I don’t think I’ve ever been more disappointed by a game release then by Epic Mickey. But that can only happen if I’ve been especially looking forward to the game which I was. Disney used to be my personal leader in video games. I wore Aladdin for Sega out when I was a kid. And Mickey World of Illusion was the first game to create a world that I wanted to live in.



Everything I had seen from Epic Mickey gave me the impression that it was going to be a World of Illusion reboot of sorts. Mickey enters a fantasy world and has to fight his way back to reality. The concept design and visuals for Epic Mickey looked amazing but unfortunately the reality and the game play kept me from even finishing.

The first problem, right off the bat, if you’re going to design a stunning game, don’t release it exclusively for the Wii. I was worried about how it would ultimately look when I found out it wasn’t going to be on PS3 or Xbox but I decided to put my fears aside until I actually played the game. To me, if the story and gameplay is good enough the visuals don’t matter as much. Hell, World of Illusions was 8-bit but the overall atmosphere is created blew my mind. Unfortunately, what I expected was true and the concept art for the game didn’t hold up to what it actually looked like on my screen.

I would have put that aside because most concept art doesn’t hold up to reality but the gameplay was so terrible that I couldn’t make it through. Every level is repetitive clearing of bad guys and grinding for items. For a game that tried to be such a different re-imagining of Mickey they forgot to do anything interesting with the gameplay.

I’ll admit my expectations were high but this game didn’t turn out to be anything worth playing even after I got past my disappoint. The only thing it did make me want to do was replay Kingdom Hearts or pick up World of Illusion for an emulator.