Walt Disney World Quest has great controls, and both analog and Dual Shock support make the experience its best. The “hop” feature lets you skate through some tight curves or tricky terrain, and by holding down the button you use to hop, and timing it right, each racer will powerslide and get some turbo-boost. Once you master this, you’ll be a force to reckon with.
Menu controls are a little funky, and I realized just by experimenting that you can change characters midstream and not have to create a separate game. It would be nice to have made that feature a little clearer, but this is small stuff I’m griping about, right?
The racing displays are simple and tell everything you’ll need to know. Power-up items are used with the touch of a button, and don’t take a lot of craft to execute. One nice element in the game is that projectiles like the acorn and teacup can be directed forward or backward by changing the direction of your analog stick before you fire. Some power-ups, like the rocket, have to be guided, while the “frog” power-up (the strangest by far) turns all the other players into frogs. The amount of power-ups just sitting around betray the fact that WDWQ is targeting a younger crowd, and wants to make the most of these cute effects. But it’s sometimes frustrating (and amusing at the same time) to be knocked off the track, turned into a frog, run over as a frog, hit by an acorn, and then turned into a frog again. In the end, the sheer whimsy of it all makes the trip a fun one.
Magical Racing Tour is a wonderful game, with plenty of sparkle and pizzazz. The only thing keeping it from perfection is the lack of Four-Player Mode, but if this doesn’t phase you much, consider it an A+. Disney Interactive proves once again that it has the stuff to put quality titles out for PlayStation, and if you’ve never tried Kart Racing, Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour is a great place to start.