Back in the days of the Wii, one of the most interesting and bizarre third-party releases was Epic Mickey, a project led by Warren Spector, the famous creator of the Deus Ex franchise. This 3D platformer put the famous mouse in an unusually grim situation that presented him with various moral dilemmas, and while it had its problems, Epic Mickey stood out as a memorable adventure for the mascot and was good enough to warrant a sequel and a strange 3DS spin-off. Now, Disney has decided to remaster the game once again with Epic Mickey Rebrushed, and while it still has some flaws, we’re happy to report that this remaster fixes many of the original’s problems.

The story of Epic Mickey begins with the titular mouse visiting Yen Sid’s workshop, where he quickly misuses the wizard’s magic paintbrush and inadvertently ruins his prized project, a magical world for forgotten cartoons. Years later, and long after he’s forgotten the incident, Mickey is approached at night by a shadowy ink creature who drags him screaming into the world he destroyed, but not before managing to snag the magic paintbrush along the way. Now marooned in the wasteland, Mickey must find a way to escape while either finishing the job he started or using his newfound power to help the toons struggling to survive after the destruction he caused.

Although it is not quite As dark as the creators originally intended it to be, the narrative here is significantly heavier than Disney’s usual works. Mickey is constantly faced with the consequences of his past mistakes in this story, and you have numerous opportunities to play as either the hero or the villain. For example, in an early quest, Pete asks Mickey to clear his name after the residents of a village accuse him of deliberately ramming his steamship into their property. As you investigate what happened, it turns out that Pete was telling the truth, and you can then either use the evidence to prove his innocence or suppress it by selling it to a villager for your own benefit.

We appreciated the dilemmas that situations like these present, as there are consequences and rewards for every decision you make. In this example with Pete, we decided to do the honorable thing by clearing his name, and while the short-term rewards for doing so were less, we inadvertently avoided having to go through a mini-boss fight later because he was on our side. It’s cool to see that decisions you make have unexpected consequences later in the game, and on top of that, this focus on player choice greatly increases replay value, as there is often exclusive content hidden behind the different paths.

Otherwise, Epic Mickey follows the typical 3D platforming cliches of having you overcome obstacles in a derelict world, battling enemies, solving puzzles, and looting all sorts of collectibles. The main gameplay trick here – closely tied to the morality system – is that you can use your paintbrush to create or destroy various objects and characters in the environment, which adds some nuance to puzzle-solving and combat encounters. In most fights, you can either “enchant” most of your enemies with paint or wipe them out with thinner. And the world is full of various buggy surfaces and structures that you can either fill in or erase to ease the platforming and uncover hidden secrets.

Although most of the quests you receive from NPCs are little more than simple errands, it’s really fun to get into a new area and experiment with how you can change the environment with your brush. The rewards for exploring are usually either concept art that you can then view in the menu, or pins, which act as stars or jiggies, so to speak, that round off completing a platforming challenge or solving a puzzle. You can’t really Do everything with pins, but collecting them is still fun in itself. You’ll also get various themed pins at key intersections to mark your decisions and make it easier to track previous decisions for replays.

Aside from the expected improvement in image quality, this remastered version of Epic Mickey also makes some welcome changes to address the original’s major flaws. For example, the terrible camera has been ditched and replaced with a competent system used in virtually every third-person action game, where you can freely use the right analog stick to get the best angle. The fixed camera is still present in the boss battles, but it’s not a problem there, as they’re specifically designed for that. The free camera for the rest of the runtime, on the other hand, sidesteps many of the original’s problems, where you were often forced to actively fight with the camera while trying to bridge gaps or catch a glimpse of attacking enemies.

The side levels, which act as portals connecting each main hub and level, have also been given a bit of a revamp. There are now plenty of interactive elements that make them more dynamic and interesting. These 2D levels still go by in a flash, but they provide a nice change of pace when moving between worlds, and we appreciated the attention to detail they show in lovingly recreating various old Mickey cartoons.

Visually, Epic Mickey has obviously been redesigned and now looks like you remember it looks like it’s from 2010. While you can still tell that this game was designed for much more basic hardware, the higher resolution and improved textures do a lot to hide its age. And that’s not even mentioning the stellar art style, which shows a lot of imagination in its take on the whole “Disney gone bad” aesthetic. Whether you’re talking to the severed head of a Goofy animatronic or climbing up the side of a pile of old and discarded Mickey Mouse merchandise, there are plenty of memorable moments where you’re wowed by the clever fusion of edginess and Disney magic in this world’s design.

To accompany these images is a soundtrack by James Dooley, which creates a playful and somewhat sly tone reminiscent of the popular works of Grant Kirkhope and Danny Elfman. The music never quite takes center stage. scary territory, but its moodiness is laced with a subtly ominous vibe that you’d probably never hear in a more traditional Disney project like Illusion Island. We really liked what this soundtrack brings to the table and how it enhances the atmosphere of the wasteland – it feels distinctive without straying too far from what you’d expect from a Disney game.

The only issue we have with this new edition of Epic Mickey is that the performance seems pretty subpar at times. We didn’t experience any major crashes or glitches during our playthrough, though there were persistent issues with unstable frame rates and noticeable pop-in. The frame rate stuttering doesn’t directly affect gameplay, but it’s common to experience 5-10 frame per second drops even when there’s not much happening on screen. The pop-in can be a bit egregious when entering new areas and assets loading slowly. Loading times can also be pretty long – we clocked some of them at just under 40 seconds when loading larger areas.

These performance issues are disappointing and affect the gaming experience somewhat, but not to the extent that they fully get you out of there. In our playthrough, such issues were an annoying but ultimately tolerable drawback, largely overshadowed by the quality of the gameplay.

Diploma

Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is a welcome return of one of Mickey’s most memorable adventures. It offers pretty much everything you could want from a remake of a lost classic. The execution is a little rough, but there are enough new ideas and fun game concepts to make the experience more than worthwhile. Fun gameplay, an immersive world, plenty of replay value, and a number of tweaks and improvements over the original make this game a top seller. We recommend it to anyone looking for a big-budget 3D platformer that does things a little differently than genre norms, and of course, to anyone who considers themselves an avid Disney fan.