It feels a little weird to be doing a first impressions piece on a game that came out back in September, but I picked up Epic Mickey Rebrushed on Black Friday, so it’s new to me. I’ve also played the original Wii version of the game back in the day, but I honestly don’t remember much of anything about it. It was a Mickey themed platformer. That’s about all I remember. So, what did I think of the opening moments of this year’s remaster of the game?

The game opens with Mickey Mouse, who has not yet become a famous cartoon character, being lured into a mirror. On the other side, he finds himself in a lab where Yen Sid, the wizard from Fantasia, is putting the final touches on a new world he’s building with a magic paint brush. He then leaves, and Mickey’s curiosity gets the better of him. He starts messing with the paint, but quickly ruins everything. Before getting caught by Yen Sid, Mickey escapes back to his world, never to return again.

A lot of time passes, Mickey is now a world famous cartoon character, and everything is great. One night, a strange inky tentacle appears out of the mirror and grabs Mickey and pulls him back into the mirror and into Yen Sid’s created world. This is a world ruled by Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an early Disney character that predates Mickey himself.

From here, we start actually playing. As I had said, it’s a platformer. You run around collecting stuff and jumping on platforms. But interestingly, Mickey also has the paintbrush. With this, you can shoot both paint and thinner. Certain parts of the environment can be either filled in with paint or removed with thinner. You’ll find bridges with stuff blocking your way across, but you can erase the bridge with thinner, causing the stuff to fall, and then refill the bridge in with paint to walk across. It’s pretty cool.

These mechanics also find their way into the combat. When fighting enemies, you can shoot them with thinner to erase them from existence. But you could also spray them with paint, which will eventually turn them into your allies. Depending on what method you use, you’ll attract different spirits, which help you either cause thinner or paint effects. It’s basically a morality system, which was all the rage back in the day with games like Mass Effect, Fable, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I don’t know if gets as deep as those though, I guess I’ll find out as I keep going

One of the things that surprised me was relearning that this isn’t a Mickey specific game, but is more general Disney. Very early on, there’s portraits of Disney villains on the walls. You also find yourself in a dilapidated amusement park, and one of the rides there is called the “Elephant Ride”, but it’s absolutely Dumbo. It’s cool to have these extra details.

The game has a very sharp look. The world Mickey finds himself in is distinctly Disney, but also broken down and falling apart. That’s not to say that it’s a particularly dark or mature looking game, just a world in need of getting fixed up. There’s also cutscenes with a 2D hand drawn look that I think looks great and keeps a cartoony feel.

I’m really happy with what I played of Epic Mickey Rebrushed. I’m still very early in it, but it gave a great first impression and is a game that I will definitely be continuing to play.