It’s difficult for me to accept Mickey Mouse as anything more than Disney’s main mascot. I’m more than aware of the history of the Mouse, and it’s because of that I feel that he only belongs in old cartoons, and in the form of a fun family friendly full bodied costume walking around the Disney theme parks. I don’t see him as an interesting character for films, and has definitely nothing about him to warrant game releases.
So I was less than looking forward to putting Epic Mickey 2 into my Xbox drive. Having not played the first I had no idea what I was getting into. What I did know, was that I was going to be controlling a paint brush wielding mouse, which sounds ridiculous even for a children’s game.
Epic Mickey 2 mainly focuses on co op, which is all local play, with no online option. It is a shame then that the second player takes up a rabbit called Oswald (apparently an old Disney character?) who has completely ripped off Sonic’s Tails with his flying ability, the only difference being his ears spin rather than his tail. But to be fair, there is some brilliant co op play on show, with each player needing to think about their different abilities in order to achieve the goals set out, or how to venture forward in certain areas. As previously mentioned, Mickey has his paint brush that uses paint (no kidding right?) and thinner in order to create things in the environment or to wipe them out. Oswald has an electric shock device to interact with electrical panels and to shock enemies. Playing solo is frustrating due to the clumsy AI controlling Oswald. It would have been nice to be able to switch between the characters as to not feel punished for having no one to play with.
The controls are another area which frustrated me. Essentially they are very simple, a button to jump, one to do a simple attack and others to do either painting or thinning. But controlling the camera and the characters themselves can become extremely annoying and very fiddly. A game which should be a nice platformer for children gets unravelled in an area which should be easily accessible for a younger audience. But when someone like myself (and I’m not bigging myself up as a perfect gamer by any stretch of the imagination) has difficulty controlling a game aimed at children, I have to assume that the whole experience will become annoying and difficult for them. At one point, myself and my girlfriend took around 20 minutes just to position Mickey and Oswald correctly just to do a simple jump across a gap. Such trivial moments shouldn’t take so much effort (and screaming).
The games colourful graphics are its strong point, using the whole colour pallet to create vibrant areas and characters which your eyes will be happy to view. And as expected with Disney the voices and sounds are top notch throughout – the helium influenced Mickey is unsurprisingly present. The cheesy songs and musical moments are also in place. There is also some longevity with the collectables scattered through the landscape.
Epic Mickey 2 for me doesn’t need to exist. It regularly hails back to Disney of old, and is a present day homage to the old days. But anyone old enough to be a fan of that era will not want to play this game. And anyone young enough to want to play the game won’t appreciate what Disney has attempted to do. Some great co op moments and nice graphics aren’t enough to drag this game up from what is essentially a boring experience from the get go. Mickey needs to put down his paint brush, lock Oswald back up in the memory bank, and go back to parading the street of Disney Land.
