izigame.me

I have too many problems with the way this game operates to recommend it to anyone, which is a shame, because under the soul-less-cash-grab that is this pay-to-play-early-access-game, there is a kart racer that can be fun and engaging.
The game has more in common with the Crash Bandicoot or Sonic racing games than Mario Kart as you stack nitro meter using smaller drifts and body checks/hops to maneuver. Item play is pretty unique as all the characters have ultimate moves (akin to Double Dash) and access to a specific load-out of class-based items (Speedster, Bruiser, Defender & Trickster). In theory these additions should add some depth to the game-play, but my time thus far has proven the opposite. Some characters are just downright better than others. Unlocks for those characters are mostly hard locked to low% loot-boxes. Other characters are locked to a battle-pass, and yes it will cost more money to get the battle pass, and will take quite a lot of racing to progress within it. All while the game is constantly dangling upgrades for your racers at the /s low cost of around $10 USD per character. So if you missed out on the first season, you now have to grind and gamble your way to the very-top-tier Monsters Inc characters.
I want to touch briefly on the single player content. There is a lot of it, however the way it's presented and given to us thus far has been shallow and repetitive. The system almost 100% mirrors that of Sonic All-star Racing Transformed where you are given a large map of single race objectives, some are time trials, some are battle races. These races could be fun if it felt like skill were involved, but ultimately the completion of a level is almost 100% of the time determined by your character level. If the character you are using is level 7 and you are trying to beat a level 10 race, no matter how long you stay in first, no matter how many characters you body-check into a wall, no matter how many ultimate items you grab, the game will rubber-band the computer racers to a position right behind you and you'll ultimately lose. But right when you get the your character to an equal or higher level, the rubber banding stops and suddenly you're *allowed* to win. It is never a good feeling to lose to BS in Mario Kart, but losing in Disney Speedstorm just makes me feel financially unstable.
It feels like a sick joke, honestly, because if there was a racing game IP that *could* stand next to Mario Kart, it would be a Disney one. But this game feels like they took everything fun and interesting about conventional kart racers and monetized it simply because they could?
Ultimately, this game feels like a gross misuse of the Disney name by a game developer that doesn't deserve the IP. Gameplay can be fun, but the lack of course diversity, the incessant rubber-banding from computers, the imbalance of ranked game-play and characters, and the monetization of *literally* every aspect of the game makes it too easy to turn off and play anything else.
EDIT AFTER ANOTHER 20 HOURS POST F2P RELEASE:
The majority of the same issues I've listed above are still present in the game unfortunately, and with the most recent update, they seem to be doubling down on the inclusion of timed "FOMO events". These timed events, again, require very high level characters to actually compete within. You can tell by the recent additions to the store that there are probably a lot of new players desperate for racer shards to up the star level of their characters within the game, making this game even more Pay-2-Win NOW, than it was, pre-F2P release. If you love Disney and have a fat wallet, go for it, - you'll love this game and all of its many ways to spend your money. Otherwise, the only thing redeemable thing about this game is how easy the QUIT TO DESKTOP button is to find.