YMMV / Disney Magic Kingdoms

• Base-Breaking Character: Angel. Some DMK fans did not like her inclusion because she is not from the original Lilo & Stitch film, but others did because they're fans of the character^note Angel is actually one of the most popular characters of her franchise and broke out as one of the franchise's major characters as a result of her popularity as well as the franchise's sequel material. Then there are those who didn't care for her inclusion but took it as a hopeful sign that Gameloft will add characters and other elements from Disney Television Animation shows to the game in future updates, such as DuckTales characters (which they did in a 2019 update, later joined by Webby Vanderquack in a 2022 update) and TV show costumes for Baloo (his TaleSpin pilot outfit) and Chip 'n Dale (their Rescue Rangers outfits).
• Broken Base:
  • The Lilo & Stitch update got flak from Disney Animated Canon purists and original-film-only fans for incorporating elements from Lilo & Stitch: The Series.^note Never mind the fact that Lilo & Stitch: The Series notably received a Shout-Out in Big Hero 6, albeit with a different experiment. Likewise, fans of the franchise were delighted that Gameloft decided to incorporate direct references to The Series instead of just sticking to the original film like in most other Disney crossover works. In fact, some of the L&S fanbase who never played the game before started playing it as a result.
  • Similarly, many Disney Animated Canon purists are not happy about the increasing amounts of Star Wars content being brought into the game as opposed to content based on older Disney films.
  • The addition of a character limit to the game has become this. For those who have progressed really far in the game, especially in regards to the amount of characters that they have, the change has felt both restricting and unnecessary, the latter more so, given the fact 12-hour long missions or longer can result in way more currency being earned than storing their characters outside the park. The players who haven't gotten far or just have a low number of characters believe it to be a good thing as they consider that trying to manage over two hundred characters would either be impossible or too demanding of a task.
• Good Bad Bugs: Occasionally, the game may glitch in a way where once you start up the game, all the activities you assigned your characters will finish instantly and your rewards will be automatically collected throughout your entire game session. This allows you to accumulate lots of magic, experience, and tokens in a short amount of time as long as you don't exit the game or the game itself doesn't crash and close automatically.^note It's best that you also turn off your device's Internet access if this happens, lest Gameloft takes away your progress.
• I Am Not Shazam: Elastigirl was previously named "Mrs. Incredible" (which is her alternate marketing name) in the game. Her original name was restored in the May 2018 update in time for Incredibles 2.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The Pirates of the Caribbean characters only went up to level six and didn't have a lot of activities or quests as a result. After the release of version 3.2.0, as not only did they get their max levels raised to ten, but also Hector Barbossa, Tia Dalma, Davy Jones, and a whole new land were added to the game.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Land, or more specifically the lack of land. Expect players to complain if an update does not add more available land to the game yet adds more attractions.
  • Saving up your magic, which could take several months before you have enough to buy something at least one million.
  • Trying to keep your happiness up, which decreases as you don't come back. And it got worse when the "Happiness Update" greatly increased the decay rate, much to the anger of the fanbase.
  • The tower challenge events, and the refresh tokens in order to keep your characters "energized" in order to participate. Also the points needed to win the chapter increase per chapter.
  • Rarer tokens not dropping from character tasks, particularly from long tasks and especially during events.
  • The generally low odds of getting a character from a Legendary chest, or an attraction from an Attraction Enchantment chest. While buying a six-pack of Legendary chests for real money guarantees one drop from the Epic or Legendary tiers, those tiers can also include other things like concessions and decorations. This is made even worse with chest exclusive The Haunted Mansion characters whose chests tend to only be purchasable from mid to late October/early November.
  • The Arbitrary Headcount Limit as of update 5.4.0, which cuts down the number of characters to be present to 75 (later 100) at a time. This was done to make room for new plots of land.
  • Certain leaderboard prizes such as certain new concessions or attractions that were unattainable otherwise being restricted to the player in the Top 1 spot instead of, say, the top 50 players or being a milestone prize. While such content tends to return to the game months later one way or another, that restriction coupled with the ability to speed up timers with premium currency tends to cause wars between players over the top spot.
• That One Level: Unlocking Legendary-tier characters (such as Lady, Michael Darling, or Meeko) is an absolute pain whenever they come up in the Kingdom Story or during events. Legendary characters have ludicrously rare items that almost never drop, often share their tasks with other, more common items for other characters, and require ludicrous amounts of magic that will only come from months of grinding. Good luck getting some of the items to drop without specific limited event characters!
• Unexpected Character: Given the sheer number of characters available in-game, it's no surprise that some of them are very obscure or unexpected.
  • Angel surprised many players when she was among the Lilo & Stitch characters who were added to Disney Magic Kingdoms. This is notable considering that she is not from the original film, becoming the first character from a television series to be added to the game.^note Her addition has had a lasting impact to Lilo & Stitch's appearances in Disney's crossover games since. Previously, only Japanese-developed games such as Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep and Disney Tsum Tsum incorporated elements from the sequel material of the franchise, while Western-developed games stuck to the original film (only Kinect: Disneyland Adventures added a subtle reference to Lilo & Stitch: The Series through Stitch saying, "Aloha, cousin!"). Since the "A Stitch-y Situation" event in Disney Magic Kingdoms, Angel has been added to Disney Getaway Blast, Disney Heroes: Battle Mode, Disney Emoji Blitz (the last of which also added three other experiments as cameos), and Disney Speedstorm, while Disney Sorcerer's Arena has Zap (X-603) as a spell and includes references to Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch, Stitch! The Movie, and Lilo & Stitch: The Series in the names of the three playable Lilo & Stitch characters' abilities.
  • Yokai from Big Hero 6 being available was just as, if not more, surprising. Especially considering he's way more ominous than your typical Disney villain.
  • No one expected anyone from the Star Wars franchise to appear, considering the loads of red tape involved with adding Disney owned characters outside of the Disney Animated Canon and Pixar to a licensed video game like this.
  • While The Princess and the Frog content is not that unexpected, seeing Tiana's mother Eudora, of all the things, can come of as surprising to many people considering that she's a fairly obscure character.
  • Gorb from Ralph Breaks the Internet was a very out-there inclusion, given he was a minor character.
  • The 2022 Mulan update brought in two new characters. While Shan Yu was an obvious choice, Mulan's horse Khan came out of nowhere.
  • Webby Vanderquack was a surprising pick, given that she debuted in an animated series first (being only the second character after Angel to do so) and lacked the previous history that Scrooge or the triplets have.
  • The January 2024 update brings in three left-field picks:
    • Sir Ector from The Sword in the Stone wasn't a particularly popular character to begin with, so it's surprising that he got in before Archimedes or Madam Mim.
    • Marshmallow, a minor character who primarily acted as an obstacle for the heroes to fight in his home movie.
    • Prince Achmed from Aladdin was extremely unexpected, given he was an extremely minor character who only appeared for around one minute and was a Hate Sink who was intentionally designed to be hated by the audience.
  • Update 80 is confirmed to bring in Ice Age characters. This caught the fanbase by surprise, as most of the characters had come from Disney, Pixar, or Star Wars, and Fox characters were previously thought to be off the table. And while Manny, Sid, and Diego were obvious inclusions, Scrat was a pleasant surprise (as his absence from the Buck Wild movie led some to believe he had been Exiled from Continuity outright), and Baby Scrat debuted extremely late in the franchise's run (being the only character in the collection not to come from the first movie).

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