Forgotten characters gets another chance to shine, and a new generation gets a taste on the cartoons infancy.
Without a doubt, the name fits the game. Epic Mickey is absolutely an epic experience with an adventure you don’t easily forget.
Its not just cats that looses lives for being too curious – it also happen to mice. And as Mickey you die a lot, even if you are an experienced gamer. The games UI is well built and the idea with paint and paint thinner is really nice. The story is beautyful and unique. The game is still overhyped, however. This has risen peoples expecations too high and it shines through in the other reviews I have read since the games launch.
Curiosity starts the adventure
The story starts as Mickey sneaks into the wizards workshop (we know him from one the sequences in “Fantasia”) and when the wizard withdraw to his chambers, Mickeys curiousity gets the better of him. He starts playing with the miniature town on the table. Mickey spills paint and thinner all over the town by mistake and flees in panic when the wizards comes to investigate the sounds. Mickey reckon that everything is fine and safe – right up until the moment that the Evil Splosh of Ink, made from Mickeys misdeed arrives and drags him out of bed and into the now corrupt miniature town.
As it turns out, Mickeys little accident has created a chaos, a borderline apocalyptic environment. And now he is caught in it and needs to find his way out. For that to happen, you need to find allies by completing challenges – you even have choices to make. But beware that you can fail some challenges due to choices you make. I did not get Pete’s book to the rightful owner, and gave it to the gemlins instead. That threw me into a fight with Pete – a consequence that I might have avoided. That’s all a plus in my book as it will prolong the gametime of the game as you can replay the game and experience different outcomes.
Experience the creativity and paint or thin your surroundings.
What I love the most in the game is the play with paint and thinner. Relatively early on in the game, you get the magic brush which both can add paint and thinner (default settings uses the button on the nunchuck for thinner and trigger on the wiimote for paint which works quite well). Certain elements in the world reacts to paint and thinner – if the element is thinned all the way out you can just see the edge and you have the choice to paint it back into place or leave it be. Other times use the thinner to make way or to find hidden collectables. The use of the wiimote to aim when splattering paint or thinner on walls, items and enemies os really entertaining and unique. Not to mention this games’ absolute highlight.
The controls is as expected a little crooked and weird when using the wiimote and the nunchuck which requires getting used to, especially if you are used to a standard controller. Camera angle can be wonky but got better as I got used change the controls between Mickey and the camera – however the movement is a little odd, and can be hard to even do, depending on the size of your hand. In the very first level, I had big problems with the camera angle versus big gaps I was supposed to jump which took quite a while to get used to. The challenges are quite varying and I am having so much fun with this game, I have a hard time putting it down.
The game takes you back to the cartoons infancy
When you, as Mickey, travel through the worlds you will encounter 2D levels. In these, the paint and thinner is turned off and the steering is impeccable and these levels takes me back to Mickey’s Wild Adventure – also known as Mickey Mania.
I love the depth of this game, and the fact that Junction Point collaborated with Disney to find forgotten characters for this game is amazing. Buena Vista pitched a video game to Disney in 2003 that ended up being Epic Mickey – which a few years later resulted in Disney Company buying the rights to Oswald.
While the story has a great deal of substance, it lacks on the surface with no voice acting beyond the narrator in the introducing cutscene. Would had been cool with a couple more cutscenes in the same style. The game uses an old style way of communication and story telling: yapping sounds and text on screen for what is said – younger audiences are lost here especially if you need to read the text to know where to go next. Otherwise, the audio is sublime and well defined for what is happening on screen so I won’t go too deep into this and the music gives a lovely immersion and could not have been done better.
The game delivers an entertaining and unique experience, but it does not blow every other game out of the water. It delivers a very telling story with some surprising elements and facts from the cartoons story and origin in 1920’s. I found the game to be exhilarating and the story was hard to forget once it has unfolded and you just want to see what happens next.
