Disney Infinity 3.0 – Inside Out Play Set Review

While Disney Infinity is my favorite Disney game, it’s not my favorite overall game. That accolade belongs to Little Big Planet, a side-scroller where your little sack person is fully customizable and where, like Disney Infinity 3.0, you can create and share worlds with other users online. While playing the Inside Out play set, I couldn’t help but notice how similar this game is to Little Big Planet in terms of the way the levels are laid out and the tasks you have to complete.

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Unlike other play sets, Inside Out doesn’t allow you to change your camera angles. Depending on where you are, the camera moves itself to your side, behind you, or above you. This game also doesn’t feature one big world in which you have free reign. Instead, you go through actual levels with the goal of getting from the starting point to the ending point. Along the way, you are working to pop every balloon you can find, collect five missing pages of Riley’s manuals, and find missing light bulbs from Headquarters. The forced camera angles also makes playing with more than one player frustrating because this game doesn’t split the screen. If one character gets too far behind, they are placed in a bubble to catch up. True teamwork needs to be exercised in order to not get mad at your co-op player.

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The premise of the game is that Riley is having a nightmare, so the emotions travel through different levels of Imaginationland to stop her bad dreams. The play set comes with Joy and Anger, but it’s necessary to purchase Sadness, Disgust and Fear (an amazon.com exclusive) if you want to get everything in the game. The reason is that each emotion has a special ability. To get through each level, there are “costume changers” that allow you to temporarily become any of the emotions, but hidden items like the missing pages and light bulbs are often in places where you can’t switch characters. Joy can momentarily hover, Disgust can jump high off of clouds, Sadness can stay on clouds without falling through, Anger can walk across lava without getting injured and Fear is the fastest emotion. You also have to play a bubble-popping game to unlock all of the levels.

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If you’re buying this game for your kids, rest assured that they will be able to get through the levels without too much assistance from you. But be warned, if they become obsessed with popping every balloon, collecting every page and getting each light bulb, this can be quite challenging and time consuming. This quick game can easily become a 15+ hour endeavor if you’re trying to find everything.

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Overall I really enjoyed the Inside Out play set. It’s great to see the developers literally step outside the box of what Disney Infinity was originally created for to offer a different type of experience. There are some improvements that I hope will be made if they attempt future games like this (split screens and camera controls would be fantastic), but it didn’t hinder the fun that’s to be had inside Riley’s mind.

For more Disney Infinity 3.0 coverage, check out our other articles:

Toy Box Review

Star Wars: Rise Against the Empire Play Set Review

Disney Figures Review

Alex Reif
Alex joined the Laughing Place team in 2014 and has been a lifelong Disney fan. His main beats for LP are Disney-branded movies, TV shows, books, music and toys. He recently became a member of the Television Critics Association (TCA).