Released in 2010, the original Epic Mickey was a magical experience and one of the most creative and underrated platformers at the time. The Wii-exclusive game was a dark, twisted version of the cartoon character we all know and love. The game was a journey through long-celebrated franchises and characters with a sci-fi twist, the popular game has been given the re-vamp treatment by Purple Lamp Studios who recently did Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated, another fantastic remaster, so the expectations were admittedly high.
The game has been lovingly crafted and restored to look and run spectacularly on modern consoles, reuniting Mickey Mouse with his paintbrush, thinner and paint to fix the Wasteland and find out why Oswald the Rabbit is not his biggest fan.
A Different Mickey
Originally the game was considered very dark at the time of its release. The game’s writer and director Warren Spector gained the rights to the characters and worked closely with Disney Animation on the cut scenes. These focused more so on Mickey’s mischievous side, giving gamers the choice to either let Mickey save a gremlin (one of the helpers in the game) or get access to a treasure chest which generally sends the Gremlin plummeting to its death or leave it trapped forever. It presents a moral choice that isn’t something you would usually associate with the famous mouse.
You control Mickey Mouse as he travels through the Wasteland, travelling to different areas via projector screens. To access these different areas, you travel through side-scrolling mini levels that are themed to different Mickey Mouse shorts like Mickey and the Beanstalk, Steamboat Willie, Plutopia and my favourite Alpine Climbers. These are beautifully detailed and the remaster of these levels is the best-looking part of the game.
A Dark and Twisted Tale
The overarching story is a little complicated and messy (in a good way). The wizard Yen Sid is working on a recreation model of classic Disney tales when his magic mirror opens up a portal that Mickey jumps into. The mouse causes chaos and unleashes an enemy called The Blot who tears apart the Wasteland, forcing Mickey to dive into the world and use his paintbrush and thinner to repair the damage caused and stop him from doing any further damage.
The appeal here is traversing through dark and twisted versions of classic Disney films and rides from the various theme parks from this era. Unlike Kingdom Hearts, the melding of these ideas is unique and twisted enough to stand on its own, apart from anything else the Mickey Mouse franchise has been part of before. There are other characters in Mickey’s cohort to discover and rescue after their encounters with Oswald.
Remastered to Perfection
A difficult part of re-mastering a game is making it feel like it fits in the 2024 landscape. Fortunately, here, the full 4K 60FPS treatment puts it on par with modern platformer games in this space. A strong focus has also been on traversal in both the 3D and 2D environments. Mickey gets better traversal with a longer jump and the ability to walk faster as well as a dash move that can be used in the main levels and traversal areas as well.
In the later stages of the game, more enemies swarm around you, in the old game this was slightly frustrating, now Mickey has a new ground pound ability which can eliminate these much easier. The original controls were on the Wii with the Nunchuck and weirdly connected controller, so the change in these on the DualSense controller makes it significantly easier to precisely get the pain and thinner to cover the correct surface.
Final Thoughts
Epic Mickey: Rebrushed feels like a heartfelt revival of a classic game from the Wii era that is made all the better by receiving the full remake treatment. Purple Lamp Studios have clearly shown their love for this title by lovingly recreating every area of this game including the controls and how Mickey traverses the world. Being able to have the game notched up to 4K and solidly perform at 60FPS (at least on the Playstation 5 version) is the ultimate way to experience this classic title.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Highlights: Beautiful restoration of cut scenes and in-game visuals, Updated controllers for modern consoles that make it easy to control the paintbrush
Lowlights: Loading screens are surprisingly long in this game
Developer: Purple Lamp Studios
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC.
Available: Now
Review conducted on PlayStation 5 with a release code provided by the publisher.
