Ahhhh, the gritty reboot. It's become a staple of all 21st century entertainment. And no one is in need of it more than Mickey Mouse. To be truthful, I never even really liked Mickey as a kid. His voice annoyed me, his damn constant upbeat attitude was just grating and I never really found him all that interesting. In fact, he was pretty arrogant. The Sorcerer's Apprentice was the only thing that really impressed me right up until Mickey freakin' went axe murderer over the broom who was doing nothing but following orders.
Others must have thought the same thing, because Mickey's popularity has been waning in recent years. He's little more than a mascot now where he once was an integral part to Disney's image. There aren't Mousketeers anymore, there are no more cartoons that include Mickey, and he certainly hasn't made any appearnces on TV. This isn't a bad thing, per se. Attitudes change, new trends are formed and eventually the old makes way for the new. It's the natural way of things.
But sometimes instead of just fading out of existence, franchises decide to reboot instead of relax and reinvent themselves with a darker more serious storyline. Batman is the biggest example of this. Remember the 60's tv show? Pretty much all camp has gone out of it now. Again, not a bad thing. I loooooove me some dark backstory, gritty settings and grim themes. I love them a lot. Pan's Labyrinth, Batman Begins, and Carnivale are just a few to litter my shelves.
So when I saw the trailer for Epic Mickey? I got excited. Very excited. The concept was unique and showed a lot of promise, the old school art style looked fantastic and Mickey seemed a lot less goody two-shoes, going back to his roots of being a Grade A shit disturber (seriously, those old cartoons were pretty dickish).
And the idea of wandering around a warped Disneyland where all of the forgotten cartoons were forced to go was intriguing. After all, what happens to ideas once we abandon them? The things we create don't ever really disappear. This seemed to take more risks than Disney normally did and I eagerly awaited the game's release, trying not to let the hype get to me, because in my books the more hype there is witih a game the bigger a disappointment it'll be.
Well, the good news first. Epic Mickey is pretty fun. You play Mickey (obviously) who within two minutes of the first cutscene has almost entirely destroyed what was supposed to be a refuge for the forgotten Disney cartoons. Mickey does the natural thing, of course, which is to take responsibility and right his wrong...oh no, wait, he totally runs off and tries to pretend like it never happened. Yup. Dick. But probably what I would do.
The game begins when Mickey is dragged back by the ink abomination he created. You learn that Oswald Bunny, Walt Disney's ACTUAL first creation (although it's been recently learned that it was not Walt Disney who solely created either) kind of has a grudge against Mickey, and understandably so. Mickey kind of stole his thunder, and even though Mickey seems kind of unaware of this you still can't help but feel for Oswald. So then you discover that Mickey is left with the magic paint brush and thinner and thus the ability to help restore the land by painting everything back in and defeating evil yadda yadda yadda.
So far, this is pretty fun. I started experimenting with the paint, I went around the towns questioning the different cartoons, I marvelled at the dark and warped Disneyland, and it's gotten even darker with the point I'm at right now. I mean...holy crap...Mickey really is a bit of a dick. Many of the cartoons you'll encounter will be so excited to see Mickey again, going as far as to say things like "Hey Mickey! It's me! Remember? We were in 5 cartoons together!" and Mickey....doesn't even remember. And it's just about the saddest thing to watch the cartoon's faces fall in disappointment. Don't even get me started on the animatronic Goofy that I discovered who was built because Oswald didn't have any friends so he tried to copy Mickey's. Wow, dark storyline, sympathetic antagonist, this seems like it's going to be right up my alley.
But then...the fetch quests start. And this game is almost nothing BUT fetch quests, to the point where you start wondering what the original fetch quest was because so many have been added since. What's this? You need a tool? Well, the detective has one but he won't give it to you unless he gets a cake or something which is at this lady's house. But the lady won't give you the cake until she gets her orb back. But the guy with the orb wants you to get his name cleared with the police. But the police wants you to....yeah, you get the idea. It gets pretty repetitive pretty fast and I found it hard to keep my interest because it didn't ever seem like the fetch quests would end. I felt like reciting "This is the house that Jack built" by the end.
Then there's the "moral choices" that have to be made. A lot of games are doing this right now. The player is given the chance throughout the game to take the "good" path or the "evil" path. I use quotations here because Epic Mickey's good path is kind of questionable in my opinion. You can either use paint or thinner to do the majority of your tasks in the game. You'll need to use both for various tasks but there are certain key tasks where you are given a choice. Paint represents the good option, but often takes longer and is a bit more of a challenge. Thinner represents the "evil" option but is usually the easier way out (for instance, instead of climbing up a tower to search of a switch to make a bridge, I just took out the tower's support and knocked it over. Eat it, tower).
For the most part, I used paint, but I couldn't help but be disturbed by the supposedly good actions. To defeat enemies you can either irradicate them entirely using thinner OR you can douse them with enough paint and it will turn them to your side. This is the most useful option to me, because I hates me the combat and getting your enemies to fight against their own saves me a lot of time. But when you think about it? What you're essentially doing is brainwashing and taking away the free will of something because it doesn't like you. Yeah, yeah, I know, they're enemies, they're out to destroy you, but...watching a glassy eyed blue covered beast blindly do your bidding is a bit disturbing...imagine if that's how we dealt with bullies or something...
But in the end, the good path is clear. If you use paint, it's a lot easier to get around towns and talk to other characters because they will like you more for using the paint and being the "gentler" soul for not mindlessly destroying things. I don't know, though. I found the townsfolk to be entirely too welcoming to Mickey, even before I started the paint job. After all, this is the guy who took away the potential fame for these characters and who single handedly destroyed their one chance at a peaceful retirement because he just HAD to see what that damn paintbrush did. The bunny seems to realize this and acts accordingly, but everyone else is just so damn happy to see the guy. Still, I enjoyed seeing the old characters.
There are other little things too that add up. The camera angles just seem hell bent on never actually letting you see what's in front of you and there's no way to control them. Everytime you learn a new move, there's no way to go back and double-check how to do it. For someone like me, who sometimes has to leave a game for a few weeks because my life is swallowed whole by theatre, this was a big point against the game. It's not that I'd completely forget how to do the basic moves, but some of the more complex special moves would fade out of my mind. I'm talking specifically about the motion controlled moves that require a way too precise movement to get going. I haven't been able to figure it out since.
Yes, the fetch quests and travelling in between worlds gets tedious, the camera angles are absolute bitches to you, but the main reason I have yet to finish this game? My TV.
I don’t know what it is about newer video games, but for the life of me I just can’t play them on my older TV. And by old, I don’t mean “this still has a dial switch on it”. I mean that it’s just not a flat screen HD TV or anything like that. That’s the only reason I can think of. I’ve switched TV’s 3 times in the last 4 months, each a bit better than the last but STILL the colour is always darker and there seems no way of adjusting it.
This kind of really affects the game play of Epic Mickey because with dark subject matter comes a dark palette of colours and most of the game I’m just trying to figure out where things are because I literally cannot see anything in darker scenes. It’s a frustrating and lengthy experience and when 70% of your experience is squinting at the screen to just TRY and make out shapes in the darkness, it’s hard to want to continue with it.
But I do want to finish it. And someday hopefully I will. It has some good adventure elements to it and again, the storyline is getting just interesting enough to keep me hooked. But for the most part Epic Mickey seems like a game with a lot of potential it didn’t use and it’s game play elements add up to a somewhat frustrating and tedious experience.
Add to that a moral choice system that just seems a little off kilter with a mouse who is not so much a dark reboot but a clueless jerk, and the game just falls shy of being good. Still, who knows what the future holds. I might finish it and completely change my mind. That mouse had better learn something at the very least.
I still would like to try this game when you're done. I was really skeptical when it first came out though. I too have always hated the voice of Mickey. Mickey was indeed before our time really. He's never meant anything to me and I had already had a bad experience with Mickey as a character in a game. That game? Kingdom Hearts. I have watched 2 people play this game and I almost had to kill one of them. Mickey is SOOOO important he's King Mickey... riiight. Luckily, he's not in a whole lot of the game. But the person I almost had to kill always played with Donald and Goofy in his party and their voices are just as annoying. Minnie too. He unlocked other, much more silent type charters, but still played with Donald and Goofy. The final straw was the hour spent pointless swimming around the Little Mermaid level "in case he missed Something" while the first couple bars of "under the Sea" play over and over and OVER. Sure the game had good combat and puzzles but the story is so sugary sweet it brought to mind Gibb's old "gag me with a spoon" comment. And much eye rolling. This is what I feared for Epic Mickey. The main character of pure innocence full of the power of love and friendship, but who I have no reason to actually care about.But I'm intrigued but this dickish Mickey. Please lend it to me when you're done.
ReplyDeleteBTW, after getting to 88.7% completion in Lego Harry Potter, I had to start over from the beginning in a new file. I found out that I would never be able to unlock the polyjuice potion (so I could use it in Hogwarts) because of a glitch, that prevents it from being unlocked if you play that level in co-op mode (which I had). Seriously. Anyway, I would gladly muse about that one with you sometime :)