So where do I begin?
I’ll try to keep this review from becoming too rambly, but in a nutshell, I really like this game. The graphics and animations are spectacular, there are all these little locations in each area that are so small but add life to the game (like the mini kitchen in the boardwalk, or the challenge of climbing up the waterfall and cruising down the lazy river in the cove). The quests are amazing and super fun (they’re voice acted and everything!!) and the clothing creator is great too!! So clearly, I’m biased towards this app. (A small nitpick I have is that their latest update 1.2 was just released yesterday (4/12/17) and has a good sprinkling of weird bugs here and there—most likely within the next few days the major kinks will be worked out in a patch.)
CPI does have its downsides. The biggest (and most obvious) problem is the membership vs nonmember gap. As we know, Disney has a history of putting quite a gap between paying and non-paying players of their (past) games, giving nonmembers hardly anything to do other than walk around and talk to other people. CPI does this as well, but you know that things are different when the “free” items you were given from preregistering your penguin on CP, or given as part of your welcome kit (things like clothes, jackhammers, and other items) were locked from your use without a membership… (This isn’t mentioning the smallest items that are now members only.) For instance, CPI has these cool ziplines that can get you from one side of an area to another quickly. Guess who can’t even use that.)
I think Disney is changing membership strategies for CPI. Make everything worthwhile—everything—require a membership, and then make that membership cost $5-6 dollars a month. (I say $5-6 because I think the fact that I have two CPI accounts on one iTunes account is altering prices for me, but I could be wrong.) Disney Interactive is still making $60-72 per yearly-paying player, which is still a lot. But isn’t that less than what Pixie Hollow had as yearly memberships?
So membership gaps are a big downside to CPI, but it’s also important to consider that CPI isn’t Club Penguin. It references it, sure, and tries to be its successor in spirit. But it’s clearly different in significant ways, the member/nonmember gap being one of the differences. Whenever I log on and am placed into a busy server, there’s usually multiple fans talking about how this isn’t their Club Penguin, and I agree—it’s not.
Oddly enough, I think that’s part of the reason why I like CPI so much. (Just hear me out here.) I did play Club Penguin, and according to my penguin’s age on the day of the shutdown, I’d been playing for over 6 years. That being said, I didn’t play often, and I wasn’t super attached to it either. I largely came back for the events and quests I could participate in as a nonmember, and when Pixie Hollow closed, I came back largely to try and fill in my suddenly free spare time. Now that Club Penguin is closed, I don’t miss it. I can see where the fans of CP are coming from when they say that this isn’t their home, relating that to what I experienced with Pixie Hollow, but I don’t miss CP. Another big reason why I like this game is because I am willing to pay the membership fee—at least for now—to enjoy everything the game offers (which is still a lot for having launched two weeks ago). Both of those things combined makes me personally enjoy the game.
So, at the end of the day, I really like this game. It’s fun for me, and something I like spending my free time on. But if you deeply cared about CP and don’t want to see it changed significantly, or are unable to pay the monthly membership fee, CPI will probably be a poor experience for you.
And there’s my review! A little rambly, I will admit (apparently over 600 words, wow) so... thanks if you read all the way down here!