PAX 2010: Epic Mickey

Those of us who grew up with Fantasia know that Mickey is prone to making mistakes, in Disney’s new game Epic Mickey, we delve in to his world once more.  Mickey must battle through a world created by Yen Sid (character based on Walt Disney) to fight against his own accidental creation the Phantom Blot. This is a very dark backdrop compared to what we’ve seen before. You will have the choice to either paint and make enemies your friends, or use paint thinner to destroy your enemies. What you decide on will effect your storyline. This also comes in to play with puzzles in the game as you may have to re-paint your environment as well. Unlike Kingdom Hearts, this world is based around old Disney cartoons such as Willie the Steamboat and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Mickey has been re-designed to look more like his past self. Don’t pass this game off as a kid’s game just because it’s Disney however, when we got the chance to play it we were surprised by the difficulty of the platforming stages. You will have to time your jumps, spacing, and figure out puzzles in this mode. In a way, it’s hard for me to pinpoint their target audience. You could say it’s a hardcore game because of the difficulty but they chose the Wii as the their platform and you still only have your basic controlls… jump, attack, paint, paint thinner as the Wiimote can only do so much. You can’t really say it’s for kids with the rumored T or M ESRB rating, I could see them maybe playing the parts where you paint, but is the content family friendly? It will be interesting to see where this game sets it’s roots.

Epic Mickey will be available November 2010 for the Wii.