[Review] Epic Mickey: Rebrushed

System: Switch
Release date: September 24, 2024
Developer: Purple Lamp
Publisher: THQ Nordic

I’ve had a 2010 Wii copy of Epic Mickey sitting on my shelf for years, and as much as I had intended to experience Warren Spector’s twisted Mickey Mouse tale well before this point, for one reason or another I’ve just never gotten around to it. In this case, my patience definitely paid off. Developer Purple Lamp – who is quickly garnering a positive reputation for their work in the 3D platforming space – has invested considerable effort to free this ambitious game from the Wii’s limitations and make it accessible to modern audiences. While the Switch version of Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed has some disappointing performance issues here and there, overall, this remake is a stunning effort that deserves to be experienced by fans of both Disney and platformers alike.

The original Epic Mickey was notable at the time of its release for being a fairly big swing for Disney. It represented an attempt to tell a melancholy, gloomy story about forgotten Disney characters, and painted Mickey Mouse as a character who isn’t always such an infallible hero. The opening cutscene shows Mickey, tempted by his curiosity as usual, sneaking into the wizard Yen Sid’s magical workshop and stumbling across a model of Disneyland he had created. As he starts messing around a magic paintbrush, what Mickey doesn’t realize is that this model is actually a living world; when he accidentally spills ink and thinner all over it, he transforms it into a wasteland filled with monsters made of ink. Mickey decides to flee the scene and spends a few decades living in the spotlight as Disney’s most famous character… until one of the monsters he created drags him into the ruined world, trapping him and forcing him to deal with the mess he created.

It’s a fascinating premise for folks like me who grew up loving these characters, and the game goes a step further by allowing the player to determine, through the game’s mechanics, just how to help Mickey clean everything up. What sets Epic Mickey: Rebrushed apart from other 3D platformers is the paintbrush that Mickey wields as both a tool and a weapon. As he explores the world of Wasteland, he can use either paint or thinner to interact with his surroundings; the former helps restore objects in the world back to normal, while the latter makes them disappear. This applies to combat, too – if Mickey sprays paint at enemies, many of them will have a “change of heart” and fight alongside him as allies, but players can also use thinner to off them altogether if they choose.

Rebrushed marks my first time experiencing Epic Mickey in full, and I was really impressed with just how deep this whole paint and thinner system is designed into almost every major moment in the game. One of the earliest decisions I had to make was whether or not I wanted to free a Gremlin – a peaceful, helpful species of floating elf-like dudes – from a cage. Doing so would help him out, but would also activate a mechanism that would permanently close off another area, preventing me from ever accessing the collectible inside during my playthrough. Decisions like this pop up all the time. Do I use paint to activate a system of gears to help me jump across a dangerous area, or do I use thinner to knock over a huge structure instead, permanently damaging the area but making traversal easier? Do I use thinner in a boss battle to eliminate the threat altogether, or do I take the more difficult route and use paint, turning it into a friendly character in the process? This sort of gameplay-connected decision making, as well as how the player can choose to help characters (or not) during the game’s many sidequests, affects almost everything about the experience – from how other characters view you, to what quests become available and even the game’s ending.

I really can’t overemphasize how much I adored spending time in the world of Epic Mickey: Rebrushed. I’ll admit that some of this is driven by my Disney nostalgia. The whole concept behind Wasteland is that it’s a place where Disney’s forgotten characters live, and if you’re up-to-date on your Mickey lore, you’ll certainly run into a handful of them as you progress. The most notable inclusion is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character who actually predates Mickey Mouse. Despite being created in part by Walt Disney, Oswald was owned by Universal Pictures for decades and didn’t appear alongside Mickey in any form until his inclusion in this game. Oswald is depicted by the writing as someone envious of Mickey, perhaps even resentful. He’s hid himself away in a castle atop the aptly named Mickeyjunk Mountain (a heap of discarded Mickey memorabilia) and has even modified the famous Walt & Mickey Statue with his likeness. It’s endlessly fascinating to see all the ways the game explores these characters’ dynamics, both through environmental storytelling and their dialouge. I particularly love the hub world – the cleverly named “Mean Street” – and how it takes recognizable Disneyland buildings and transforms them into a secret-rich cityscape to jump around in.

This is where the work that Purple Lamp put into this remake really starts to become apparent. I booted up the Wii version to compare the two side-by-side, and frankly, the improvements are staggering. Visually, Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is a massive improvement, which makes sense because the team has remade practically every asset from scratch in Unreal Engine. Everything, from ground textures to buildings to skyboxes, looks infinitely sharper, more detailed and colorful – it’s a true night-and-day difference. Then there are the controls, which have been reworked to suit a more traditional dual-stick scheme. Having full camera control is great, and the camera is very responsive without feeling jittery or getting stuck on scenery. The Switch version also retains optional gyro aiming while controlling Mickey’s paintbrush – I loved it, and never felt compelled to turn it off. It feels pretty much perfect to use the right stick to locate Mickey’s targets, and then make small movements with the Joy-Cons to aim with added precision. Mickey’s spin move – previously executed by shaking the Wii controller – is now mapped to a button, making it significantly more responsive. Make no mistake – nostalgia for the Wii remote aside, this is the best-feeling version of Epic Mickey by far.

I also really loved how Epic Mickey: Rebrushed rewards and encourages exploration, which I’d argue is more of a focus here than the platforming itself. There are a shocking amount of tucked away areas filled with hidden collectibles, some of which are vital to completing certain sidequests – and because most of the areas in the game can’t be revisited after clearing them, there’s strong incentive to uncover every nook and cranny as you progress. I was prancing around like a madman, jumping on top of objects that I didn’t actually think I’d be able to ascend, and more often than not being rewarded for doing so. I felt compelled to thin every object I could just to see if it was a fake wall that was hiding something… and afterwards, meticulously painting everything back in, because my Mickey could never leave this place looking so empty.

Purple Lamp even gave Mickey a few new movement options, too. Perhaps the least useful is his new ground pound ability – the world and enemies were never built around this, so I pretty much never needed to use it and had outright forgotten about it by the end of the game. I felt similarly about Sketches, which aren’t new to this remake, but didn’t feel all that important. These are objects you can summon in to distract and damage enemies, but they’re spread pretty thin across the game’s runtime that they felt inessential. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Mickey can now sprint around the world when the player clicks in the left stick, and it drastically improves the speed of exploration to the point that I think I’d have a hard time enjoying the title as much without it. I also really enjoyed the new Dash ability, which is a designed as a way to dodge attacks. I can’t say for certain, but based on my limited time with the Wii version, it feels like some adjustments might have been made to enemy AI to make them a little more aggressive in this new version, so dodging feels like an important tool in battle. (That said, enemies can’t jump, so I also made a lot of progress simply by blasting them from long range.)

Another key difference I noticed while comparing both versions of the game were the improvements to Epic Mickey: Rebrushed’s side-scrolling levels. While most of the game has Mickey exploring 3D worlds loosely inspired by Disneyland attractions like Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, there are also a significant number of 2D platforming stages based on classic Mickey cartoons like Fantasia. In the original Wii version, these were pretty short and a little disposable as they mostly existed to mask loading screens, but Epic Mickey: Rebrushed seems to modify many of them, adding in more interactivity and even some alternate routes. You can also revisit these stages by accessing the Cinema in-game, which means it’s now possible to hunt down collectibles you missed the first time around. There are a ton of other small tweaks, including updated UI elements, a New Game Plus mode (appreciated, as multiple playthroughs are required to see everything), and according to the developers, three times the amount of collectible concept art to track down.

Unfortunately, the Switch version does suffer from some noticeable performance issues, mostly in docked mode. While the game attempts to run at 30 FPS, I experienced some pretty significant drops in multiple chunks. It wasn’t constant, and the game is still generally pleasant to play through on the Switch, but I ran into this on several occasions (the opening Boat Ride world, in particular, would often slow to a crawl when something was triggered in the environment). Sometimes, even turning the camera could cause performance issues. There are also some lengthy loading screens to bear, which can at times take between 30 seconds and a minute to run their course. While mot inherently an issue, these pop up so frequently (especially before/after 2D platforming segments) that over time, they do start feeling a little obnoxious. I did encounter a few known issues here and there, too, like getting stuck on certain elements of the geography. Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is still an outstanding experience overall, but players looking to experience the game at its technical best may want to consider other platforms.

I’d be remiss if I failed to mention Epic Mickey: Rebrushed’s outstanding soundtrack (seemingly, unchanged from the original release). It manages to evoke the atmosphere that comes with exploring Disneyland in real-life, while also tinging itself with dissonant chords and slightly spooky verses, an ever-present reminder that not all is right in this world. The orchestral themes are thrilling, and truly befitting of the “Epic” component of this game’s title. If you listen closely, you may even recognize some familiar tunes, like the classic “Once Upon a Dream,” presented in a completely different flavor.

While we’ve been graced by some outstanding 3D platformers in recent years – I think about Psychonauts 2 every few weeks, at this point – Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is so good that I’m really kicking myself for not playing it sooner. If I had the time to spare (I don’t), I’d be seriously considering a second playthrough right now to see how the game would change if I had gone for a more Thinner-focused playstyle and made a point to screw characters over. I really hope that this remake performs well enough that we can see the sequel get a similar form of rerelease in the near future.

While the Switch version of Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed has some performance issues that do put a slight damper on the experience, not even an unreliable framerate and long load times are enough to ruin this incredible platforming adventure. The original game’s fascinating premise, rewarding exploration, and satisfying morality-driven gameplay are all just as strong as they always were, but they’re enhanced significantly by the numerous visual and mechanical tweaks that Purple Lamp has made to modernize this classic title. This is the right way to remake a game, and it’s an experience that’s set to surprise and entertain both new players and existing Disney fans from start to finish.

A copy of Epic Mickey: Rebrushed was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.