Disney Emoji Blitz: A game review

The game board.

I have seven minutes until I get my next life in Disney’s new Emoji Blitz game, so I thought I’d start writing my review.

I have to admit it: One of my first thoughts was, “Why aren’t I collecting these emojis in the real world, like Pokemon Go, instead of sitting on my (couch) playing this game?”

“Couch” wasn’t my exact thought, but you get the idea.

That’s how much Pokemon Go already has changed the way we look at games. The rest of the gaming world won’t catch up overnight, but it seems like such a natural for Disney, the company that brought us “Move It, Shake It” dance parties at the Magic Kingdom, where you are already guaranteed to walk 10 miles a day.

Until Disney does catch up, we are left with its old-fashioned mobile games, including the newest: Emoji Blitz, released just in time for World Emoji Day (yes, this is a thing, and it’s July 17).

Emoji Blitz is more about collecting cute Disney emojis than it is about gameplay. The play is pretty basic match-3: You match the emojis in rows to earn points and collect characters and items to add to your emoji keyboard.

Truth: It feels like I’m just grinding through it to collect the emojis. I’d much rather be out in the real world searching for them.

The character emojis you can earn.

OK, be right back …

Sorry about that. I have another 8 minutes now, so here are a few bullet-point reactions:

• The emojis are adorable, but otherwise the design is very kid-centric, not like the more sophisticated designs of Disney’s Free Fall Games (Frozen, Maleficent and Cinderella).
• It aggressively pushes you to in-app purchases.
• The game play doesn’t change. You simply match emojis until your time runs out. Over and over and over again. That will keep me entertained for a while, but I’m not sure how long. My guess is that once you’ve collected the emojis you really want, you’ll be done.

Hang on for another minute …

OK, I’m back. You may have noticed you get new lives pretty quickly — every 10 minutes, compared to every 30 minutes for the Free Fall games.

You can pretty quickly accumulate some fun emojis. If I quit now, I would have Mickey and Minnie, Ariel, Goofy, Pluto and Randall (the purple chameleon from Monsters Inc.), as well as some classic clothing items and shoes, Disney foods (I’m sure I will have use for a Dole Whip icon at some point), and various random emoticons I will probably never use.

If I keep playing, I can add 27 more character emojis and dozens of other items. I’m tempted to stick it out long enough to collect all the castles.

All in all, I’d rather have spent $4.99 to get the full set of emojis. And I still think the best way to tell your story in pictures is the Disney Gif keyboard.

But at least now I have an easy way to tell Mr. Disney Diary when he’s in the …