In the distant 2010, a fascinating game hit Nintendo Wii: Epic Mickey. And now, 13 years later, players have a chance to re-experience the magic of this vibrant 3D platformer with the Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed remake. It releases on all major platforms to bring many hours of entertainment to the veterans of the original and new players alike.
Prepare to don your mouse ears and travel into a fantastical realm of forgotten Disney characters. It will be up to you to decide its fate! Note that the review ahead contains spoilers to the premise and starting events of the main storyline.
This is our Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed PC Review. The game arrives September 24th on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and PC.
One day, Mickey finds himself woken up by a noise coming from his mirror. Following the sound and entering it, he arrives in the Sorcerer’s Workshop and meets the Sorcerer – a character that appeared in the 1940 animated film Fantasia, starring in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice episode. Kingdom Hearts players may also know him as Yen Sid.
The Mouse witnesses his creation of the Wasteland, a world for the forgotten cartoon characters. The Sorcerer also acts as the narrator of the game, explaining the rules of this new realm and taking a look at the events that would follow.
Playing around with the magic paintbrush, Mickey created a monster and damaged the Wasteland. The Mouse gets a close-up look at his handiwork when The Shadow Blot abducts him and drags him into this special realm, trapping Mickey within the Wasteland that mostly consists of rusted or broken-down rides from Disneyland.
As it turns out, the “paint” spilled by Mickey Mouse is actually a paint thinner that has destroyed the already gloomy landscape of the Wasteland, turning the area into a real cartoonish post-apocalypse. The plot might not look all that twisted and complicated, but it is one of these cases when the appetite arrives during the process. The longer you play, the more interesting it becomes. This game is certainly not another cloying fairy tale about Mickey Mouse, which has already become a done and expected deal.
In a few words, the plot can be described as smart, creative, sometimes humorous, and sometimes extremely dramatic. Despite the bright and vibrant colors, the game has a darker and more adult atmosphere, with the story having a plethora of painstaking, careful details that shine on the world-building, so it will be interesting for both children and adults alike.
What makes this story special is that it is based on real facts from early Disney years. The setting features a mock-up town where most of the forgotten Disney characters lurk, their stellar careers long since over, and no one remembers them or ever knew them at all.
This place was created by the Sorcerer out of pity for the unfortunate over anything else, with Lucky Rabbit Oswald ruling this kingdom. The first of the undeservedly forgotten Disney heroes, at one point he might have even been called Mickey Mouse’s stepbrother. He even appeared earlier than his rodent fellow, having been invented by the founder of the studio way back in 1927.
Oswald’s story is quite sad, but we will not explore it further here. In the game itself, Oswald is aware of his hard fate, and in his opinion it was Mickey who took everything from him, albeit unwittingly, stealing his glory and his father, and even almost bringing apocalypse to his world. The interactions and relationship between these two heroes plays a key role in the plot of the game.
Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is a perfect example of a mature approach to a seemingly childish game. The cartoon parts look very organic, with remake touching up to make them fit even better.
The only thing that caught me off-guard is the voice acting, or even its absence in certain cases. I understand that is the way it’s been in the original game, but in the remake, the developers had a chance to remedy that. It could have been improved a little, or replaced with new voice-acting, or slightly re-voiced for the missing elements…. but no.
The cutscenes had been redrawn, but not re-voiced. And it’s quite a pity, since you can see characters talking to one another, but hearing what they actually say is out of the question. While it doesn’t prevent you from following along with the plot, it is still somewhat upsetting, even if not by much.
A good plot is only a part of what you will experience in Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed, let’s move onto gameplay.
I can say right away that the gameplay has a lot of interesting ideas and good implementation. However, in each such implementation there is a small “it’s good, but…”, more on that later. Genre-wise, Epic Mickey is a mixture of Adventure and Platformer, with a small amount of role-playing. The magic brush plays an important role in Mickey’s hands, I would even say it is one of the main pillars of the game, both for the narrative and for the gameplay alike.
With its help, you can restore the world around you, individual parts of the level and locations, such as bridges, passages, boats, and much more. The authors’ imagination in this regard is truly endless. On the other hand, you can also erase the surroundings: blades and spikes, walls that stand in your way, and much more.
Both of these abilities of the Magic Brush will help you in finding secrets, defeating enemies, and simply progressing through the story. By giving enemies green paint, you will dissolve them, by giving them blue paint, you will turn them into allies for a while. And although the vast majority of the puzzles can be solved in quite simple ways, they do not become boring, the game designers were able to add some interesting elements into seemingly routine tasks.
It is a pity that there are only so many objects and enemies that the Magic Brush can interact with, you cannot erase or add just anything to your heart’s content. Every location has certain specific points that you can interact with by using your Brush. Back in 2010, it was due to the limits of the original Nintendo Wii hardware, but it could have been changed or touched up for modern systems.
In addition to the classic 3D-platforming, the game has separate sections of 2D-levels based on the early Disney cartoons. Sometimes, these parts are not only on par with, but even better than the 3D part of the game. They are simple yet cool enough to steal your breath, and the sheer feeling of nostalgia they evoke can not be expressed with words. After all, these levels quote the Classics with enviable meticulousness, and the plots of these cartoons are transferred to the gameplay component almost verbatim.
They serve as transitions between large locations, but sometimes you’ll sorely wish there was a skip option. For example, there is an NPC on “Main Street” that has given you a quest that requires you to go to another city, talk to a different NPC, and come back. Sounds easy enough, right? However, there are 4-5 of these projector transitions, and you have to get into it, go through the level, get to the new city, find the correct NPC, and backtrack the save way.
The first couple of times these mirrors are quite interesting and exciting, but it becomes a bit dull when you have to do it for the 5th or 10th time.
In addition to the main quest, the game will give you many side quests to deal with. And yes, they’re exactly what you can expect of little side tasks to keep you busy: go there, find something, return it to the owner, draw something here, but there are also slightly more interesting ones. However, there are a few more interesting ones that have a certain non-linear approach and give you various ways to complete them.
The original looked quite beautiful on Nintendo Wii, despite the weak hardware. And the remake looks both charming and awesome. The aesthetics, level design and the work put into making locations feel alive are gorgeous.
Despite the seemingly childish setting, every little thing is atmospherically dark and beautiful. The designers worked hard in order to bring something Noir to the usual Disney entourage. All of the in-game locations, by the way, are based on real Disneyland attractions and parks, but with a certain creative approach.
The remake breathed a new life into the locations, as well. For example, in the original Oz Town, one building was presented simply as a skeleton of boards. In the remake, it is a ruined and old building that you can restore with the Magic Brush. There are many more details like that, every location got a massive amount of details added to it.
However, what’s even better is the game’s approach to its music. It is an integral part of the story, adding intensity to the actions on the screen. The original score was created by James Dooley, bringing the classic Disney sounds and vibes to the game, but at the same time not letting the music overshadow everything else.
Although at certain points, the phenomenal OST takes the center stage anyway. If you want to understand what awaits you in Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed without ever playing the game itself, just listen to its music.
Epic Mickey also has its own version of the morality system, giving players a chance to make their own choices that will have certain consequences. It motivates you to finish the game more than once, to see the effects of the choices you didn’t commit to in the previous playthrough.
This system is not as impactful as you would think, however. Most of the situations that ask for your input and give you a choice don’t really affect the game world all that much. Things like filling the tank with one or the other paint, freeing the Gremlin or taking the chest with a reward, do not really affect the ending of the game. The only thing that has a real effect is the choice you make before facing the bosses, you have the right to choose which boss you will have, and then during the battle you can either kill them by wiping them out with the solvent, or fill them with the nice paint instead. These choices do have long-standing consequences.
In the original, this shortcoming was justified by the fact that this was the first platformer from Disney. And of course, not everything works out perfectly the first time. But in the remake, this flaw remained unchanged. It’s a pity that, like in the original, the game does not change Mickey’s appearance depending on his choices.
Based on some old interviews, 20% of the locations and mechanics from the original were cut. Although it is nice that in the game you can get costumes for Mickey separately. It’s not exactly a strong replacement for the deeper morality system, but it’s still a nice feature nonetheless.
The game also has other features that you’d think of when imagining a platformer. There is in-game currency with shinies and upgrades, more paints, more HP hearts, items to simplify gameplay such as slowing down the time, etc. There is another gameplay element: the Gremlins. Coming from less than successful Disney projects, in this game they serve as Mickey’s helpers, assisting with puzzles or pointing out something interesting.
Now, onto the elephant in the room. The camera.
In the original game, the camera was quite the pain for the player. In the remake, the camera is “almost” fine. It smoothly follows Mickey, is easily controlled with both the mouse+keyboard combo and with the gamepad… But. But in some moments, the camera automatically swaps to another mode, which can be quite confusing. Sometimes the camera gets in the gameplay process and behaves like a nuisance, interfering with your enjoyment of the game.
