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Reviewed On: PS5
Also Available On: Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series, and PC
Price: $59.99 USD
Developer: Purple Lamp
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Release Date: September 24th, 2024
Disney always has this look of bright, upbeat, and happiness when you look at everything as a collective whole within their universe. Within Kingdom Hearts universe, normally there are many different dark themes and tones within, but this isn’t the only dark Disney game out there. Epic Mickey, and more specifically Epic Mickey Rebrushed, has a lot of darkness that is mixed into the story and themes that Mickey and crew experiences. It was a pleasant surprise when it was announced earlier this year that this IP was getting a remake and being brought back. This game comes from Purple Lamp who also did the remake for Spongebob Battle For Bikini Bottom and Spongebob Cosmic Shake; which were both good in different ways. I had high hopes for Epic Mickey Rebrushed since I never got a chance to play it on the Wii system. Did they deliver on this remake, or did it fall short of my expectations?
I have never played the original Epic Mickey game from the Wii and somehow I was never spoiled by the plot of the game, so I went in mostly blind! The game starts with Mickey Mouse being lured to a magicians workshop, Yen Sid’s workshop, and changing what was created on the table. Mickey makes a massive blunder and drops a whole container of something called Thinner (paint remover) which destroys the world of the Wasteland. Later, Mickey Mouse gets grabbed and pulled in by the Blot, the dangerous creature that was created when Mickey was messing around in the workshop.
Simply put, Wasteland is another world where different characters go from Disney’s history including Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Ortensia, Clarabelle Cow, Horace Horsecollar, and more. These characters are stuck there since they have lost their hearts and in order to leave the world, they must have one. Mickey still has his and in order to leave Wasteland, Mickey needs to work with someone he meets named Gus. Gus says that he should meet with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who is the character overseeing the world, to see if he can find a way for you to escape. Oswald doesn’t like Mickey at first, and you get a sense of why through different clues you see in the world. They come up with a plan to leave that requires you to find three pieces of a rocket to repair. There are a few twists and characters that I didn’t see coming in the game and it was a better plot than I predicted it would be. There are also many themes and the aspect of the game’s morality system was even better overall!
The themes that Mickey has to deal with and the self reflection that he has to comes to grips with about what happened, really is powerful as it showcases more of a darker tone of the jolly mouse than we normally see. Mickey has to either choose to over come the issues he caused, or just overlook them by not helping individuals he meets. Not only that, there are actually two endings of the game; a good one, and a “bad” one. I played both paths; the good path (using paint on all bosses to reform them and repairing all animatronic friends) and also the bad path (using thinner on all bosses to destroy them and not repairing animatronics). The good path took me about 16 hours since I tried to do as much as I could, while the bad path was a speed run I did in about 4 hours doing the bare minimum within the game. I prefer the good ending over the “bad” one, but I needed to do both in order to get the Platinum trophy. Most of the ending is the exact same, minus a few tweaks and changes like bosses, the animatronics, and some of the side characters but the overall feeling of the characters as a collective whole looks the same.
There is not just one type of gameplay in this game, there are two! The first, and where you will be about 85% of the time, is the 3D world of the Wasteland. In order to fix what Mickey has broken and destroyed you have to help residents of the world by solving puzzles and problems or defeating enemies using things like jumping, spinning, dashing, special powers, and the power of your paint brush. At the beginning, you start in a castle and must make your way to Mean Street, the first hub world, while learning what the paint ability is versus what the thinner ability is. It is fairly simple, but painting creates while thinner destroys. Using both, you have to defeat enemies, solve puzzles, help individuals, find collectables, and more.
In order to progress through the game and unlock the entrance to each world, from the Mean Street hub world, you need to collect a certain number of power sparks. To get these in the game, you can either buy them at the shops or complete different quests given to you by the residents in the world. These range from fetch quests, finding lost or key items, playing detective, and playing bunny wrangler. Once inside each of the projectors, you find more characters that need help or tasks that you need to complete in order to finish the level you are in. A word of caution to this tale, once you transport into projector, you may not always be able to go back to specific 3D areas (excluding the hub areas) unless you start a whole new game.
The second type of gameplay is actually a 2D gameplay that is extremely enjoyable but only makes up maybe 15% or so of your time in the game. These are pure 2D platforming sections where you need to get to the other end of the level for the exit projector. I wished there was more of this in the game, but I understood what they were going for with these! These are scenes of the past and are the gateways between the bigger sandboxes in the 3D realm of the Wasteland. Within these, you will explore classics like Steamboat Mickey, Fantasia, Sleeping Beauty, and much more. I don’t want to spoil everything, but there was so much thought and effort put into these that I was very excited when I got to the next projector to see what came next. In the 2D worlds, there are two reels in each projector that you can trade in to the usher at the entrance of the theater on Mean Street for prizes. These range from secret movies/shorts, health upgrades, power sparks, and more. Thankfully, unlike the 3D sections of the game, you can actually explore these and enter these as much as you want with the help of the theater.
On top of finding different reels in the 2D worlds and helping characters overcome their problems in the 3D world, there are other collectables to find throughout the adventure. Thankfully, you do not need to find 100% of the collectables in the game to get the Platinum trophy (something that would be very annoying to do). One of the collectables to find are concept art for the game. These are found throughout both the 2D and 3D worlds hidden in walls and floors, just out of reach where you need to use platforming skills, given as rewards for different things, sold in shops, and more. I have played through the game twice, and I still haven’t found all of them.
The second collectable in the game is pins. There are regular gold, silver, and bronze pins that you can find in different locations around the world; however, there are also special pins. These are given to you by defeating bosses, completing quests, finding special items, and more. I have found a lot, just like the concept art, but again I have yet to discover everything. I added a few more to my collection in my second playthrough, but still didn’t obtain everything. There are also three animatronics (Donald, Goofy, and Daisy) that you can choose to repair by finding four parts for each one of them in different worlds. There are enough collectables to keep you going, but you need to playthrough more than once to get everything because of the morality of killing/redeeming bosses.
There is a lot to love about Disney music, and one of them is just how good and catchy it all is. Here is an example of just one of the scenes in 2D for how the music and audio design is. Everything about the way it was designed just oozes the feeling of the classic Steamboat Mickey from back in the day. The music matches the areas too with scenes like Fantasia sounding like the classic Fantasia movie, the final fight being intensive, among every other area both in the 2D and 3D worlds. The audio design from the movement of mickey, the slam that I did, the projector sounds, the smokestack, and so much more is just so meaty and has a substance behind it. All of the sounds in the game have purpose and I didn’t ever have a sync issue with the audio design of the game. On top of this, there are voices, but not in true dialogue speaks rather sounds of classic characters. These voices all sound great like their cartoon counterparts from characters like Pete and Smee, to even Mickey himself!
The art and visuals in the game were seriously terrific. I never played the original on the Wii but out of curiosity, I looked up what the visuals were back then versus now. They definitely did justice to the classic game art style and didn’t fumble the ball in the art department. The cutscenes look very similar to the Wii version of the game, and if they recreated all of them again in the same look and art style or just up-rezed the ones that from the Wii version, I couldn’t tell and honestly that I believe is a compliment. The visuals of Mickey, Oswald, the enemies and bosses, and everyone else are just terrific. The backgrounds, worlds, environments, and the scenery of each of the areas are all beautiful. Besides one of the 2D worlds, there was absolutely nothing in the game that I didn’t like for the artistic style that they went with. I think the game is stunning, and really should be looked at nicely.
I wish studios and, more specifically the publishers, put more quality assurance and polish into their games in 2024 as quality really does affect the player enjoyment. This game honestly kind of surprised me for how much quality and polish that went into it. Sure, it definitely isn’t perfect as I did have 1 crash in the middle of my first playthrough, and 0 in my second one. Thankfully, I only had to redo about 3 minutes of progress thanks to checkpoints in the game, so it wasn’t too bad. The performance is also very good on PS5. I had a few moments of hiccups in the game but they were short and quick blips. Otherwise, it was pretty good overall in both the 2D and 3D worlds. Compared to some games I have played this year it definitely an overall solid experience in terms of quality.
In terms of bugs and glitches, I only had two small things that I can remember. The first one was I clipped through different floors a couple of times when it was fully solid painted. The second glitch was I restored robotic goofy and visited OsTown for the first time I saw different cutscenes. Later on went I went to check my progress in a different area the movie clips from the game remained locked like I never saw them. One issue I personally had with the game was in one of the projectors, Plutopia. I think the idea and aspect was awesome, but the overall execution of it didn’t work. The colors are too bright; however, if they turned the brightness down a bit in them, it probably would be really great. Other than those three smaller (what I consider smaller) issues and problems, plus the one crash, I didn’t have any other issues.
Honestly there has been so many games that have been coming out this time of year, some titles unfortunately will be overlooked. If you are a fan of Disney, especially classic Disney, a fan of 3D platformers, collect-a-thons, or just looking for a game that makes you smile, you should check this one out! The story may be simple enough to understand but having an overall darker story and themes that take place in the universe of the big mouse is great! The combat does get a tad repetitive near the end of the game and posses little to no challenge but it definitely isn’t the worst combat I played this year and is very solid as a whole. The art is stunningly vibrant, music is terrific, and the overall polish that the game had was great. I am a classic Disney fan at heart, and there are so many great easter eggs, references, and characters that show up that I was not expecting. From someone who didn’t know anything about the game going into it, I was left with a few surprises for sure! Now, time to play the sequel over on Xbox thanks to it being backwards compatible… unless there is also a remake of that in the works?
Review Score: 9/10
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