Mickey Mouse. Corperate icon for the Disney Company since 1928 and all round cheerful cheeky chappy. Not exactly the first thing that prings to mind when you think "Dark" but in Epic Mickey for the Wii you can clearly see another side to the Disney coin.
Epic Mickey sees us once again take on the role of of the classic character as he finds a portal to a mirror universe and spies The Sorcerer (from Fantasia) putting the final touches to a beautiful world he has created for all the forgotton Disney characters to live in. Mickey waits for the Sorcerer to leave and then decideds to have a go himself, he picks up a magic paint brush and tries to paint himself, unfortunatly the mickey shapped blob turns into a monster and tries to eat him. Mickey quickly grabs some paint thinner and defeats the Blot monster. He tries to fix the damage done to the Sorcerer's world and quickley leaves. Time goes by and we see quick montage of mickeys career from Steamboat Willie to Fantasia untill one night the creature from before kidnaps Mickey in his sleep. He awakes to find himself strapped to a table in the Mad Scientists lab. It is here where the game begins.
First impressions.
When i first saw screens for this game i was gob smacked. Finaly a deceant Mickey game. Not since the mid nineties and Mickey Mania has a Disney game looked so good. The darkness of the levels, the music, the chearcter design. It just screamed...er...Epic(Oh thats where the name came from! :D) I knew I had to play it!
Gameplay.
The basis of the game is that Mickey is trapped in wasteland armed with only his wits and the magic paintbrush. With the brush you are able to use two type of attack; Paint thinner, which you can use to kill enemies and melt walls, and Paint which you can use to turn the baddies into goodies and also fix the stuff you just destroyed with the thinner. Now i know that sounds a bit stupid but there ares time when you need to use both to progress through the game using thinner to get past obstacles and paint to create platforms. The game is a third person platformer so the controls are easy to learn, the nunchuck controls your movements and by pressing the Z button you can spray paint thinner everywhere and the wii-mote lets you jump and spray Paint everywhere (think Jet Set Radio meets Mario Sunshine). Apart from the paint the controls are pretty much the same to Mario Galaxy your attack is exactly the same, shake the wii-mote and Mickey will spin into the enemies knocking them back. The only downside is the cammera, you'd think after 15 or so years of the 3d platformer they'd have finaly cracked a decent control for the camera but no, i found i was having to edge it nearly all the time because i was either missing jumps or not being able to see where i was going.
Graphics.
Beautiful. The way Wasteland is designed is to look like a dark and twisted Disney World, a kind of post-apaocolyptic theme park. Mickey is back to his original look as he was in his early cartoons there a a few cameos of characters each looking spectacular. The fluidness (is that a word?) of the paint works well, effects in the levels such as fire dont look to crap. The cutscenes, unlike the intro are not FMV but instead they've gone for the animated book style like Sonic and the Secret Rings, but that didnt bother me, its just a great looking game.
Music.
Not much to say about the music really. Its Disney so its very Fantasia-esc and quite dark but there are times when it really blends into the background almost to the point where i forgot it was there at all.
Highs.
Its a good game, Its fun, its dark. The side levels where you travel between lands are 2d platformers set in differant cartoons. Which is awesome (i know i proberbly should have put that in gameplay but i forgot and cant be arsed!). Playing it took me right back to Mickey Mania and Castle/World of Illusion.
Lows.
Ok the camera did make me want to scream a bit after it caused me to die countless times, and
once I realised what it had in common with mario with the controls it did feel a bit un-original. Sometimes i found i was running out of paint while trying to get past a certain puzzle and i had to go a long way to get more.
Overall.
Mickey is back and better than ever showing us that just because he's Disney's mascot doesnt mean he cant kick ass. But is it Epic? No not really. I mean its fun to play and the graphics
are stunning but with its Mario-ish Controls and dodgy cameras you realise that its just another platformer. I wouldn't run out and buy it now, rather i'd wait till the price goes down or get it 2nd hand.
Rating.
7/10
Beautiful, well designed. Yet unoriginal.
Hey first review done!!!!
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