Illusion of Life: Disney's Epic Mickey (Wii)

Mickey has never been my favorite cartoon character, even as youngster
growing up on Wonderful World of Disney and you Kurt Russell movies.
Warner Bros. and specifically Chuck Jones suited my tastes far more
clearly, with sarcastic, violent, deliriously funny shorts filling my
weekends. Bugs and Daffy carry multiple layers as characters appealing
to both kids and adults, while the ever more sanitized character of
Mickey abandoned the early rubber armed rapscallion who tormented
Pete. I guess in the end, Mickey specifically has never been funny or
dangerous.

Epic Mickey is a historical exploration of Disney Animation wrapped in
a game. Fantasia era Mickey accidentally spills the Sorcerer's bottle
of paint thinner on a scale model of Disneyland, unaware of the
disastrous results. Flash forward several decades and Mickey is sucked
into a vortex leading to the model, taking only the Sorcerer's magic
paint brush with him.

The brush itself is the main interface to the world, controlled by the
Wii-mote, with character movement controlled by the nun-chuk. It
allows Mickey to spray paint or thinner, creating or destroying this
twisted replica of the Magic Kingdom. Mickey quickly discovers his
thinner accident years earlier has twisted and warped a world created
by Oswald the Rabbit as a refuge for forgotten Disney characters. The
method in which Mickey interacts with the world and its characters
defines how they will later react to Mickey, as he can make friends
using paint or enemies using thinner.

Transitions between areas are playable platformers based on actual
Mickey Mouse cartoons dating back to Steamboat Willy. This is
initially charming, but like so many aspects of the game, the charm is
quickly ground away.

Plagued by camera and control issues, Epic Mickey is endlessly
repetitive, especially in later areas where quests require constant
travel between worlds, so the same cartoon platform is crossed dozens
of times. Devoid of voice other than the incidental and ambient
noises, dialogue is delivered N64 style, as word balloons. Boss
battles show a spectacular lack of imagination, as one battle REQUIRED
the player to run to the left on a circle track around the boss.
Deviation to the right would automatically drive Mickey off the track
and to death. Checkpoints are sporadic, some placed perfectly, and
others so far back in the world as to be useless.

Most damaging is the obvious care and attention given to the character
design and animations. When entering structures, the inside would
revert to a 3D rendered-flat version of a classical cartoon
represented perfectly. The love of the source material is (no pun
intended) painted all over the game other than the mechanics and level
design. The environments are dark and gloomy, which is thematically
appropriate but muddy on the SD resolution of the Wii.

Epic Mickey feels designed by two teams, one art, one tech, that never
communicated their intentions to the other. Lead by Warren Spector
this game deserved to be better and instead is an epic disappointment.