Disney’s Epic Mickey: Rebrushed Review

From its announcement, Dysney’s Epic Mickey felt unlike any other game starring Mickey Mouse. Instead of the usual colorful platform game, the game developed by Junction Point Studios, a development team founded by the creator of the Deus Ex series Warren Spector, was a darker game that was part of a much wider project to reintroduce Mickey’s more adventurous side to a bigger audience.

Featuring a very interesting setting that granted players the chance to delve into the more obscure Disney productions and characters, as well as some sort of morality system, the game promised to be a new beginning for Disney in the video gaming space. Unfortunately, Disney’s Epic Mickey proved to be nothing more than a rather run-of-the-mill platform game marred by plenty of issues that were only barely salvaged by the setting and some interesting mechanics that weren’t exactly fully developed, like the aforementioned morality system.

14 years later, THQ Nordic decided to give the game a second chance. Developed by Purple Lamp, Disney’s Epic Mickey: Rebrushed aims to improve the original experience by addressing a variety of issues and expanding it a bit with a slew of new content. Unfortunately, the improvements, while welcome, fail to address some of the game’s core issues, which have only become more aggravating in the years since the original release.

Disney’s Epic Mickey: Rebrushed’s story is the same as the original, and it’s still one of the highlights of the experience. The game is set in the Wasteland, a world for forgotten things, namely Disney’s forgotten or underused characters, created by the sorcerer Yen Sid that gets heavily messed up by the clumsy intervention of Mickey Mouse. Due to the damage he causes, the Wasteland becomes a post-apocalyptic world tormented by the monstrous Blot. Decades after the incident, Mickey Mouse is abducted by an ink monster and brought to the Wasteland, where he makes the acquaintance of many different characters, including Oswald the Rabbit, Walt Disney’s very first character, in the attempt to save the Wasteland and return home.

While the story isn’t anything special by itself, it’s the Wasteland and the twisted recreation of some iconic Disney locations that make Disney’s Epic Mickey: Rebrushed a very interesting experience. The vast majority of locations Mickey explores in the game are based on popular Disney locations such as Sleeping Beauty Castle, Main Street, U.S.A., Toontown, and many others.

In these locations, Mickey will also meet tons of forgotten or underused characters, such as Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow, rarely used variants of popular characters like Pete, and even animatronic versions of Donald Duck, Goofy, and Daisy Duck. All this is incredibly interesting for both hardcore Disney fans and those with only a passing knowledge of classic cartoons, and they manage to make the experience interesting from beginning to end, even with a mid-story and gameplay.

As mentioned above, Disney’s Epic Mickey: Rebrushed has plenty of gameplay enhancements over the original Wii release, not counting some forced tweaks due to the lack of Wiimote controls. Mickey’s movement and core abilities have been improved, and he can now sprint, perform a dash maneuver, and ground pound attack, which makes exploring the Wasteland slightly better than before. The Guardian Meter system was improved, giving players a better idea of the Guardians that will join Mickey depending on their combat choices. Collectibles have also been increased, and select locations have been expanded with new areas, secrets, and puzzles.

All these additions make Disney’s Epic Mickey: Rebrushed a little more fun to play, but they don’t address what made the original game an average 3D platform game to begin with. For starters, level design is not that interesting, featuring gimmicks that already felt a little dated back in 2010. Mickey’s Magical Brush, which grants players better interaction with the environment, allowing them to restore or destroy certain elements to access secret areas or solve puzzles, is a great idea on paper but isn’t used to its full potential, mostly due to the unexciting level design. The project-screen 2D stages, which can be replayed at will in the remaster, are just as average as the 3D stages, featuring dated gameplay concepts and gimmicks. It’s not that they are terribly bad per se; it’s just that they feel uninspired. Making matters worse is the extreme linearity of the experience, which is a far cry from other modern 3D platform games such as Super Mario Odyssey.

Combat is also pretty straightforward and not particularly engaging. While the vast majority of enemies roaming the Wasteland can be destroyed easily using any of Mickey’s attacks or the Magical Brush’s Thinner, using Paint grants him the chance to win them over to his side. This is just one aspect of the morality system featured in the game. Depending on choices made in combat against regular enemies, two types of Guardians can join Mickey, allowing him to activate the Thinner and Paint effects of the Magical Brush in a single hit. Depending on how the player approaches boss battles, different power-ups will be handed out as a reward once the battle is won.

The morality system also comes into play during exploration. For example, Mickey will sometimes come across a special machine that can only contain either Thinner or Paint and depending on his choice, there will be different effects and consequences. Certain quests can also be completed in several different ways, and depending on the choices made, it is possible to skip mini-boss battles. Unfortunately, there are no far-reaching consequences for the player’s choices, as they are relegated to the area where they are made most of the time. The only exception to this is the ending, which is influenced by how much Thinner or Paint is used during the course of the game. Seeing all endings shouldn’t take too long for most players, as a single playthrough with a decent chunk of optional content is around 10 hours long.

The visual upgrade featured in Disney’s Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is undoubtedly well-realized and one of the best features of the remaster. Every game asset was remade from the ground up, and it shows. The visuals look crisp, with great character models and textures that succeed in portraying the Wasteland and its somewhat oppressive atmosphere. The original 2D cutscenes were also re-rendered in 4K resolution, making them look better than they ever did in the original.

Despite being an undemanding game, Disney’s Epic Mickey: Rebrushed doesn’t exactly run smoothly, even on a high-end system, which was sadly expected, being powered by Unreal Engine 4. During a benchmarking session held in the Mount Osmore Slopes area, the game ran at native 4K resolution, max settings, at a whopping average of 407 FPS on my system (i7-13700F, RTX 4080, 32 GB RAM). The 1% low 94 FPS, however, makes it clear how there was some stuttering during gameplay. It was nothing major, to be honest, but still very noticeable. Those with systems not as powerful as mine should still be able to run the game reasonably well with the help of the Intel XeSS upscaler, which is strangely the only upscaler the game supports at launch.

As a remaster, Disney’s Epic Mickey: Rebrushed effectively addresses some of the original game’s gameplay issues while adding new content and improved visuals. However, some of the core issues of the original were left untouched, keeping this version from being a significant upgrade. While exploring Disney’s forgotten history is still enjoyable, the game’s platforming mechanics continue not to don’t stand out, especially against today’s competition like Super Mario Odyssey and Astro Bot.

PC version tested. Review code provided by the publisher.

Disney’s Epic Mickey: Rebrushed

Disney’s Epic Mickey: Rebrushed

Disney’s Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is a solid remaster that enhances the original experience with some nice improvements. Unfortunately, the experience is still carried by the setting exploring Disney’s forgotten history, as the remaster does little to address dated level design, lackluster combat, and underdeveloped features like the morality system. Despite these shortcomings, Mickey’s journey in the Wasteland remains enjoyable, especially for hardcore Disney fans eager to see some of the company’s long-forgotten characters brought back to life.

Buy for $59.99 from Amazon

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