Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

"This game is so close." This is the thought that continued to fly through my head as I played Epic Mickey. Honestly, Epic Mickey is a victim to two years of hype more than anything, well that and its abysmal camera, but we will get to that. Most anyone intersted in this game knows the story by now. Yensid (right) created a world where Disney's forgotten works have a place to live, even though they aren't being used anymore. Mickey accidentally spills ink and paint thinner all over this world and creates an evil blot and damages the world greatly. Later, Mickey is pulled into what is now known as the Wasteland. It starts with a Mad Scientist getting ready to literally plunge Mickey's heart out, but Oswald the Lucky Rabbit saves him. Mickey meets Gus the Gremlin who helps you through that first section with serves as a tutorial on the controls and the paint/thin element of the game. Also note this Nintendo. Gus basically plays the Navi of this game, and Gus isn't annoying. See? It can be done, please do so with Skyward Sword. Mickey has a magic paintbrush that can create as well as destroy. B creates, Z uses thinner to erase the world piece by piece. The mechanic is almost limitless and works well. I won't spoil all the surprises, but early on you will create and remove gears for platforms, make rocks disappear and a variety of other interesting things. You chase Oswald through a number of early worlds, saving other Gremlins (or not) and performing tasks for them. Most familiar of course being the Small World Ride. Which brings us to the games problems. First it relies wholly too much on fetch quests to artificially lengthen the game. At one point you reach Main Street and have to get several items prior to leaving the area. This requires you to basically criss cross across the town several times over talking to different characters. It is annoying to say the least. Second problem, which has been harped on by everyone is the abysmal camera. Luckily, the Epic Mickey team realized it was awful and put in a manual control scheme, however, that is little solace when making tough jumps onto moving planes above a lake of thinner. At one point, I made that jump and it looked like someone has dropped the camera. Needless to say, I wound up missing the jump and starting again. Finally, for all of its hype, it is an awfully linear game. It plays more like a cross between Zelda and Mario than something truly epic and new. Each world is filled with large arenas that have multiple things to do. You basically methodically complete each room until you reach the end boss. This isn't necessarily bad, but you should be expecting it. I was not. But the positives outweigh the negatives. The game is just beautiful. The world is fleshed out and you can tell great love was put into this game by people who love Disney. Little things like the remade "Partners" statue from the parks will get the Disney lovers (like myself) smiling. But overall, the art direction is just amazing. And while the 2D "projector" stages may seem a bit incongruous in the game, they look and play beautiful. Furthermore, the story is as good as any on the Wii right now. It is Disney and it comes with Disney quality. What struck me about the story is its sadness. Mickey has a long discussion with Clarabelle the Cow early in the game and it is heartwrenching. It is a story of loss and redemption. A story of memory and longing. It is a true experience, told through great cut scenes (though bizarrely unvoiced). Finally, the decision engine works well. There is no "right and wrong" as many decision engine games have had. There is only what you want to do. Not only does it affect the ending, but it affects the gameplay. If you help Little Pete early for example, he will give you a treasure trove before you fight the Clock Tower. It feels organic and it works. Epic Mickey is awfully close to being a great game, but in the end, it winds up being a very good one. There are spots that will bore you and others that will make you scream in frustration. But overall, the game will give you that same warm feeling that seeing a great Disney movie will.