Retrospective Review: Disney’s Epic Mickey

This is my first review of a game for Evolved Gamer.  I am not sure if this is how I am going to handle reviews in the future, this is basically a test run.  At this point the game is a few months old, I have played through it and had some time to think about the ideas and concepts of the game.

Epic Mickey is a game created by Junction Point Studios which is headed by Warren Spector.  Junction Point became part of Disney Interactive back in 2007.  Epic Mickey was released exclusively for the Nintendo Wii in November of 2010.

Story Synopsis:
Mickey awakens one night to find that the mirror in his bedroom is actually a portal.  Being curious, he goes through the portal and finds himself in the work shop of Yen Sid (from Fantasia).  Mickey observes him using a paint brush and thinner to create a model world.  After Yen Sid retires for the evening Mickey takes it upon himself to play with the brush and thinner.

Mickey accidentally spills an ink vial all over the creation then haphazardly uses some thinner to try and clean it up.  This makes a lot of noise and upon hearing hearing Yen Sid returning to see what is going on, Mickey flees back through the mirror and tries to forget all of this.

Fast forward some time later and what Mickey seems to have created is a “Phantom Blot” which decides that in order to escape its world it needs Mickey’s heart.  This is the first big problem I have with the game.  The blot can come into the “real” world to bring Mickey back into it, but it can’t get out on its own.  Hey, the script says that is what is going on so let’s just go with it.

Mickey is brought into this world called The Wasteland and with them help of a Gremlin Gus escapes the Mad Doctor and Blots plans to remove his heart.  Mickey discovers The Wasteland is the home for cartoons from Disney’s past who have been forgotten about.  The head of this group is Oswald the Rabbit.

Mickey goes on various quests to help restore The Wasteland, its characters and eventually to destroy the Phantom Blot.  I am cutting the Synopsis here as to not spoil the story development if you decide to play the game.

Gameplay mechanics:
The game uses the Wii-mote and nunchuk controls.  Using the Wii-mote for targeting where to place the Ink and Thinner and jumping.  The nunchuk is used for moving Mickey.  Pretty standard stuff for a Wii game.

Mickey is equipped with Yen Sid’s paintbrush, and using Ink and Thinner that he finds throughout the world, Mickey has the “choice” to use either for solving puzzles and defeating boss characters.  This is actually a really neat concept and I wish it had been better implemented.

Most of the quests involve platforming around the environments and using Ink or Thinner to add or remove objects, after that they are mainly fetch quests having you go back and forth between areas to get x amount of item a and returning it to NPC b for item c which you need to complete quest d.

To get from one area to another Mickey goes through “Film Reels” which are all based on various Disney shorts.  They are done in a 2D platform style and each of these has a film reel item to collect that you can use to unlock various items and bonus features.

My impressions:
Let me start off by saying while the game is rated ‘E’ for everyone, I don’t feel it is done justice for younger audiences.  This is a dark and mostly sad game.  The fun and light-heartiness you would expect from Disney is just not here.  Everything is very much doom and gloom throughout.  While mature gamers might understand this as the world Mickey is inhabiting, parents should know this up front.  While far from inappropriate (This is Disney) it just might not be what parents are expecting.

I was really disappointed when I found that the environments don’t remember what you have done to them.  For instance, the major hubs of OsTown and Mean Street.  When I first went there I spent a bunch of time repainting the area.  Later, when returning to those areas they were in the same state as when I first arrived.  This really gave the sense that what I was doing didn’t matter and was not having an impact.  

You also can only Ink and Thin the areas that the designers want you to.  So your Ink and Thinner only work on certain things and the rest of the world is impervious to it.  Logically this doesn’t make much sense.  Much like how in Red Faction you could destroy the wall all around a piece of unbreakable glass and yet that glass was still just standing there magically.  If you are going to give the powers of creation and destruction I felt they could have done a better job.  Why can I erase this one section of floor but not the other?  

The controls are good, but not great.  Same with the in-game camera.  There are times where you go to make a jump, but then the camera pans, and as the camera pans you are now changing direction due to the direction you were previously pushing.  This can lead to many missed jumps and deaths.  Also, there are a plenty of jumps that you just have to be darn near perfect, and in a E-rated game played on Normal difficulty you shouldn't have to be perfect.  I found myself a few times just walking away from the game because I couldn’t make a jump over some electrical current or to the next platform.

Some of the levels I thought were just brilliant.  I really loved Tomorrow City and Mickeyjunk Mountain.  I feel they had a great look and nostalgia to them. The levels design is good, although linear in that there is only one way to progress, and if you can’t find that specific way then you are stuck for a bit until you figure it out.

Actually that brings another point, the dusting off of old and forgotten Disney characters and environments is great.  You will see characters and places that you haven’t seen in 20+ years.  If you are a Disney buff you will really love the 2D sections of the game where you play through some of the environments from various Disney silent films.  

That also leads to something poorly done about the 2D environments.  You have to go through the same ones over and over and over.  There is no way to by-pass this.  Personally after completing one of these sections once you should have the option to skip it or play through it the next time, for instance to collect the hidden film reels in every section.  Having to spend 1 - 4 minutes multiple times really slows down the gameplay and feels tedious, not fun.

Speaking of the film reels.  Collect enough of these and turn them in on Mean Street outside the Theatre and you unlock various upgrades, like health and Ink/Thinner upgrades.  Two of the upgrades are unlocking Disney short films, which you can access from the main menu of the game.  The first is an Oswald cartoon called “Oh, What a Knight” and the other being a Mickey Mouse one called “The Mad Doctor”  These were some great unlockables and I really wish more had been included.

The game gives you the “choice” on using Ink or Thinner to solve certain puzzles and for boss battles.  This is a poorly implemented good/evil morality system.  Use Ink and you get one reward, use Thinner and you get another.  This goes for environments and boss battles.  The problem is the choices you make don’t have much impact on the rest of the game.  So what the developers seem to have done is just create a reason to play through a second time, that is to get all the unlockable artwork.  There should be a greater impact to the player, but that is something to discuss in another article.

If you are a Disney fan looking for a trip down memory lane, I think you will enjoy Epic Mickey.  If you are a parent wanting to buy this for your child, I would make sure that you play it with them as to guide them through some of the concepts of the story.