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Epic Mickey

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Epic Mickey
Official North American Game Cover
Developer(s)Junction Point Studios
Publisher(s)Disney Interactive Studios
Designer(s)Warren Spector
Composer(s)James Dooley
EngineGamebryo
Platform(s)Wii
Genre(s)Platformer, Action-adventure

Epic Mickey (sometimes marketed as Disney Epic Mickey) is a Mickey Mouse video game designed by Warren Spector, with 2D cinemas by Powerhouse Animation Studios, Inc.[1] and developed by Junction Point Studios for the Wii console, using Emergent Game Technologies' Gamebryo Engine.[2][3] Epic Mickey is part of an effort by The Walt Disney Company to re-brand the Mickey Mouse character by moving away from his current pleasant, cheerful image and reintroducing the more devious side of his personality.[4] Spector has collaborated with Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios in conjunction with the project.[5] The game was officially announced on October 28, 2009 in London.[6] The game was released on November 25, 2010 in Europe (November 26 in the UK) and on November 30 in North America.

The game focuses on Mickey Mouse damaging a world created by Yen Sid for forgotten characters and concepts, and he is forced to fix the world while combating antagonists with a magic paintbrush. The game features the return of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit as a secondary protagonist. Oswald was one of Walt Disney's first successful cartoon characters before the character was licensed under the ownership of Universal Studios. Oswald was regained by The Walt Disney Company in 2006 under the guidance of Robert Iger.

Gameplay

Epic Mickey is primarily an open-ended platform game with some RPG elements, and allows players to use their own solutions for getting through the levels. Epic Mickey features a morality system similar to games like inFAMOUS and Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. Different alliances, side-quests and power-ups are made available depending on the actions of the player. It is also possible to avoid boss battles if specific actions are taken.

The key feature of the game is the magic paint brush, which Mickey wields, that has the ability to draw or erase objects, using paint and thinner respectively. For example, obstacles can be erased from physical existence using the thinner and then restored using the paint, or enemies can be befriended by revitalizing them with the paint or destroyed completely using the thinner. Mickey is also able to materialize objects from sketches, which have various effects. Two of the three sketches, the clock and the television, slow down time and distract enemies, respectively.[7] Both fluids have limited reserves, adding a strategic element to gameplay: players must compromise between making various tasks harder or easier to accomplish. However, the fluids automatically but slowly refill and power-ups that quickly replenish the fluids are available in certain areas.

To travel between sections of the Wasteland, Mickey traverses 2D side-scrolling levels based on his classic cartoon shorts (with three being based on Oswald shorts and two being based on Sleeping Beauty and Fantasia), such as Steamboat Willie and Clock Cleaners.

Synopsis

Setting

The game is set in a pen-and-paper world created by the sorcerer Yen Sid for "things that have been forgotten," appearing as an intricate model in his workshop. This world is heavily based on various Disneyland theme parks, home to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Gremlin Gus, and other obscure or scrapped Disney characters, rides, or areas.

Story

Mickey Mouse, out of curiosity, enters Yen Sid's workshop through a mirror in his house and discovers the model of the land Yen Sid created and the tool used to create it, the magic paintbrush. Fiddling with the brush, Mickey accidentally creates the Shadow Blot. Panicking, Mickey quickly tries to erase the Blot by throwing paint thinner onto it, but destroys the model in the process. Mickey flees back to his house, while the Blot enters and takes control of the ruined world from its first resident, Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit.

Many months later,[8] Mickey had forgotten his past incident until the Shadow Blot enters his home through the mirror and abducts him into the ruined world, now named the Wasteland. Oswald, soon had his will from years of hiding and his mind twisted by his jealousy of Mickey's rise to fame, the Mad Doctor and the Blot formulate a plan to destroy Mickey and extract his heart, which they plan use to escape the ruined world, as all Wasteland denizens are heartless. During his journey through the Wasteland, Mickey is guided by Gremlin Gus and becomes armed with Yen Sid's brush. Mickey uses the brush to restore the Wasteland in order to atone for his destruction and win Oswald's trust.

After defeating a fake Blot (Oswald revealed the Shadow Blot Mickey fought along with all the Blotlings he encountered were drippings of the real Blot), Mickey eventually comes to terms with his actions and reveals all to Oswald, who loses his temper. While jumping angrily on the cork, Oswald accidentally causes the true form of the Shadow Blot to escape his prison into the world. Oswald soon reveals that he and his wife, Ortensia, attempted to seal the Blot away, but Ortensia was blighted by the Blot in the process and entered a catatonic state. The Blot takes Oswald and Gus, threatening to kill them if Mickey does not allow the Blot to take his heart. Mickey yields his heart to the Blot, who then proceeds to destroy the Wasteland, but Mickey, Oswald and Gus successfully manage to destroy the Blot from the inside and rescue Mickey's heart. Oswald reunites with Ortensia and befriends Mickey now becoming more like brothers. With the Wasteland now slowly regenerating, Mickey escapes back to Yen Sid's workshop and returns home through the mirror, which becomes sealed by Yen Sid to prevent Mickey from entering again and cause anymore mischief. Not long after the mirror is sealed, Mickey discovers that he still has some of the Shadow Blot's ink in him, leaving the possibility he may still be able to reach the Wasteland.

Development

File:Epic mickey reveal.jpg
Premiere in Game Informer magazine.

The game was originally in development for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 and its name was its working title. Development on the Wii started in 2008. When the idea of addressing a Wii port of the game was raised, Spector replied that a straight Wii port would not be viable, remarking that many of the "design ideas just won't work on the Wii, we need to give the Wii its dues". Graham Hopper of Disney Interactive then suggested dropping the development of the aforementioned platforms completely, and instead releasing it solely on the Wii.[9]

Concept art for the game by Fred Gambino and Gary Glover depicted a "surrealistically bizarre" look at Disney characters and locations in a steampunk environment (this art has been categorized as very preliminary concept art and it is not the style of the final game).[10] Featured in the concept art are post-apocalyptic renditions of Goofy, Disneyland's It's a Small World, the Haunted Mansion, Epcot's Spaceship Earth, Disney's Hollywood Studios' "Earful Tower", The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, and Sleeping Beauty Castle.

Compared to the Kingdom Hearts series, a similar video game franchise created by Japanese video game company Square Enix, which combined modern-day Disney characters with their own Final Fantasy characters, Disney Epic Mickey emphasizes retro-vintage and long-lost Disney characters that were created much earlier, and draws more plot elements from the classic movie Fantasia, rather than Final Fantasy; in Kingdom Hearts II, a location in the game was based on the 1920s Steamboat Willie cartoon, but other than that, the rest of the game took its cast from more recently-created characters.[11]

Mickey receives a character redesign in this game, which attempts to give him a "retro" look,[12] and the game uses an animation engine to replicate the stretchy athleticism of the classic cartoons.[13]

Warren Spector has stated that Epic Mickey was planned as a trilogy.[14]

An early idea for the game was for Mickey to adopt an angrier look when he was played in the "scrapper" manner; this idea was dropped after Spector decided it changed Mickey too much from people's perceptions of the character. Mickey looks more smudged instead.[15]

Marvel Comics has confirmed that there will be a comic for Epic Mickey, titled: Disney's Epic Mickey: Tales of the Wasteland. It will serve as a prequel to the game, focusing on Mickey's brother Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and give some insight on what the Wasteland was like before Mickey.

A US-exclusive Epic Mickey Collector's Edition was announced that includes special packaging, special behind-the-scenes DVD disc, Mickey vinyl figure, a Wii Remote skin, and Wii console skins.

The game was leaked by warez groups weeks before its official release date.[16][17]

Epic Mickey marks Oswald's second appearence in video games after Férias Frustradas do Pica-Pau (released in Brazil only).

Promotion

Designer Warren Spector and writer Peter David, who wrote two of the game's tie-in products, at the game's November 30, 2010 Times Square Disney Store launch party.

Writer Peter David, who in 2010 was an exclusive writer for Disney-owned Marvel Comics,[18] wrote a graphic novel adaptation of Epic Mickey, and a prequel digicomic, Disney’s Epic Mickey: Tales of Wasteland.[19][20] Disney also promoted the release of the game with a launch party at the Times Square Disney Store in Manhattan on November 30, 2010, the day the game was released. Present at the party was designer Warren Spector, Peter David, and actors Jennifer Grey and Kyle Massey, who had recently completed the eleventh season of the U.S. Dancing with the Stars, which is broadcast on the Disney-owned ABC.[21][22][23]

Reception

Epic Mickey's release was met with generally mixed to positive reviews.[21] IGN gave it a score of 8, criticizing its camera, control issues and lack of voice acting, but praised its charm, story, art design, and lasting appeal for the players. X-Play gave it a score of 5/5, praising the excellent level design and the paint/thinner mechanic, however criticizing it for its poor camera.

PAL Gaming Network was much more critical, giving the game a score of 6.5, commenting on its clumsy and disappointing gameplay, and its "unpolished and unrefined design". Jonathan Holmes of Destructoid gave it a 7 out of 10, saying that "Epic Mickey falls short of brilliance, but because it stands on such a strong concept it doesn't need brilliance to remain compelling". He backed up his claim by stating later that parts of the game score as low as 4, with other parts a 10, "And a whole lot of stuff in-between."

Video game talk show Good Game's two presenters gave the game a 6 and 7 out of 10. They compared the paintbrush abilities to that of the water jet pack from Super Mario Sunshine as well saying it's mean how after painting all the nasty bits out you return to the level to find that everything has been reset. But on a positive note they said "isn't as 'dark' or 'adult' as the hype made it out to be... I guess it is a kid's game after all, but at least it's an intelligent one. It doesn't come anywhere near the complexity and fun of something like Super Mario Sunshine, which I think it borrow some ideas from."[27]

In Epic Mickey's opening weekend, it was excluded from the UK Top 40 and even Wii Top 10 sales charts after its November 26 UK release, although it was only available to buy for one day in the chart.[28] On November 30th, 2010, the release date in North America, the game was completely sold out on the Disney Store website by the afternoon.

See also

References

  1. ^ Powerhouse Animation Studios' Blog
  2. ^ "'Epic Mickey' (Working Title)". 1UP.com. Retrieved 2009-09-28.
  3. ^ Sterling, Jim (2009-07-29). "Spector's new 'Epic Mickey' game for Wii? There is art!". Destructoid. Retrieved 2009-08-01.
  4. ^ Barnes, Brooks (2009-11-04). "After Mickey's Makeover, Less Mr. Nice Guy". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-11-05.
  5. ^ TomM_GScom (2009-07-29). "'Epic Mickey' Spector's first Disney effort?". GameSpot. Retrieved 2009-08-01.
  6. ^ Reilly, Jim (2009-09-25). "Disney Readies Epic Mickey Announcement". 1UP.com. Retrieved 2009-09-28. It is set to be released on November 30, 2010
  7. ^ Houghton, David (Oct 29, 2009). "The 11 things you NEED to know about Epic Mickey, Disney Epic Mickey Wii Previews - GamesRadar". Games Radar. Future US. Retrieved 2010-04-07.
  8. ^ a b George, Richard (2010-11-24). "IGN: Disney Epic Mickey Review". IGN. Retrieved 2010-11-25.
  9. ^ Fletcher, JC (Oct 28th 2009). "Epic Mickey was originally an epic PC, PS3 & 360 game -- Joystiq". Joystiq. Weblogs, Inc. Retrieved 2010-04-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ a b Pigna, Kris (2009-07-29). "Warren Spector's 'Epic Mickey' Coming to Wii, New Artwork Revealed". 1UP.com. Retrieved 2009-08-01. Cite error: The named reference "1UP" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  11. ^ Who's Excited For Epic Mickey? // Siliconera
  12. ^ Purchese, Robert (2009-10-06). "First Epic Mickey details spilled". Eurogamer. Retrieved 2009-10-06.
  13. ^ Houghton, David (Oct 29, 2009). "The 11 things you NEED to know about Epic Mickey, Disney Epic Mickey Wii Previews - GamesRadar". Games Radar. Future US. Retrieved 2010-04-07.
  14. ^ Nguyen, Thierry (2009-10-29). "Epic Mickey Was Conceived As A Trilogy". 1UP.com. UGO Entertainment. Retrieved 2010-04-07.
  15. ^ "Warren Spector Explains Scrapper Mickey Removal".
  16. ^ "Epic Mickey footage leaked onto internet". VG247. Retrieved 21 November 2010.
  17. ^ "Epic Mickey gets leaked just weeks before release". GoNintendo. Retrieved 21 November 2010.
  18. ^ David, Peter. "A Marvelous Bit of News", peterdavid.net, February 11, 2006
  19. ^ Tong, Sophia. "Peter David penning Epic Mickey digicomic, graphic novel", Gamespot, July 24, 2010
  20. ^ Gonzalez, Annette. "Peter David To Pen Epic Mickey Graphic Novel, Digicomic", Game Informer, July 25, 2010
  21. ^ a b Becky Worley (November 30, 2010). ""Mickey's Got Game!"". Season 35. 1:04:05 minutes in. ABC. WABC-TV. {{cite episode}}: Check |serieslink= value (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |episodelink=, |transcripturl=, and |seriesno= (help); Missing or empty |series= (help); Unknown parameter |began= ignored (|date= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |city= ignored (|location= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |ended= ignored (|date= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  22. ^ Peter David (2010-11-29). ""Epic Mickey Launch Tomorrow"". Peterdavid.net. Retrieved 2010-11-30.
  23. ^ Peter David (2010-11-30). ""Note the Lack of Corner"". Peterdavid.net. Retrieved 2010-11-30.
  24. ^ "Epic Mickey super review by Chris Antista, GamesRadar US". GamesRadar. Retrieved October 15, 2010.
  25. ^ "Epic Mickey Video Game, Review, GameTrailer US". GameTrailers. Retrieved November 27, 2010.
  26. ^ "Epic Mickey Review". G4TV. Retrieved Nov 27, 2010.
  27. ^ "Good Game stories - Epic Mickey". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 2010-11-29.
  28. ^ "UK Charts: How did Epic Mickey get on?" Official Nintendo Magazine, November 29, 2010

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