Epic Mickey Review
The publisher of Epic Mickey, Disney Interactive Studios, went defunct in 2016 for good reason. Their video game output had never been that impressive and arguably never remarkable. I’ve only played a few (see Infinity and Cars Mater-Nation) but they usually had nothing to show for other than utilizing Disney’s staggering iconography as the main attraction for their batch of undercooked games. It is for this reason Epic Mickey also doesn’t stand out from their output, but the opposite could just as easily be said because of its original concept and bleak tone in contrast to Disney’s usual lightheartedness and self-derivative storylines.
Epic Mickey, however, fails to remotely accomplish anything impressive beyond its bleakness and interactive painting and thinning concept. Early on, it felt like the game was going to be nothing more than a bland and uninspired 3D platformer, and the unfortunate part is that it is and remains so for the entirety of the game. It is disheartening to see Warren Spector — a supposedly well-revered game designer — take the directorial and creative reins on a project that couldn’t be any more dull and lacking in creativity.
The problematic aura of Epic Mickey’s texture is felt immediately as the player takes control of the eponymous mouse. What starts off as a pretty decent introduction of learning the controls and getting a feel for how Mickey moves about quickly turns into an overly spacious and repetitively dry 3D platformer. The introduction is put to good use by presenting the player with a corridor meant for a show-don’t-tell display of using paint (which makes structures appear and turns enemies friendly) and thinner (which makes structures disappear and disintegrates enemies). It is a fairly well-designed intro that unfortunately gets squandered by short-term memory loss levels of subsequently repeated instructions.
The paint and thinner relationship is clearly intended as the core source of fun in Epic Mickey. Yet if that’s so, then it was rarely built upon in any interesting or clever ways. Any tangible semblance of a witty puzzle or challenging obstacle is as good as absent. There are only fleeting moments where the painting and thinning is utilized effectively and most of the time it was when I ventured off to fetch a side collectible.
There is one particularly good obstacle I can mention by name: gears with attached platforms. Painting the gears send them into rotation and using thinner at the right time stops the gear hence the platform being ideally flat or upright as a result of too early or too late of timing. This is the only obstacle I can remember because it seems to be the only one with any thoughtful effort put into it. Everything else just needs to be painted or thinned out.
Even without considering the painting and thinning, the platformer aspects of Epic Mickey are still insipid and monotonous. There is not much beyond some pretty basic point A to point B gameplay in which the game shows you where you have to go anyway because of the cliché camera presentations before you start the level. It doesn’t help that like many other 3D platformers (even Nintendo has been guilty of this), this game’s camera can be a detriment just as much as a helpful tool, especially when you consider the fact the player often has to control both the aim of the paintbrush with the Wii remote and the camera simultaneously.
Epic Mickey is not all just platforming, however. There is an awkwardly implemented mix of a sidequest-filled open world which feels more like an imitative MMO than anything, and it’s hard to ignore this because there are plenty of these worthless sidequests. This makes it feel as though Epic Mickey doesn’t know what type of game it wants to be, with platforming levels transitioning up against these momentum-killing open world/MMO aspects.
Combat is of course a total mess, but isn’t always bad depending on the type of enemy. There is a decent variety with some being easier to defeat than others, so they’re really not at all that bad. There’s really only one terribly designed enemy — where you have to thin out his steel armor and then hit it with a spin attack from behind. It’s a neat enemy that works on paper, but the problem is that the devs sabotaged it by giving it too quick of a recovery with the most unforgiving hitbox, so it’s a pain trying to successfully defeat it without taking some damage.
To transition from level to level, Mickey must jump through projector screens where the player is then required to complete a brief 2.5D platformer stage. It is unfortunate that these 2D stages are oftentimes inherently more fun than their 3D counterparts even without the ability to paint. Although the 2D stages aren’t spectacular either and are often just as empty as the 3D stages, they seem to self-affirm how banal the main game really is.
Epic Mickey further proves that Disney Interactive Studios should have just abstained from the gaming industry. Their games were nothing more than derivative products with familiar faces on the cover. Epic Mickey is exactly that: unoriginal, uninspired, generally lacks any genuine treachery, and ironically couldn’t be any less epic.
3/10
