Disneyhas done some strange things in its time, butEpic Mickeyhas to be in the top five,right next to the topless woman in The Rescuersandpretty much everything to do with Song of the South. Mickey Mouse has had some wild video game adventures before, but the wildest is the Nintendo Wii exclusive that’s set in a dark, depressing world that exclusively stars characters the House of Mouse has abandoned.
Throw in a bizarre morality system and the creator of Deus Ex at the helm, andEpic Mickey feels like a game that could have never been made. The strangest thing is that it mostly worked. The original 2010 release had its fair share of problems andnever lived up to the insurmountable hype its concept generated, although its uniquely grim world and interesting mechanics still resulted in Mickey’s wasteland journey becoming a cult classic.
Surprisingly, for a noted Disney lover (butnota Disney adult, don’t you dare), it’s a cult I’ve never been a part of. As much as I loved the infamously creepypasta-esque concept art and idea of a more mature Mickey Mousecapade, the Wii version’s sluggish gameplay and camera put me off and, much like Oswald, I left it to be forgotten to time.
A Heartfelt Exploration Of Mickey As A Character
That makes Epic Mickey Rebrushed an exciting prospect and gives me the chance to finally see the adventure through an upgraded state without the burden of motion controls and sub-HD visuals. I’m glad I waited this long, asRebrushed is the best way to experience Epic Mickey and is so much more than a fresh coat of paint, even if some of its core pillars can’t be brushed over so easily.
Epic Mickey immediately surprises with its story. Not only in the sense of how meta it is that Disney allowed a spotlight to be shone on all the things it’s tossed away over the years, but also in how well written it is and how much it delves into Mickey as a character instead of a corporate mascot. Getting to see a different, more human side to Mickey Mouse is a treat considering his more corporate usage nowadays,and it’s even more interesting seeing how his real-world rise to fame impacted the once-famous Oswaldand less-known Disney stars like Horace Horsecollar that even Mickey himself has forgotten.
Oswald and Mickey’s relationship is one of the most interesting things about Epic Mickey, with their brotherly relationship hitting hard considering Oswald’s status as a forgotten icon.
It’s an unexpectedly heartfelt tale that feels like something Disney wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot floor-washing broomstick nowadays. Epic Mickey’s sole narrative shortcoming is its morality system, which lets Mickey leave his impact on the world by either choosing to do good by painting the world and helping people or using thinner to make his life easier while ruining the lives of everyone else.
An Out-Of-Character And Pointless Morality System
This usually comes down to some cartoonishly basic choices, like whether to grab a treasure chest or send a Gremlin flying, or take the time to carefully open a safe or quickly dismantle it and drop it on someone’s head. It’s about as complex as the moral dilemmas in inFamous, but made worse considering the choices are being made by Mickey Mouse.
Another thing that holds Epic Mickey’s story back is the lack of voice acting,which Rebrushed sadly doesn’t fix. There are some killer bits of dialogue in here, and it’s a shame they’re all told through squeaks and moans.
I could rant about how out of character it is for Mickey to even have these kinds of choices and how far they go beyond the “mischievous” side of the mouse they were trying to capture, but the mechanical problems somehow outweigh all of that. I chose to play into the concept and used Thinner as much as possible and found that all it really did was skip sections of the game, preventing me from not only getting collectibles, but making me feel like a total jerk in the process.
Right up until the final moments, most of the choices feel pointless. This was true of the original game and isn’t a fault of Rebrushed’s developer Purple Lamp Studios since it would have required some major changes, but it did stand out as someone who’s properly experiencing Epic Mickey for the first time. The only decision-based highlights are scant Im-Sim-esque moments, like how completing one quest for a character makes another easier later down the line, which has Deus Ex creator and father of the genre Warren Spector all over it in the best way.
The original concept for Epic Mickey had far more interesting consequences for your actions, with Mickey’s appearance changing depending on his decisions.The infamous Scrapper Mickey concept art haunts my soul.
Rebrushed Is Still The Best Way To Play Epic Mickey
All of the above complaints could be made about the original release of Epic Mickey (albeit at a lower resolution and locked to the Wii), and while the new visuals are great, it’s the painting and platforming where Rebrushed shines. The core gameplay loop is the same combination of jumping around, collecting items, and choosing to paint or thin the environment for puzzles as the original, but how itfeelshas been significantly improved.
The biggest changes are to Mickey’s moveset, which now includes sprinting, dashing, and a butt stomp that makes getting around easier and more satisfying. The Wii original was notoriously sluggish and filled with backtracking through big areas, which isn’t a problem at all now thanks to Mickey’s now speed. These changes are the highlight of the remake, as they add a bunch of interesting movement tech that wasn’t possible before, like dashing into a jump to extend it.
Purple Lamp has also made a ton of smaller tweaks to Epic Mickey that are so necessary that I can’t believe they weren’t in the original. The list is huge, with some highlights including being able to skip projector missions, always being able to see Mickey’s position on the map, and Gus’ tutorials interrupting gameplay less often and being repeatable. Perhaps most notable of all is that the infamously awful camera has now been completely fixed, which might be worth the price of admission alone for long-term fans.
Purple Lamp developers also told me at Gamescom that they’ve changed the layout and design of the 2D sections based on classic Mickey cartoons to make them more interesting to play. They’re some of my favourite bits, so it seems to have worked.
An Epic Story Mostly Gets The Conclusion It Deserves
Even without having properly finished the original Epic Mickey, it’s clear that all of these changes work towards making Rebrushed the best possible version of the game. I can’t imagine there ever being a reason to go back to the Wii version, which is the ideal outcome for a remake, remaster, rebrush, or whatever cute name you want to use for an upgrade like this.
There are some gameplay mechanics that are still frustrating such as the overreliance on fetch quests, fairly simple puzzles, and occasional lack of direction (don’t get me started again on the choice and consequence mechanics), but everything that Rebrushed adds and changes transforms Epic Mickey from an okay platformer that’s outshone by its concept to a game that’s worthy of it. Hopefully it opens the door for a series comeback that I’d be first in line to see.
I’m not sure that anything can ever capture the lightning in a bottle that was Epic Mickey’s original concept, but Rebrushed is the closest thing we’ll ever get to that dark magic, even if one of its core pillars is something that still drags it down. If you’re a diehard fan, you’ll love all of the small changes Rebrushed makes to cut down on the grind and monotony the original suffered from, and if you’re a newcomer you’ll experience Disney’s weirdest venture at its absolute best.
