girls-as-healers stereotype. Her normal attacks include fireballs and a lovely green-fire explosion.
Her look and normal animation are plain and generic, but she’s hilarious when paired with other characters. Have Tinkerbell pick her up her and fly her around, for example, and suddenly you have a sweetness-and-death combo that’s hard to resist. (She can’t fly on her own.)
But Hiro is tough, tough competition. The boy from the Big Hero 6 movie has his trademark swarms of nanobots here, and forms them into fun shapes for riding on, smacking people down, and punching his enemies into the air. He reminds me a little of Groot (from Guardians of the Galaxy) in the original Marvel playsets for the game: Maybe not someone you’d have chosen first to play on the basis of his character, but oh boy will you keep playing him for the fun of it.
Advantage: This one’s a draw.
Round 4: Original Marvel playset women versus Disney Originals
Above: Black Widow, kicking butt and getting to be part of the plot.
Sadly, this isn’t much of a contest.
The bad news is that these new Originals characters don’t come with play sets, so they can’t participate in storylines. Instead, you have to use them in the Toy Box and its mini-games. In that sense, Black Widow and Gamora are your best bets, because they fit in with the existing Marvel-themed playsets and their campaigns. You can’t play any of the Originals figures as crossovers in those tales.
The Marvel women are better-animated for their normal moves, and some of their special moves are as interesting as the Originals’. Black Widow in particular gets invisibility, dual-wielded pistols, and and electrical attack that chains among nearby enemies. With the inclusion of story mode, she’s easily my favorite Disney Infinity 2.0 woman to play. Gamora is more ordinary; she can lift big things, shoot better, and dash. Neither can fly.
If you could play the Originals outside the Toy Box, Tink and Maleficent would beat Gamora handily. But alas….
Advantage: Marvel
Above: The Toy Box Starter Pack comes with the game, a platform for your figures, two figures and two power discs.
The new Disney Infinity 2.0 Originals figures don’t offer the chance to get women in on the Marvel story action, but if you’re past the stories and busy building cities in your Toy Box, these figures offer a great opportunity to brawl with (if very, very thin) female role models.
You can buy them as part of a Toy Box Starter Pack, which includes the game, the base for the figures to stand on, two power discs, and Merida+Stitch for $60; or separately for about $13 each. The game runs on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Wii U, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, and iOS.
GamesBeat received Disney Originals figures from the publisher for this story.