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When Disney announced some time ago that they would be creating a new game featuring everyone’s favorite cartoon mouse, people were, in a word, excited. Later, when we learned that the game was to be handled by Warren Spector, the brilliant mind behind the Deus Ex series, many of us could barely contain our anticipation. They promised exciting platforming through a forgotten world of retro Disney characters and a morality system to rival the best of them. Now, the wait is over. But how does the game hold up in light of our expectations?
The game begins with Mickey Mouse going through his bedroom mirror and finding Yen Sid (that’s the wizard from Fantasia, if you don’t happen to be hip to all the hottest Disney trivia) painting a model of a town. Being a bit of a troublemaker, Mickey sneaks down to have a look after Yen Sid retires, only to spill paint thinner all over the model, tear the fabric of reality and somehow unleash a monster that plans to take over the model world. Mickey does what any of us would do; he runs back through the mirror to his own world and forgets all about it.
Time passes and Mickey lives on undisturbed, until one day something comes through the mirror and drags him back into the model that he destroyed, the world of Wasteland. You take control of Mickey and are immediately in trouble, having to escape from a mad doctor and his giant Swiss army knife machine before following a helpful little gremlin away and into the world proper.
The various levels in Epic Mickey are meant to be sort of strange, twisted versions of popular Disney places or rides. For example the first world seems to be loosely based on the ‘It’s a Small World’ ride, a fact that I was entirely unaware of until I reached the boss and heard a discordant version of the Small World song playing. Many of the early parts of the game are either unrecognizable as being based on existing Disney properties or just sort of bland in general, but they get more interesting as the game progresses. Some of the levels would look spectacular on a machine with just a little more power, but the limited graphical prowess of the Wii results in many places that look pretty good at best.
But the meat of the game comes from what you do in the variety of levels on offer. When you get right down to it, Epic Mickey is a platformer with some light adventure elements thrown in for good measure. The majority of your challenges involve getting from one place to another while trying not to fall into a poison river or various other environmental hazards. Using your magic paintbrush, you’ll have to use paint to create missing platforms that will allow you to continue on your way, and thinner to remove obstacles like walls and piles of rubble. Because the things that can be affected by paint and thinner look more ‘cartoonish’ than normal, you’ll never have trouble distinguishing them from solid walls and platforms. You’ll have to use both paint and thinner to get around many areas and find important things, so don’t feel bad about using thinner on a ‘good’ play though or vice versa.
On your way from place to place, you’ll encounter two major things that will work against you. The first being intentional and the second, less so. The first thing that stands in your way are the enemies. Minions of the ‘Phantom Blot’ can be anything from little goo creatures who just want to slap you around to big fat blobs that explode if you anger them or get too close. You’ll even see some some classic characters in villain form, like Sweepers, which are goo covered versions of the walking brooms from Fantasia that throw buckets of thinner at you and try to sweep you off ledges. You’ve got two options for dealing with enemies, you can either paint them enough to befriend them, or hit them with enough paint thinner to kill them off. Your choice plays a bit into the morality system of the game, and contributes to the type of Guardians (helpful little creatures made of paint or thinner that show you the way or attack enemies) you attract.
The other big thing that works against you in this game is the camera. While you can usually center the camera behind you with a tap of a button, and you can do some fine tuning with the D-Pad on the remote, you’ll frequently find times where the camera will get stuck on walls or just won’t look where you want it to. It can range from mildly frustrating, like not showing you enemies off screen (the lack of any sort of lock on system means you’ll need to baby the camera during intense fights) to completely rage inducing, when no amount of jostling will get the camera to show you a ledge that you need to jump to, resulting in many blind jumps and unfair deaths. Missing a ledge because you failed to properly execute a jump is one thing, but the amount of times that you’ll die due to having to take a leap of faith and discovering that a platform isn’t anywhere near where you thought it was might be enough to have you turning off the game in favor of other forms of entertainment.
For people who are huge Mickey Mouse fans, or just fans of retro/forgotten Disney properties in general Epic Mickey will be an entertaining, if sometimes frustrating, Wii platformer with a cool paint and thinner mechanic. People expecting a game like Deus Ex with a Disney skin will likely be a bit disappointed that the game is a fairly basic Wii platformer with a morality system that doesn’t affect a whole lot more than the end cutscene. But if you are willing to look past the camera flaws and the slow opening stages, you’ll find a fun game wrapped up in retro Disney nostalgia. And sometimes, that’s all you want.
7/10
Epic Mickey was published by Disney and is available for the Nintendo Wii. We received a review copy of this game.
Parental Guide
While the levels are intentionally a little twisted, you won’t find anything particularly offensive here. This is still a game starring Mickey Mouse, after all.
Accessibility
Unlike some Wii games, Epic Mickey doesn’t demand that you get up and move your body around, so you can certainly play the entire game while sitting. However, you’ll need at least most of your fingers to control all the different aspects of the game, and you have to use the Wii pointer to aim your paint stream, so a little bit of waggle is required.
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