Published , by Lucas White
Published , by Lucas White
Epic Mickey came out in 2010, the year after Disney acquired Marvel Entertainment. A dark but whimsical puzzle/platforming adventure, Epic Mickey is about the world’s most powerful and enduring mascot realizing what was left behind in the rearview of his unstoppable success. Our pal Mickey spills paint thinner on a magical map, which happens to be a world comprising forgotten, leftover characters and creations of the past that Disney left behind. The paint thinner is also a horrible monster, of course. The world is full of sadness and resentment, its leader Oswald the Rabbit literally building a throne room atop a mountain of rotting Mickey merch. But in addressing the thinner crisis with the help of a magic paintbrush, Mickey learns some humility, befriends Oswald and the other locals, and goes back home with a full heart. Of course, this game wouldn’t have happened if Disney hadn’t reacquired the rights to Oswald a few years prior.
Now here’s Epic Mickey, back from the past and on all modern platforms (I played on PC, and it runs great on Steam Deck too), remastered or rather Rebrushed, despite the shuttering of its own development studio ten years ago. The original was a decent enough platformer on the Nintendo Wii, which had neat ideas but suffered due to things like “moral choices” being a dominant gimmick of the time and the Wii itself making things difficult for common game elements such as cameras. Well, mostly cameras. This new remaster can't change the silly paint/thinner morality thing, but it does address controls and camera issues, making this a shinier, prettier, and more contemporarily playable version of Epic Mickey.
It's a little hard to quantify in some respects, and it's especially meaningless if you haven't played the original game at all which is likely considering its age. But in terms of how it feels to guide Mickey around, have him jumping and double-jumping over obstacles and across gaps, firing the paintbrush at objects and enemies, it's all quite smooth and responsive. If you go back to the original, it'll feel a bit more wooden, and you'll be fighting the camera while trying to aim the Wii Remote to shoot paint or thinner at things. Epic Mickey: Rebrushed simply feels like a normal video game, in our current year. This is an improvement from "kind of janky," which is how I'd wager most people felt about the original.
Visually, it's a no-brainer. Epic Mickey was a grainy, muddy experience on the Wii, albeit with some creative and enduring art direction that helped make it memorable. There's something to be said about texture and grit that's inevitably lost in these HD remasters, but it feels like less of a loss here compared to something like Persona 4 or Silent Hill 2.The colors are more pronounced, and perhaps most importantly the 2D textures strewn throughout are bright and clear. This especially makes moments when you dive into small, sidescrolling platforming sections based on old cartoons look a lot more representative of their inspirations. Sometimes Mickey himself feels a bit too bright and shiny, making him awkwardly pop out from his surroundings. But it's fun to turn him around and watch his ears rotate around his head in that bizarre way it does in cartoons, except you can control it this time. Gross!
This game didn't change the world back then and it's definitely not changing the world now, but there's fun to be had and playing it on modern platforms is a significantly more comfortable experience. It’s fine! This video game is totally fine. I thought going in here that “it’s fine” would be the main talking point in this review. Not the most brain-exercising endeavor in the world, but getting the job done. Just like the game, pretty much!
But something hit me when I was exploring “Mickeyjunk Mountain,” a resentful anti-monument to a character whose success is being blamed for the abandonment and waste of a whole community of others. It’s a mountain of rotting memorabilia from Mickey’s past, like old video game cartridges, lunchboxes, puzzles, posters, pins, badges, and even World War-era gas masks. It’s striking, especially now gussied-up in HD, and definitely meant to unsettle the player as they are just starting to get to know the “Wasteland.” It’s also where Mickey meets Oswald face to face for the first time, starting the chain of events leading to their eventual friendship and joint effort to make things right. From here we end up with a story about being kinder to the past instead of leaving it behind entirely in the wake of newer, bigger, and better things.
It’s kind of a weird story to revisit right now, right? When Disney bought Marvel just before this game came out, there was so much fandom chatter about which characters could join the MCU, or show up in a Kingdom Hearts sequel, or whether XYZ character was now a Disney Princess. In the almost 15 years since, a lot of real bad stuff has happened. Acquisitions and consolidations have done more harm than good across multiple mediums. Blockbuster video games are turning into water in a toilet bowl swirling around Fortnite. If something isn’t an overnight success it gets buried and the underpaid labor forced to churn it out is all fired. Instead of a wholesome message about embracing nostalgia and loving these forgotten characters from the past, Epic Mickey's story feels more like a warning shot in hindsight.
But hey, Oswald is back! We can't forget about Oswald and leave him behind, that'd be so sad! It’s hard to take a Disney game being cutesy about reviving and respecting old IP seriously when so much creative constriction is happening because of how a few companies (including Disney) are doing business today. The messaging is mixed; we’re expected to lose our minds and open our wallets at references and nods to the past, while the gatekeepers grind it and everything else to dust at the same time. The call is coming from inside the house, folks.
Funnily enough, Epic Mickey: Rebrushed does something I never would have expected that defies some of this raw cynicism. There’s art gallery content you can unlock, which sounds normal for a little revisitation of history. But in each piece you look at the artist or artists originally responsible are credited. Right there on the screen! You don’t even have to look for it or scan the credits as they roll at the end. Not even the impressive and extensive museums in Capcom and Konami collections, ones I’ve praised quite a bit lately, offer credit for individual assets within the galleries presenting them. All the respect in the world for that. It's a small thing in the grand scheme of Epic Mickey, but that kind of acknowledgement for the people that make these games, especially the parts that exist outside the software, is painfully rare.
Purple Lamp has done a fine job sprucing up a game that’s always kind of intrigued but slightly disappointed people. Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is a solid enough platformer with some cool ideas, revolving around an aesthetic that was quite novel at the time. What if Disney’s most precious, child-friendly characters were involved in some creepy stuff? It can only go so far (although I recommend looking up some of the old concept art that was used to test Disney’s limits; that stuff goes hard), but it finds a space that’s a fair compromise but still produces an effective atmosphere. This isn't a game that can compete with the likes of Super Mario 64 or Banjo-Kazooie, but it does fare better than other licensed platformers of its vintage.
If you like Mickey Mouse and want to play a fun video game about him, you can do a lot worse than Epic Mickey: Rebrushed! You can also do a lot better, but that would require booting up some old emulators or expensive retro hardware, which is a different kind of thing from having something new(ish) on today’s platforms. Those decaying SNES carts in Mickeyjunk Mountain offer a good hint at what you should try next, though. I enjoyed it quite a bit, even if the way the story doesn't hold up in 2024 due to historical context made things kind of awkward.
Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is available on September 24, 2024 for the PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch. A PC code was provided by the publisher for this review.