You may want to thin this game out...
This is a game about one of the most beloved cartoon characters in the world whom I adore. When I first heard, about a year ago, that this game was coming I almost screamed of joy. I have previously played a lot of old school Mickey Mouse games, most of them on the Sega Genesis and Playstation 2 (Kingdom Hearts and such) so it was no surprise that I was looking forward to playing this.
Just looking at the trailer made me want it even more.
A world of forgotten Disney characters whose faith rests in Mickeys hands, how can this game possibly be bad.
Well... It's NOT bad... but it's certainly NOT epic!
Let's start with all the positive notes:
Firstly, the story is fantastic! Mickey gets sucked in into a world of forgotten Disney characters and based on his actions that world changes for better or worse. It's great to see some old Disney Characters and also meet those you never heard of, especially Oswald the Rabbit! I actually knew, most of the forgotten characters and was really overjoyed to see some of them, like Ol'Pete, Horace and Smee from Peter Pan (I didn't know he was forgotten). Even my grandfather was happy to see Oswald the rabbit saying how he used to watch his cartoons when he was my age!
The controls work nicely! The Nunchuck analog stick is used to move Mickey around, the B and Z buttons are used for your brush techniques, the A button is for jumping and the Wiimote pointer is used for aiming. You can also swing the Wiimote to hit enemies or break down objects just like in Mario Galaxy.
Overall the controls work well.
Thinner and Paint are phenomenal additions to this game which really make this game one of a kind!
OK, so that's it with all the positive notes! Time for the negative notes, and there are a lot of them:
Firstly, my "favorite one", the brightness in the game. You may think that I am crazy for mentioning this (and you probably are right :P) but this game is way too dark, and I don't mean the kind of dark like a dark story, I mean literally dark that you can't see a thing. On one of the levels I had to raise my televisions brightness to the maximum just so I could make out Mickey, it's ridiculous, how am I supposed to play a game if I can't even see anything! A lot of old games had that issue but nowadays I don't think such a thing should be tolerated!
Moving on...
The gameplay is a little boring! Why? Well, Mostly because I don't know the real genre of the game! It's sort of a dark, kids, adventure, rpg, treasure hunting -ish game! You go around you, you jump really high, you buy things, you fight things, you do good and evil stuff. Seriously! In my humble opinion this game can't decide what it is. I expected one of those games where you go around collect stuff, unlock secrets, and advance through the game, that would have made this game awesome! But Epic Mickey 'raises' it's standards by adding Good and Bad points, based on your decisions, areas that contain hidden objects on which you can't go back again (Why, It's ridiculous) and quests!
One of those added to the game would have been fine, but all of them just ruin the game!
Firstly, good and bad points. I am a huge fan of these in video games. I loved the alignment system in Star Wars KotoR, in Fable and other games that have this wonderful feature! I love to beat the game as both the good and the bad guy, and considering these are Disney characters, there shouldn't be a problem determining which is which, right? Well, no! You know that feeling when you're trying to do good (bad) and you do the opposite while you aren't even aware of what you have done? Yeah, that feeling just makes me mad! For example: There was a quest in the game where somebody asked me to gather some annoying bunnies and lock them up, because those bunnies like to carry people and toss them (from cliffs sometimes!). I completed that quest only to get most NPC's to yell at me saying how cruel I was? But, but, but, those bunnies killed me countless times!!!!! Oh well, guess I'll just reload the save state I had before I trapped the bunnies, oh wait, the game has autosave! Oh well, I guess I'll spend the rest of the game listening to NPC's how I like to trap bunnies!
Speaking of quests, they are ... OK! I can't say that they are bad, it's just that, you can't really get into them! Firstly, sometimes there are too many of them! Other times, you don't even realize that you received one and you end up failing it. Finally, for some of them you just don't care, and seeing how I love to collect everything in all games, that's saying a lot!
The game dialogues are in text form! Ummm, why? I know that a game needs not have voice acting to be good, but there really is no reason not to put some voices in a Mickey Mouse game. If they were able to do the voices in Kingdom Hearst on the tiny DS, why can't they do them here. What, was it because they couldn't find the appropriate voice for Oswald?
Finally the number one thing in the game that really pi**ed me off, was the fact that you can't go back and replay a level! Why the heck not? All games nowadays have that! If you miss something you go back and get it, so why can't you do it here? Well, instead, you get to BUY some of the things you missed and they usually cost a small fortune!
Am I done with all the bad aspects? No? I forgot the two most important things that everyone seems to complain about!
The camera and the combat! Usually I don't really notice these unless someone tells me, but even I could tell that the camera in this game hated me! It's one of those smart cameras like in Super Mario galaxy, that can be adjusted only on open spaced areas while it usually stays focused on the characters. Well this camera is nothing like that one! The camera will, always, always, always find a way to make that jump harder, to make you not see what you needs to be seen, to make you lose control of whatever you need to be doing. It's actually quite amazing that such a camera exists!
The combat on the other hand is... unnecessary! You can thin out or color enemies, and it's pointless! Each and every single time you do it, it's boring and you will be doing a lot of it, since there are a lot of enemies, except in boss fights! To the game's credit, the boss fights are fun and creative!
I'd also like to point out a few things, that just annoyed me throughout the game. These aren't really issues and don't necessarily make the game better or worse, they just annoy me!
There are also some cutscenes in the game (with no voiceacting as well) and they are enjoyable to say the least if you are fast enough to read the subtitles below! Seriously, during these cutscenes the subtitles move faster then Sonic the Hedgehog!
Also, you know how I love it when my wiimote says something! Remember how cool it was when your wiimote was used like a phone in No More Heroes or Calling? Well in this game, you will most definitely, want to turn the wiimote speaker off, cos the only sounds you will ever hear from it, are grunts and groans from your gremlin companion! Every time you leave a world or discove something you will hear a certain : "Hurumph!!!!" or "Hmmm" from your wiimote! It gets annoying right away!
Another thing that annoyed me was that there are cartoons for unlocking in the game! Wait a minute, that's fantastic! Who wouldn't want to see a really old cartoon from the 20's and 30's! This is real art were taking about! Can't wait to unlock them! How many are there anyway! TWO... WHAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!
I even had a friend hacker check the game disk! Apparently the game is only 3.5 gb, which means they could have added at least 5 more cartoons to fill the remaining 1 gb! That's just mean!
Ok, I have to wrap this up!
In conclusion, this should have been called "Mickeys strange Journey through the Wasteland". While this game is good... ish, it certainly isn't worth the "Epic" title it contains! My advice is to skip this game and play one of the other great Mickey Mouse games out there. On the other hand, if you don't mind all the issues I pointed out above, you may enjoy this game, but if not you better follow my advice.