Disney Epic Mickey Review

Written by Jason Trent Thursday, 16 December 2010 09:35

Disney Epic Mickey was one of my most anticipated titles of this year. From the moment its dark and gorgeous concept art was revealed, I was pumped, and with every new announcement and reveal my excitement grew exponentially. It seemed like everyone who saw the game, in one form or another, was also eagerly awaiting its release. That's what makes all of this so hard. You see, Epic Mickey is flawed in some unforgivable ways. I've reviewed some bad games in my day; I've seen some things, but no game in recent memory has forced me to my limits of patience quite like Epic Mickey.

Watch Gameplay Video of Epic Mickey

Let's get the easiest criticism out of the way first. The game's camera is downright awful, and even though Warren Spector would have you believe that you simply don't understand how it works, I promise you, that's not the case. Every step of the way, the camera was there to make my experience more difficult than it should have been. It's one of the most unresponsive and sluggish cameras in all of gaming. I can't effectively convey just how often I'd try to guide Mickey through a tight maneuver only to have the camera sit there and ignore his direction. Seriously, how am I expected to leap from ledge to ledge, surrounded by acid-like pools of thinner (these are everywhere), when I can't see where I'm headed? It's a non-stop struggle to trick the camera into cooperating. The game tries to overcome this problem by being overly verbose when showing where to go for your next quest, but even then, it's no use. It's incredibly tough to decipher where you are in relation to where you should be going.

Environments don't help either. Moving throughout each world in the game creates an uncanny sense of deja vu. One end of a level seldom looks discernible from another, creating an especially big problem when trying to look for quest items. I couldn't help but question every move I made: "Have I been here? This looks familiar, I should go back. No, that was the right way after all." It never ends. The game helps with this by providing you with guardians who can create a trail of light to show you where your quest goal is, but even they are busted. They'll usually take you back to the quest giver instead of taking you to the next item or character you need to find, and, as you're not quite sure in what direction they'll fly, the camera will sometimes be pointing in the wrong direction for them to be of any help. By the time you're able to convince the camera to shift view to see where the guardian went, the path has vanished. What a waste. The guardians can each only be used once, and earning them by thinning and painting takes a ton of time.

The game features an admittedly interesting mechanic of painting and thinning; creating and destruction in both combat and exploration. In combat, painting most enemies results in them becoming an ally, while thinning them dissolves them. This works similarly with the environment where you're able to rebuild or destroy buildings and other sections of the world on a whim. The problem with this is that it can be a pain to determine what is and is not something that can be affected by paint and thinner. Much of my time spent in the game was occupied by systematically painting and thinning everything in sight in hopes that I'd discover that last quest item or that I'd find a new path to my goal. One particularly terrible example of this was where I was tasked in finding three circuit breakers scattered throughout one of the game's towns. One was on a rooftop, which I found without too much of a problem, but the other two were nowhere to be found. After going through what seemed like an eternity of painting and thinning the entire town, another breaker was found behind a wall, and finally another in a big hole under some grass. I don't know if I could come up with a more senseless location for either of these if I tried. There was nothing intuitive or apparent about it, and instead of using rhyme or reason, I discovered them by luck and persistence.

Epic Mickey's questing system also has some glaring problems. Many quests are your average fetch quests, which, taking into account the problems with the environments and camera that I described are daunting. Others ask you to go from place to place, or to defeat a specific enemy. There are no real surprises here, and nothing incredibly unique or interesting, but there is a level of vagueness that mars the experience. The map, accessible only through an in-game menu, shows points of interest, but it fails to denote goals. In one quest, I was tasked with defeating Peteronic, a robot version of Pete. When I first accepted the quest, I was told where to go, but shortly after I decided to turn in for the night and to continue the next day. When I returned, I'd forgotten what exactly it was I was supposed to do. I opened my quest log, sifted through the poorly organized list, and found that I needed to defeat Peteronic. That's it. There was no mention as to where he could be found, and returning to the quest giver only resulted in Pete, again, requesting that I run his errand. I decided to let a guardian tell me where to go, and of course it told me to go back to Pete. Great. I spent a considerable amount of time scouring the world to finally advance. Nearly every quest is this way. Information given is far too unspecific, and the characters in the world are completely unaware of where you are in the story. I once had a character ask me to return a book to them, and trying to get more information from that quest giver only served to have them rattle on about pie. Quest goals are sometimes so vague that I found myself being unsure if I'd actually met the requirements to return them. Had these sorts of quests been optional, I would have been more forgiving, but too often are they part of the main quest line or are required to collect items to progress.

The game tries to introduce morality into gameplay, but I never saw that come to fruition the way I'd have liked it to. In concept, choosing to paint and thin affects how the world looks and the rewards you get. In practice, you're forced to thin and paint nearly everything. I have an issue with having to see a world decay because I had to hose down the place to find items. Even though that side of things can often be disheartening, the real rewards to choices you make are insignificant: usually concept art for good choices and in-game currency for bad. It's not very compelling.

Not all is for naught, however. As you move through the game, you're rewarded with very well thought out 2D platforming segments that return Mickey to some of his more more memorable moments like the famous tugboat. The game really comes together when its polluting mechanics are stripped to reveal a pure and rewarding game that's hidden far too well. Though each of these levels is, at the most, only a couple of minutes long, they were the carrot on a stick that I needed to force myself through the game. The proportions are off however; these redeeming stints only account for a small fraction of the game.

The game also excels visually. Its artwork and animation is second to none with characters moving believably and fluidly. Thematically dark, Epic Mickey takes an unexpectedly mature turn that's fully realized. I can't compliment the game enough in this area. Characters familiar and forgotten populate the world with themes taken from Tron, Peter Pan, and other classics. In-game cut scenes are expertly drawn in a style that is uniquely Disney. If this were a movie or a picture book, it would have been an unquestionable success.

The story is also one of the Epic Mickey's strong points. Mickey is taken to Wasteland: a copy of Disneyland where forgotten and underappreciated Disney characters reside. Mickey accidentally brings darkness to the land, and the story follows him through the process of restoring the land to its former self. The story itself is compelling, but the slew of characters make it superb.

Disney Epic Mickey is a broken game, and though it truly has some great elements, they're not enough to save the experience. I have to be honest: I couldn't make my way through the entire thing. I probably got through at least 70% of the game, but I eventually got to the point where I'd sit down to relax and play a game and I'd have to talk myself into putting more time into it. There are too many good games out there that demand my attention and affection, and I think that my feelings of dread speak more about my experience than words could ever relate.