Disney Epic Mickey review

We can think of fewer talking points in gaming last year than what happened when a series of concept sketches showing diseased, bio-mechanical, post-apocalyptic versions of various Disney characters and theme park attractions were leaked. Little could we ever have suspected that Mr. Deus Ex himself, Warren Spector, would be working on a Disney-themed game that promised to depart wholesale from Disney’s squeaky-clean image. It’s fair to say that we were chomping at the proverbial bit to get our hands on the game and find out if such a daring and controversial idea would ever be realised. So now that the game’s actually out, were those early sketches just a dream, a wish that our hearts made?

Cleverly, the story focuses on the long-forgotten Disney characters, films and even rides that have appeared since the company started making animated shorts. A wizard known as Yen Sid (the sorcerer from the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” short seen in Fantasia) has constructed a special realm for those discarded characters, chief among them Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Disney’s first official mascot. One fateful night, Mickey Mouse (now sporting a very retro look) stumbles upon the workshop, and while playing about with Yen Sid’s magical paintbrush he accidentally creates a creature known as the Phantom Blot, and in trying to fight it off he inadvertently drowns the special realm in paint thinner.

Decades later, his transgression forgotten, Mickey is suddenly pulled into the realm – now a ravaged Wasteland, a nightmare version of Disneyland - by the Phantom Blot. Now armed with Yen Sid’s magic paintbrush, Mickey must find a way to save the Wasteland from the Phantom Blot if he’s to have a chance of getting home. Complicating matters is Oswald, who has grown insanely jealous of Mickey’s success and would like nothing better than to see the mouse fail.

The paintbrush is the source of the central gimmick to the game. Aiming with the pointer and pressing a button will result in a stream of either paint or thinner being shot out of it. Paint can be used to restore the environment while thinner destroys it. It’s an interesting idea; you can restore platforms and various mechanisms using paint or use thinner to destroy parts of the environment and find alternate routes. This same idea extends to the combat, as the Blotlings Mickey faces can be either destroyed outright with thinner or brainwashed into fighting on your side using paint.

However, there are several problems with how the paintbrush works. First, the range of the paintbrush is deceptively short, and actually firing the brush where you intended to aim can be a complete nightmare thanks to some very dodgy hit-detection; there was more than one occasion where we swore we were aiming dead-on only for our shots to go straight past our target. Often we found ourselves randomly spraying and praying that we would hit our intended target. Also only certain parts of the environment can be affected, and it’s often hard to tell what can and can’t be interacted with (a faint ghostly outline is the only clue). The most irritating thing, however, is that even if you fully paint or thin an area but have to leave for any reason (say you died or just had to go back to a previous area) everything is reset, rendering the idea of affecting the environment almost entirely pointless. Obsessive-compulsive types like ourselves should keep that in mind.

What’s ultimately more interesting is that the whole paint/thinner split actually ties into an ongoing morality mechanic, where how you tackle situations and complete the various side-quests available has an impact on events in the story. It’s easy to take the quick options like giving the wrong item to an NPC or just not bothering to find them at all, as well as destroying enemies and objects with reckless abandon. On the other hand, taking the time to restore objects and generally be a helpful type will lead to gaining more respect from the denizens of Wasteland and more quests opening up. This even extends to the various boss battles; depending on your tactics and how you handled certain situations earlier, some battles can even be avoided entirely. The “right” choice is usually pretty obvious, but on the whole it’s the most interesting idea this game has.

This all ties in, however, with what is really an incredibly generic platformer. To be fair the Mario games have set an impossibly high standard in this regard, and while Epic Mickey’s platforming mechanics are nothing spectacular they do the job. However the physics feel off, such as the range of jumps and the consistency in when Mickey grabs ledges. The biggest problem is the camera, which is embarrassingly wretched, often getting stuck on objects and apparently determined to give you the worst possible view of the action and making what would otherwise be competent-if-generic platforming into an almost unbearable chore. Most of the time will be spend futilely wrestling it into a manageable position with the D-pad, and on the whole it’s one of the worst cameras we’ve come across since the N64 Castlevania games.

In-between each main stage is a brief 2D platforming section, based on a classic Mickey Mouse short such as Steamboat Willy, Clock Cleaners and The Lonesome Ghosts. Some are even based around Oswald shorts such as Oh, What a Knight and Trolley Troubles. They reminded us in many ways of the old Megadrive platformer Mickey Mania, and aesthetically and mechanically these levels are the most interesting ones. However, all of them are very short and the layouts are very simplistic, reminding us somewhat of the poorer custom stages of LittleBigPlanet, and again the physics feel wrong somehow. These sections really could have stood to have been developed further (and the necessity of traversing some of them multiple times just to get to areas we’d already visited should have been removed completely), but as it was all they did was make us wish we were playing games like World of Illusion and The Magical Quest again.

As you’ve probably guessed there are plenty of reasons to dismiss the game, but there are just as many reasons to stick with it. The presentation is absolutely enchanting, with some wonderfully quirky cut-scenes which tell the superbly-crafted story well, expertly implementing forgotten characters such as Oswald, Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar (as well as more familiar faces such as Donald, Daisy and Goofy). While the visuals never match the same level of nightmare fuel that the early concept sketches showed, the game does still contain some of the most haunting yet beautiful visuals we have associated with a Disney product for a long time. Recognisable rides and attractions can be seen disfigured and now existing as disturbing imitations of the real-life counterparts. The eeriest moment comes when you reach Mickeyjunk Mountain, a place literally constructed out of decades of Mickey memorabilia such as old comics, phones, badges, cuddly toys and even old copies of Mickey Mousecapades and The Magical Quest. It’s a chilling insight into the depths of Oswald’s obsession with Mickey, and the game is full of tiny details that are an absolute treat for Disney fans to discover.

In many ways, that’s why we feel terrible about beating on this game so much, as it’s clear that the developers had a ton of fun going through the Disney archives and picking out such delightful Easter eggs. The story, presentation and immaculate attention to detail are clearly the result of a labour of love. Sadly, reality soon sets in, and while the paint/thinner mechanic and the morality system are genuinely good ideas the lack of interaction, the shallow combat and the atrocious excuse for a camera that ruin what would otherwise be competent-if-generic platforming are likely to put off many gamers without them experiencing the full extent of the game’s story and universe. This game has so much going for it, but the crippling problems make it hard to recommend as more than a rental.