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!
Conclusion
The original Disney Epic Mickey was a good game that evidently suffered from an issue or two on the Wii, and those have been successfully thinned and repainted in Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed. We're really impressed by just how much effort has gone into this remake (especially the new visuals), and although it's arguably a bit too pricey at launch, there's definitely fun to be had with this one if you're a Disney fan or just a fan of platforming games in general.
Comments 5
Tried the demo for a bit, seems nice but will wait for it to be on a service or a very deep sale, as you say $60 is a bit much to ask for it imo.
I played this at launch and thought it was very average, with a lot of gameplay that felt outdated even back then. I can't imagine what that would feel like almost 15 years later. But perhaps others will enjoy it more.
Feel like you could've found a better Con than "$60 feels pretty expensive for a remake of a 2010 Wii game", because the past decade has been a ton of Remasters and Remakes that range in quality this could be slapped onto. Like the Dead Rising Remake that just came out.
@shoeses These 'Rectification Remasters', i.e releases that purely release something locked to Console X a decade or more ago, are often expensive, especially with how much you can get the original for.
The new Sonic (and Shadow) Generations release has enough to just about justify not going with the XBOX 360 version, but this...
If they fused Epic Mickey 1+2, maybe even threw in a unlockable bonus of the 3DS game, it would actually feel worth it. Half it's price for what's here, maybe, but not full price.
This does seem to justify the price tag with having gone back to re-do assets, add new features, and convert motion controls to proper controllers.
That said, I also understand every complaint on the price tag feeling too high, even with all that in mind. It's an interesting point, but I hope it does well. I doubt the rest of Warren Spector's grand Epic Mickey plans will live on, but at least seeing the second game get a spit-shine would be real nice!
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