![]() ![]() It’s easy to understand Oswald’s hostility, as Mickey is everything he was meant to be. The first objective in the game is to track Oswald down, but at first, he’s presented as an antagonistic force, even building a trap to dispatch Mickey. Oswald was supposed to be a mascot for Disney, he’s Mickey’s precursor, having been utterly forgotten by Disney and its fans after the mouse replaced him – a fitting ruler, then, to a land of forgotten cartoons. This is Oswald, Gus explains, the ruler of Wasteland. The tower has statues of this rabbit, and an enormous stained glass at the center of the room depicting him as a king. Mickey manages to escape with the help of a Gremlin named Gus – who appears out of nowhere – and they start to track down a curious rabbit who witnessed everything happen. Next to the Mad Doctor, for example, there’s a board with the words “Mickey’s insides” and “Heart-sucking tool.” It doesn’t take long for Mickey to meet this tool, which is shaped like a monstrous Swiss Army knife, with a giant eye and a very menacing drilling mechanical arm. The presence of this particular villain in the intro is fitting, since Epic Mickey’s overall tone is similar to his cartoon: a bit dark, borrowing elements from horror stories, but also a bit goofy at the same time. He’s trapped by the Mad Doctor – the villain of one of his early cartoons – who is trying to take out his heart while specter-like figures roam the purple-tinged sky. As the years go by, Mickey Mouse lives many adventures and becomes famous… until one day a monster appears in that very same mirror and grabs him, bringing Mickey to the wasteland he helped create.Īfter the cutscene, Mickey wakes up in a dilapidated tower. This character, Walt Disney’s alter ego from Fantasia, is building a maquette said to be a “ land for things that have been forgotten,” but when he leaves the room, Mickey plays with his brush and ends up spilling magical thinner onto that world, ruining it. The story tells that one day, Mickey Mouse was brought to a wizard’s workshop by a magical mirror in his bedroom (“ I don’t know if the mirror was being mischievous or malicious ,” the wizard ponders…). It introduces a fascinating world that encourages exploration with a focus on choice and consequence, but lacks commitment to its design: the game seems hesitant about itself, as if it were afraid to double down on its core concepts. A diamond in the rough, Epic Mickey offers an ambitious blend of elements from 3D Platformers and Immersive Sims. ![]()
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