Game #969: Disney Epic Mickey

  Well... they aimed for greatness.

 I think it's better if you can approach Disney Epic Mickey with as little knowledge as possible about the leaked concept art, because the moment it leaked... EVERYONE was enamored with this dark, gritty, depressive art design they were going for, but naturally, Disney would never green lit it. Regardless of what it could've been, Epic Mickey is still rather dark for a Mickey game, which makes it instantly enticing, even if we'll never see the game it should've been.

 The premise is quite interesting too. You play as Mickey in a very classic designs, no flesh color, just black and white skin, red trousers, yellow shoes and white buttons on his shorts. At some point in his life, he messes with a magical city a wizard was working on, accidentally dropping thinner into it, scared, he runs away, and years later his mistake comes to haunt him, literally, as he is sucked into this city, a depressing city filled with forgotten Disney characters like Oswald the Rabbit. I'm sure the more you know about classic Disney the more mileage you'll get out of it. As a neat bonus, you can unlock two classic, black and white cartoons, Mickey's 'The Mad Doctor' and Oswald's 'What a Knight'. Pretty cool!

 Epic Mickey is, for all intents an purposes, a pretty decent platforming game. Mickey can jump and perform a nigh-useless spin attack, but his main ability in the game is bestowed thanks to his brush, which he can use to shoot paint or thinner by, you guessed it, using the Wiimote. In combat, paint can charm enemies to your side, which I found boring, or you can use thinner to disintegrate them, my action of choice, but you'll also need both abilities to explore and platform around, because you can use paint to recreate platforms, walls or other objects you might need, while you can use thinner to reveal hidden areas or interact with objects by making parts disappear. It's a honestly brilliant idea. What places or zones can be painted or thinned are highlighted by either being a brighter shade of color than the environment or by a ghostly silhouette if it can be painted on. The game offers a healthy selection of puzzles and scenarios to use these abilities with, which I really appreciated.

 Tying to the paint and thinner motif, there's a morality system. What it translates to can be skin deep or can completely change how you tackle a scenario. For example, the Hook boss fight is completely different whether you decide to tackle him head on and solve his puzzle.... or go for the platforming route, jumping around the ship's masts to free a fairy and bring Pete Pan to fight Hook. The game won't change, there aren't alternate endings(Well, kinda, you get a 'where are they now' on some characters after the last stage) but I liked the idea of having different outcomes or even alternate puzzles or sections depending on how you want to tackle them. Other times nothing will change, like instances in which you must fill machines with either paint or thinner, but those were in the minority I feel. The more immediate result of your actions is whether you'll get a paint or a thinner max capacity upgrade after a boss fight. While I usually like to play as a goodie-two-shoes, I don't care all that much about Mickey, so I alternated between good guy painter Mickey and bad dude thinner Mickey to keep my upgrades even.

 There are very brief 2-D sidescrolling stages when transitioning from area to area, and they are a fun change of pace... at first. Every time you have to backtrack you'll have to replay these again, and nothing changes. Ostown is an area you'll visit more than once, so you'll play its transition stage back and forth plenty of times, which was rather lame. For example, when you visit Tortooga you go through a transition screen, but a mandatory quest requires you to either get ice cream from Mean Street or Flowers from Ostown. So now you must play the transition stage to get to Mean Street, and if you want to do the Good solution, you must now play the transition screen to Ostown. Once you get your flowers, it's the transitio stage back to Mean Street and then the transition screen back to Tortooga. Sure, they are super brief, but replaying these aren't fun when you're forced to. I really don't understand this design choice, should've let players skip them if they wanted. And if you are lazy and aren't keeping up with sidequests, which are usually very simple 'find X' affairs, you might be forced to backtrack even MORE to collect power sparks, objects that are used to gate your progress at first. I don't think I ever found myself in a position in which I had to backtrack to complete quests, but I can see how it could be annoying.

 While you have an annoying helper character that tells you what to do after you arrive to any new area, he is extra annoying at first because he pauses the game EVERY time to state the obvious. "Hey you can use paint here!"... I know. "You must hit this switch to open the door"... THANK YOU, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS. The game eases up a bit after a while, but boy did the beginning of the game feel a bit too handholdy, with the added negative of every time he had to 'help' you he paused the game. But the biggest issue is the camera. It's not horrible, but sometimes the camera will fight you as you try to move it towards were you want to see. I don't think the camera killed me more than twice throughout my 9 hours playthrough, but it's still a bit annoying.

 A bit too flawed to be a classic, but good, and little talked about, enough to be a somewhat of a hidden gem. The platforming is well done, the exploration too, it has a very interesting premise and pretty good gameplay. There are a few design choices that put a damper to the experience, but overall, I had a pleasant time with Epic Mickey. 

 7.5