Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed Review

Epic Mickey first appeared on the Nintendo Wii, back in 2010. The title looked great back then, but now on modern consoles Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed really shines and looks amazing. We are introduced to a cinematic showing a sorcerer who may look familiar to a lot of Disney fans. He owns a magic mirror, and that has summoned Mickey in the middle of the night to leave his bed and walk into this mirror, taking him to the magical world where the magician resides. The sorcerer was busy working on a model of a special world for things that had been forgotten and was painting it with his magical brush.

The wizard decided to quit for the night and made the mistake of leaving this paintbrush, along with the paint thinner, for our mischievous Mickey to find. Mickey decides to channel his creative side and paint some of this world but instead ends up creating a monster. Panicking, he grabs the paint thinner and tries to wipe out the evil creature with it. This plan doesn’t go as expected and ends up getting spilt into this magical world, creating a wasteland that sucks everything in. Hearing the commotion, the sorcerer comes down to see the destruction happening in his workroom. He doesn’t know who is responsible for this until many months later, when the ink monster, known as The Blot, shows up in Mickey’s bedroom, pulling him into this world now called the Wasteland.

The beginning of this game reminds me a lot of the story in Fantasia where the sorcerer leaves his magical hat unattended and Mickey puts it on thinking that he can use the magic power it contains. The real difference here is that it is a paintbrush instead of a special hat. It was neat to see a reference to an animated movie that was originally released in 1940! By playing Epic Mickey: Rebrushed, you will learn a lot about the history of Mickey, along with things you would see if you were to visit Disneyland or Disney World.

Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed isn’t just a 3D platformer as it appears; you will also revisit classic Mickey cartoons like Steamboat Willie and Mickey and the Beanstalk. These are 2D platforming challenges that have you interacting with these old animations to collect special items and E-Tickets that are used as currency in the game. It was so fun visiting the black-and-white world of Steamboat Willie when the modern Mickey you’re playing as is in colour, creating a nice contrast between the two.

Everything in this game looks great and is a massive improvement over the original title. I love that when you paint an area on a building or bridge, you can see the paint dripping. Or when The Blot is moving around, you see drops falling off its body; all the elements feel alive.

The game does a great job of surprising you by switching up the gameplay elements for each of the classic animation levels you play; some have you bouncing on a mattress to jump high, while another needs you to jump from leaf to leaf to reach the top of the beanstalk. Most of the time the controls worked very nicely, though there were a few times while trying to make more precise jumps that felt a bit more clunky, which led to a bit of frustration. The other thing I will warn you about is that when you solve puzzles to open large doors with a sparkling outline of Mickey’s head, once you go through that door, you might not be able to come back here. So you won't be able to complete any quests you have open once you leave.

As much as I adored revisiting these older cartoons, the 3D exploration of Wasteland felt great. Mickey still has the magical paintbrush that he “acquired” in the beginning. This brush introduces a super fun mechanic that you don’t usually get to experience in games. The left trigger on your controller is paint thinner; you use this to take the paint away to remove doors and walls that block your path or to erase enemies that you encounter. To counter this, using the right trigger, you add paint which can be used to fill in gaps and do other things like patch areas on pipes where steam is escaping or fill in holes on bridges. Painting also lets you tame the enemies you encounter; instead of destroying them, you will become friends with them so they don’t hurt you, and they fight alongside Mickey for a short period of time. The supply meter for both types of brush will run out and will need to be replenished to keep using them. Fortunately, it is easy to acquire the coloured tickets required to fill the bar by breaking barrels, creepy doll statues you find, or opening treasure chests. I never had an issue where I completely ran out of either paint thinner or the paint itself; there were always tickets around.

There are a lot of quests in the game to complete, divided into Epic and Secondary Quests. Both include jobs that have you repairing the Disneyland rides in Wasteland that have fallen into disarray, including the Jungle Cruise Ride, Mad Tea Party (spinning teacups), and Dumbo the Flying Elephant. The gremlins that you free from their cages will assist in repairs for these rides, you just have to use your magical paintbrush and thinner to help the process along. I personally have never gotten to experience these rides for myself, but it makes you feel bad when you see them all rusted and broken. Once they were fixed up and working again, it was incredibly satisfying to see parts of this dark and desolate map now bright and vibrant.

There is so much to do and collect in Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed. Besides completing all the main quests in the game, there are 112 pins to collect, various costumes for Mickey to wear, and animated cartoons that you can view on the extras page. There is also a Photo Mode that you can use to take fun snapshots of Mickey in this once-magical world. With a variety of filters to use, like sepia, black and white, sunset, and fisheye, you can get very creative with your shots.

Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is a family-friendly title that is perfect for Disney fans of all ages. Besides being an awesome remake, the amount of things you learn about Mickey’s history makes it educational at the same time. I never knew that Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was created back in 1927, the same year as our protagonist, Mickey!

If you played Epic Mickey back on the Wii, or if you never got a chance to, you need to check out this remake. Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed does a fantastic job of bringing this magical world to life with fun gameplay and references every Disney fan will love.