Epic Mickey explores Disney and Mickey’s past’s as old, rejected characters and environments are showcased in an all-new Disney world created just for the game, which is known simply as “Wasteland”.
Epic Mickey was highlighted at Nintendo’s E3 2010 press conference where famous game designer Warren Spector took the stage to show off the title. Spector is famous for creating series like System Shock and Deus Ex and has his own Junction Point Studios developing Epic Mickey, which will be published by Disney Interactive Studios exclusively for Wii on November 1, 2010 in America.
In Epic Mickey, “Venture Land” is a Quest Zone where you talk to characters, learn about and undertake quests in this platform adventure. You can also buy tools and supplies there.
The game contains awesome looking animated cutscene that look like a real animated cartoons or films! Very high quality and impressive to see running on the Wii! Very nice stuff.
Spector talked about how familiar characters are slightly different/changed/morphed in a darker, more unsettling way for their debut in Epic Mickey. The game looks very nicely animated and very pretty as well, I might add. It really does the Wii platform justice as a show stopper in my opinion and proves how great games can really look on the platform.
Here is video of Epic Mickey’s E3 2010 Nintendo Press Conference debut, showing off gameplay footage.
The Platforming in Epic Mickey also looks great. Spector says that Mickey hasn’t become the videogame hero he deserves to be. So they have set out to change that.
Mickey has to be able to do new things that haven’t been done before in order to draw players into the world and do Mickey justice.
So the game makes use of an innovative drawing and erasing mechanic that is unlike anything you’ve seen before. You “control the essence of Mickey’s being” by using “Paint”, to create or draw the environment, and “Paint Thinner” to erase it away or destroy it. You can use these tools to erase or restore many things in the environment including walls, enemies… even the ground! Naturally this offers some very interesting gameplay mechanics, platforming areas, puzzles and enemy encounters.
Players must change the world in order to save it. But how you change it makes a difference. “Play style matters.” Not only the look of the world but how characters treat you or what they tell you will be effected by how you have changed the world, how much you’ve erased or how much you’ve restored. And these aspects will also effect the ending you get. Do you save or destroy? Paint and embrace creativity or erase and embrace destruction? They want each player to feel like they crafted a unique experience based on their choices.
Three locations types are in the game: Adventure, Platform and RPG. In Action Zones, missions you undertake will effect the story and change the lives of characters.
In the Platform sections, Mickey will find and enter movie screens scattered around Wasteland. These will take him to a “Travel Zone” platform level which switches the gameplay to a side scrolling perspective as Mickey travels from one section of the Wasteland to another (so they are portals, essentially). As he is traveling he traverses unique levels that are inspired by classic cartoons like Steamboat Willie! Many other side-scrolling levels based on classic Disney cartoons will appear in the final game.
Spector says he is very excited to create a game based on Mickey Mouse in collaboration with Disney, which has given him free reign to re-interpret the character and the worlds of Disney how he sees fit.
He plans to honor Mickey’s long and storied heritage and be true to it while also honoring another part of Disney. One that goes hand in hand with Nintendo as well. And that is by Innovation. His goal is to find a balance in order to return Mickey to the top of the videogame world.
Here is the Disney Epic Mickey official E3 2010 trailer.