Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed Review (Xbox Series X|S)

Hopefully you'll forgive us for not having that much experience with the original Disney Epic Mickey for Nintendo Wii, as although the sequel arrived on Xbox 360 in 2012, Xbox fans have never been treated to the first entry in this series until now. It's been a long wait, but the good news is that developer Purple Lamp has added more than just a lick of paint to this excellent 2024 remake for Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.

For those who never got to play the Wii version, Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed revolves around a world full of forgotten Disney characters who become plagued by a monstrous force known as the Blot after Mickey accidentally spills paint and thinner onto their magical realm. Mickey then gets sucked into the world himself, and embarks upon a journey to try and return to his homeland. It's a really cool premise that makes for a decent story, and the actions you take in this world affect the narrative, leading to multiple endings that you could run into.

The gameplay is reminiscent of a fairly simple 3D platformer (aside from some occasional 2D-style side-scrolling sections), with plenty of jumps to make, basic puzzles to solve and a variety of enemies to dispose of. There's also a unique element in terms of the paintbrush that Mickey wields, with the right trigger being used to paint things and the left trigger being used to add thinner. The thinner is really useful for uncovering hidden areas, while paint can be used to create new ledges or activate machines that can help you progress to the next stage of a level. Your paintbrush can be used to attack enemies as well, but the way in which you use it may change how your story develops later on.

Most of this takes place within an intentionally gloomy "Wasteland" that might not impress Mickey very much, but it's certainly had a glow-up compared to its Nintendo Wii counterpart. You wouldn't know this game was 14 years old at first glance, and that's because Purple Lamp has gone back and rebuilt the entire thing from scratch, literally including every single asset. It looks great across the board as a result, and in our experience, it runs extremely smoothly at 4K and 60 frames per-second on Xbox Series X. This is how you do a remake, folks!

Some of the gameplay improvements are particularly impressive as well. Looking back at the Nintendo Life review of Disney Epic Mickey for the Wii, one of the things they were highly critical of was the awkward camera, which is no longer an issue in this remake. The motion controls for the paintbrush have been translated into the triggers and analog sticks very effectively, and they've even gone ahead and added some brand-new features such as the ability to sprint and ground-pound.

There are still a couple of things that we're not so keen on though. As great as the premise is for Disney Epic Mickey's story, the lack of voice acting really drags it down at times. There's a big moment fairly early on when Mickey meets Oswald the Lucky Rabbit for the first time, and it should be a momentous moment for the narrative, but all you hear in the background is repetitive grunts while you read some text at the bottom of the screen. We get it - the original didn't have much voice acting - but it's hard to shake the feeling that the story suffers from this missed opportunity.

The other thing is that, as much as this is a fun platformer and an excellent remake, it's still a 2010 Nintendo Wii game at heart, and charging $60 at launch feels like a stretch. We've enjoyed our time with this game without a doubt, but we're still not sure whether we'd cough up full price for it - it's too expensive if you ask us!