When it comes to video games featuring Disney characters, they tend to either “play it safe” and be the kind of games you’d expect, or they tend to go “big and boisterous,” like a certain crossover series with Square Enix. But back in the early 2000s, word began to spread of a unique title being created by Disney and Warren Spector. It would be a darker twist on Mickey Mouse and the Disney lore and would feature much different gameplay than one would expect. It would later be dubbed Epic Mickey and definitely stood out when it arrived in 2010.
The story featured a more mischievous version of Mickey Mouse akin to the early comic strips by Walt Disney. Mickey entered the workshop of Yen Sid, the famed sorcerer of Disney lore, and accidentally messed up a place known as “The Wasteland.” Yen Sid built this place to house forgotten Disney characters like Oswald the Rabbit. Thanks to Mickey’s meddling, the place had become filled with monsters, including the Phantom Blot!
It was up to Mickey to fix things using his magic paintbrush and defeat the monsters plaguing the land. The first game did sell over two million copies, which wasn’t too bad considering the themes and styling. Recently, Warren Spector talked with VentureBeat about the game and said he’s still proud of what he made, even if players didn’t “get it:”
“If I’m playing a shooter and I’m not good enough, which I’m not, my option is to stop. And so I’ve always thought immersive sims were it. The sales have not borne that out. But I said to myself, when Disney came around with Mickey Mouse as my star, I could reach a mainstream audience with these ideas. And so Epic Mickey, it was an immersive sim, right? And gamers didn’t get it. I got so many emails and Twitter messages about sell out, sell out. But the philosophy was there if they had just taken the time to look for it. So I’m pretty proud of Epic Mickey too.”
It’s true that reviews weren’t the kindest to the two games, but some of the critiques were more about gameplay than the theme and characters used. One could argue that this game was “ahead of its time” or maybe needed a “little more time to refine.” We’ll never know.
But given the gaming age we live in now, we wouldn’t be surprised if someone tried to take another “big swing” like this in the future.
