Disney finally lost the rights to their golden boy. As of January 1, 2024, Mickey Mouse has lost its Disneyland exclusive membership and got pulled into the public domain, and it was about time. Sure it was just their Steamboat Willie design, but it’s still a massive blow. Given how Disney is the reason copyright law is as extreme as it is with them petitioning to extend it over and over again, no average citizen is going to defend them and say they should still own Mickey. As of this, a wave of Mickey-themed games and movies released, it was clear most of them only really existed just to cash in on Mickey’s image without quality care (the less said about Rubber Hose Rampage, the better). However, the biggest Mickey game to release this year was a Disney-approved remake of a 14-year-old Wii game, Epic Mickey: Rebrushed. Coming in with the promise to help fix the issues of the original Wii game, this proved to be the wonderful brush-up this game needed, even if it missed a couple of spots on its canvas.
Decades ago, Mickey Mouse felt his mirror calling to him, and stepping through it, found himself in a wizard’s lair. Yensid (try spelling that name backwards) was busy putting the final touches upon his land called Wasteland, a place for forgotten and old cartoon characters. Yensid’s tool for this was a brush that both paints things anew and thins away at painted objects. Wanting to have some fun with it, he ends up accidentally creating a monster out of thinner and spills a thinner bottle over as he escapes. In the present day, Mickey is awoken and pulled into this old world by the monster he created. Grabbing the brush as he was pulled in, he’s now able to forge his own path through the wasteland as he tracks down Oswald and tries to get back home.
First up, we need to talk about just how this game fixes up the original version. The graphics of the original game were already new and impressive for the Wii console, being a dark yet gorgeous cartoonish display to highlight this abandoned and dilapidated world of cartoon characters. With the advancements of powerful new consoles, these graphics were able to look even better than ever now. Lightning has been brightened and now isn’t afraid to show off how run-down Wasteland has gotten, and the improved graphics help show off the difference between repainted and improved objects you can paint in, and how gloomy their thinned-out forms are.
The 2D animated cutscenes remained the same however, only being given a higher quality, but they’re still pleasant to look at and are a nice change of pace from the in-game cutscenes, so it’s not that bad. While the music didn’t receive this level of attention, the music is still lovely and gorgeous to listen to. There are even different variants for locations based on whether you’re using paint or thinner up to that point, all of which help the soundtrack stand out more.
The camera was the original game’s biggest flaw, making it hard for you to adjust yourself and see what’s going on. Here, it’s been fixed, now being able to function more like cameras from modern games. The cursor can stay stuck in the middle of the screen but can still move around with gyro controls. The only real blight in this improvement is when in the 2D sections in the Wasteland where you can use the paint and thinner, the controls for pointing the paint and thinner are mapped to the camera button, acting more like a mouse cursor that feels sluggish and clunky. However, the game still supports gyro controls, and they still work well in these parts, so you can still use them when needed.
Of course, these improvements wouldn’t be much if the base game wasn’t good. Thankfully, it still proves to be a fun time. Taking control of Mickey, you’re tasked with traversing through Wasteland with a brush that can help you paint in the land around you, or to thin out objects. This paint and thinner system is the main point of the entire game, and they’re both used to their fullest here. Paint allows you to rebuild platforms and help paint enemies to reform them to help you. Thinner helps you erase painted walls and delete enemies from your path. It’s a fun way to get introduced to the main gimmick of the game, but there are still many other ways to use them in the world. From erasing and painting gears to get them to be at just the right angle, filling in pipes to get them to stop pushing steam out, to thinning out platforms to cause rubble on top to fall to form other platforms, the game encourages you to use both regardless of how you play.
Now for the biggest part of the game; the morality system. See, paint and thinner just aren’t ways to travel around the world. You’re going through your old mess from decades ago, and are now given a chance to fix it, or to finally finish it. Throughout the game, you’re given chances to help out the Wasteland residents with their problems, be it aiding in their detective agency or helping redeem their image in the eyes of others. You can either go through with their side quests and help repair themselves or just ignore them and move on. Sometimes you can even flat out be purposefully malicious, like selling a diary or locket to someone instead of properly giving them to whoever needs them. These impacts can be felt with characters praising you or calling you out for your deeds, and with some quests even being impossible to complete without failing the other due to the morality system, it helps boost and encourages replayability in the game.
This paint and thinner system is also used in boss battles as well. Each boss in the game has a couple of ways to dispatch them, each using paint and thinner prominently in their paths. On the weaker end of the spectrum, they will just have you using paint and thinner on a machine that only accepts one and not both. However, in other paths, you can end up going through separate paths to try and beat these bosses in certain ways. The robotic Captain Hook fight is the biggest example, letting you either have you trick him into a wall to smash him up, have him walk the plank, or scale the ship to free a fairy to have them bring the Wasteland’s version of Peter Pan to fight for you. All of this helps give the game replay value and encourages you to play through multiple times to see how your choices affect everyone.
Traversing through locations occurs throughout 2D platforming sections that are reminiscent of old Mickey Mouse cartoons. You’ll end up traveling through locations that feel like they were ripped out of their film reels. From hopping around the ship on Steamboat Willie, traversing through three different shorts of Oswald’s old cartoon career, or even Sleeping Beauty, you’re always going to be looking at a new sight that will showcase Disney’s past. A new feature in this game is that you can play through any of the film reels in the cinema, being accessible at the main menu as well as in the central hub, Mean Street, so you’re going to be able to come and go as you please to collect any missing collectibles there.
However, it feels like there was a missed chance for it to be greater than it is. When going through the levels, you can only go through about half the game in one way. It makes sense in terms of trying to enforce the themes of your choices in a platforming story-based game, and the new update alerts you when you’re about to leave an area you won’t return to when there’s a quest to do, which is a nice way to try and compromise. However, when it’s less about you purposefully trying to be evil and more about you just simply missing a quest item and forgetting about the quest, it tends to feel cheap. The Haunted Mansion can be particularly guilty of this with many side quests that are tied to rooms in there. Surely it wouldn’t have hurt to add a free-roam option, right? Just having the areas restrict you from interfering with any choices you previously made and letting you just pick up what you missed the first time around could feel fairer than giving you only one shot, but I do understand the desire to keep the choices matter philosophy the game has.
What I can’t understand is the glitches that still pop up from time to time. There were a couple of times where I found myself stuck in free fall due to positioning in level geometry. While a quick blast of paint or thinner could usually seal the deal, it’s still a surprising oversight. Reports online have shown and indicated plenty of other glitches ranging from refusing to load levels or even plot-relevant cutscenes. Now, I haven’t seen anything that bad thankfully on my end but do be warned the possibility is always lurking around the corner.
Overall, this game was a pleasant surprise with how a remake should go. It fixes most of the major issues within the first game, makes other small tweaks, and still keeps the original’s spirit intact while improving the graphics. With all of that in mind, even with a few areas where touching up should be needed, Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is a successful triumph that deserves its second shot at relevancy, keeping the original fun paint and thinner gimmicks, and intriguing morality system in place. Should they decide to take a crack at reworking Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, then now they have the experience and time to fully fix it up, and hopefully, they do with how rushed the sequel was, meaning it needs more work than the original Epic Mickey to try to be epic, like the Rebrushed remake. This game is easily a must-buy for any old fans, new Disney fans who love a dark twist to their classics, or anyone generally intrigued by a story-based platformer.
