PROS
- Takes one of Disney’s most beloved characters and reimagines in an incredibly daring way
- Paint/Thinner mechanic adds high replay value
- Love letter to anyone who has been to Disneyland or likes old Disney
- Amazing level design with tons of secrets and ways to complete worlds
CONS
- Camera can be horribly frustrating at times
- 2D worlds while at first impressive and fun drag on when you must constantly replay them
- Combat is mostly forgettable
Epic Mickey is one of the most difficult games I’ve ever had to describe, what exactly is this game? A lot of gamers don’t seem to know so let’s take a minute to go over that before jumping into the review. Epic Mickey at first appears to be a standard third person platformer, that’s over simplifying it. Epic Mickey is part platformer, part RPG, part morality judger, a love letter to Disneyland, old Disney cartoons, and Mickey Mouse. It’s also the best Disney game ever created.
Warren Spector the mastermind behind one of the greatest RPG’s of all time Deus Ex decided to bring his love of all things Disney into game form and teamed up with Junction Point Studios to bring Epic Mickey to life. You start off as the mischievous mouse goes through a mirror in his room, the first of many throwbacks to old cartoons. On the other side Mickey observes Yen Sid, the sorcerer from “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” building a Disneylandesqe world for old characters by using a magical paintbrush and some paint thinner. Once Yen Sid leaves Mickey begins playing with the paintbrush and ends up creating an evil creature known as the Shadow Blot. Mickey retreats back to his own world before Yen Sid returns and goes on over many years to become the most popular cartoon character ever. Eventually though the Blot monster returns and grabs Mickey, dragging him into the world he ruined so long ago. This world is known as Wasteland the antitheses of Disneyland and the paint thinner Mickey spilled has turned it into a horrible place.
Never Forget the Classics
The leader of Wasteland is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney’s first iconic cartoon he created back when working for Universal Studios. After losing the rights to Oswald due to contractual obligations Disney went off and started his own studio and created Mickey Mouse, and we all know what’s happened since then. Well needless to say Oswald is somewhat jealous of Mickey for becoming the success he has, and so Mickey engages on his quest to gain Oswald’s trust and stop the Shadow Blot.
Whether or not Mickey succeeds in his goal is entirely up to the player, during the struggle that led him to this world Mickey managed to grab the magical paintbrush, which you then use to shoot paint or thinner and change the world around you. This leads to some of the cleverest gameplay I’ve ever seen in a game. Painting will restore objects and is generally considered “helpful”; thinner will destroy them and is considered “selfish”. It’s rarely that cut and dry though, choices won’t always have a clear outcome painting won’t always give you the good result. It gives multiple ways to complete your quests. An example, at one point you have to access a safe hanging above a building. You can either do a quest for a character to get the combination then paint some platforms to climb up and get to said safe, or you can simply thin the chain holding the safe and the fall to the ground breaks it open for you, crushing the quest character in the process.
Depending on how you use the paint or thinner the world and those in it will appear differently to the player. Blocks in the way, paint some platforms to get around or simply thin it out. Locked door, go on a quest to find it or simply thin the door out of existence it really depends on how you want to play.
The game at its core is a platformer, very reminiscent of Super Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie. With large meticulous levels prefect for traversal, you’ll constantly be doing quests for people and each one will affect the game later on in both major and minor ways.
Mickey Isn’t Exactly a Fighter
The paint/thinner is controlled by pointing the Wii remote at the screen and using the cursor to aim then the Z button to use thinner and B button to use paint. The controls are thankfully very well done and about as good as you’re going to with motion controls.
Painting/Thinning is also used in the combat, enemies liter the environment and it’s up to you to deal with them. How you do that is once again up to you, if you paint them enough they’ll eventually become friendly towards you and help, or you could simply destroy them with thinner. The combat while at first seeming cool and innovative quickly devolves into whacking enemies into thinner pits or simply running past them.
Boss battles on the other hand are fun, clever, and also feature iconic characters. They also have multiple ways to deal with them, and the choice of paint or thinner has a much grander effect on the games outcome than the regular enemies do. Painting is considerably more difficult than thinning but will give you the “good ending” which I’m not ashamed to say had me tearing up.
Paint Me a Picture
Every inch of this game is covered in Disney references the areas you explore mirror Disneyland. Iconic rides such as Space Mountain, the Tea Cups, and the Dumbo ride are all represented in some way throughout Wasteland. More than once I would be traversing the world and then go “Oh wow it’s ______________ I remember that!” That’s just a great feeling to get from a game.
Mean Street, the Wasteland version of Main Street, will serve as the hub world via which you will access all the other worlds such as Tortuga, Bog Easy, Tomorrow City, as well as others. A real standout world is Mickey Junk Mountain, which is a junkyard for all the stuff that came out of Mickey being a mascot for so many years. You’ll find, Mickey Mouse thermoses, lunch boxes, aerosol cans, and even a few old Super Nintendo Game cartridges. These worlds are accessed via projector screens, which transport you into a 2D cartoon world; these sections are incredibly detailed, as you’ll travel through such old cartoons as Steamboat Willy, and Mickey’s Haunted Mansion. The platforming is fun and old school; a minor gripe with these sections though is that you will be using them to get back and forth a lot so they will eventually become repetitive.
Super Frustrated Camera Rant Section
Over the course of the game the small gripes with the 2D worlds becoming slightly repetitive, and the lackluster combat I was able to overlook. The one thing I can’t brush aside though is the camera. While not the worst camera ever, it gets pretty close at times. The camera is controlled by the D-Pad on the Wii, which means you won’t be able to jump and change the camera at the same time. Sometimes the game will fix on the area you’re supposed to go to and won’t let you adjust the camera at all. It’s really a shame, in a game that gives you freedom to explore and change things at such a detailed level; not being able to see everything easily is a real disappointment. However, that is the only real serious complaint I have with this game and it’s not always a problem, and it certainly never breaks the game just annoying.
When You Wish Upon a Star
Overall Epic Mickey is a game that absolutely should not be missed, the horrible camera aside this game is truly one of a kind in a time when originality is lacking in the industry. Multiple endings will have you playing through this already lengthy game (it clocks in at about 8 hours) over and over again to see what you’ve missed. If you don’t like Mickey Mouse or you don’t like Disney then you won’t like this game, plain and simple. But if you do have a deep affection for Disney like I do then, just the atmosphere this game delivers is worth the price of admission.
