HANDS-ON: Epic Mickey Rebrushed does a great job of improving the original

In a sense, the plot for Epic Mickey was in danger of becoming a metaphor for the game itself.

The 3D platformer, which was a Wii exclusive back in 2010, told the story of Mickey Mouse visiting the Wasteland, a dark alternative world where all of Walt Disney’s forgotten creations live (including Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the rights to whom had just been reacquired by Disney after nearly 80 years).

While the game did well – I was told today that the total sales ended up coming close to 4 million – the game’s potential was arguably held back by the fact that it was exclusive to the Wii at a time in the console’s life, four years in, when numerous fans of ‘core’ games had left it behind in favour of the HD platforms.

It’s now been nearly a decade and a half since then, and for a time it looked like Epic Mickey – which has remained a Wii exclusive after all this time – was itself becoming a forgotten Disney creation like the characters in the game’s Wasteland. Thanks to Austrian studio Purple Lamp, however, that will no longer be the case.

Epic Mickey: Rebrushed, set for release next month, is a complete remake of the Wii game, with all its assets rebuilt from scratch. As someone who reviewed the Wii original back in the day and still thinks fondly of it, the difference is clear from the second Mickey appears on-screen.

For those not familiar with the game, Mickey is armed with a magical paintbrush which he can use to manipulate objects and characters in the Wasteland. The brush can be used to fire either paint or paint thinner, with each obviously affecting his target in a different way.

Both can also be combined to get past some obstacles. If there’s a bridge in front of you that’s blocked by a huge pile of boulders, for example, you can use thinner on the bridge to make it disappear, causing the boulders to tumble down below. You can then use paint on the empty space where the bridge once was, to bring it back into existence and cross it merrily with a skip in your step.

The original game was developed by Junction Point studios and directed by Deus Ex creator Warren Spector. While Spector isn’t working directly on the remake on a day-to-day basis, Purple Lamp has been delivering regular builds to him to make sure he was happy with its interpretation of the original.

I was told by one of the developers showing off the game that Spector particularly enjoyed playing the new builds on his Steam Deck, and claimed that they had made “a better version” of his game. “It’s not a better version”, they stressed. “It’s just a version made 14 years later”.

I was told by one of the developers showing off the game that Warren Spector enjoyed playing the new builds on his Steam Deck, and claimed that they had made ‘a better version’ of his game. ‘It’s not a better version’, they stressed. ‘It’s just a version made 14 years later’.

Although Rebrushed is clearly a recreation of the Wii game, it’s not a complete 1:1 facsimile. The most immediately obvious examples of this are the controls and the camera. Because the Wii version was played with a Wii Remote and Nunchuk players didn’t have much control over the camera, which ultimately became one of the biggest issues critics had with the game.

This has now obviously been replaced with a typical twin-stick system giving the player full control of the camera, making the game far more intuitive for modern audiences.

The changes go beyond common sense quality-of-life improvements, however. The game’s ‘Projector’ levels, which are the side-scrolling platformer stages that join each of the main 3D areas together, did a great job of delivering nostalgia to Wii players back in 2010, with each based on a classic Mickey cartoon.

That nostalgia aside, however, the Projector levels were criticised for being quite basic, something Purple Lamp has attempted to remedy. These stages now have more interactive elements – elevator platforms now have to be manually activated, there are more hidden collectibles, and the like – that ensure they’re no longer just “remember this” moments between the ‘main’ game but more fleshed-out sections.

Other little tweaks we were shown included a new cinema hub where players can select and replay these 2D stages (in case they missed any collectibles the first time around), an improved menu screen with missions split into better categories, and a larger Bonus menu with three times as much concept art to unlock than before.

With around a month to go until release, we won’t have long to see whether Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is going to deliver a second wind for a game that really deserved more love the first time around, but missed out due to platform exclusivity, waning enthusiasm for the Wii and irritating niggles like the game’s camera.

One thing’s for certain, however – if Rebrushed sells well enough and demonstrates that an audience remains for this darker take on Mickey Mouse, Purple Lamp tells me it’s keeping everything crossed that it’ll get the green light to start on a remake of Epic Mickey 2. Based on what I’ve played of Rebrushed, if Purple Lamp is keen to do the sequel then – if you’ll pardon the inevitable Mickey pun – I hope THQ is all ears.