Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion does more things wrong than right which is unfortunate for the iconic mouse in this adventure. Marketed as a spiritual sequel or tribute to the Illusion series of Sega’s past (in particular Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse) the game fails to live up to the renown games of old. Perhaps its merely nostalgia that has given the past games a life of their own and the praise held regarding them but regardless of their quality Power of Illusion is a disappointing and somewhat bad video game.
That isn’t to say that the game is terrible though, just that the mistakes and missteps made bring an average platformer down a step to the disappointing / bad game status. To start on the higher notes though both the music and art style are positively wonderful. The music for one fits with the tone of the game throughout and was pleasant to listen to throughout the games short duration. Its a relaxing score that fits with the overall slower nature and pace of the game. The backgrounds meanwhile contain good variety taken from some of the more popular highlights of Disney’s past ranging from the traditional castle itself to Peter Pan’s jungle or Aladdin’s desert. Sure I would have liked a bit more than the traditional Disney hits we’ve seen time and time again (shout out to Lilo and Stitch guys) but the variety on offer is decent enough.
The gameplay meanwhile as was mentioned before is much slower than your typical Mario or (insert platform icon here). This is due to the core mechanic used to differentiate the game from (insert generic platform game here) of the magical paintbrush used to create and destroy various items and enemies throughout any given stage. Unfortunately this breaking of pace to stop, switch to the bottom screen, perform simple paint task and then back to top screen is a bit too tedious and repetitious for my liking.
Repetitive gameplay aside the main issue with the game is the padding out which the developer has went to in order to mask the short nature of the game:
- Attempt number one to add padding was a massive spike in difficulty in the final third of the games stages, for reference I hardly died for the first two thirds then proceeded to be annihilated throughout the final third of the game.
- Attempt two comes in the form of dialogue with other Disney characters you rescue along your journey through the stages and back at the Fortress (the main base and stage select for the game).
- Attempt three is the inclusion for fetch quests which amount to talk to character x at the Fortress then run through a previously played stage (which is marked by a there’s something to be found in this stage symbol) to find a chest with the item in question to be found. That and downright crafting the item using your magical paintbrush (why he must therefore find some within stages is beyond me) or going and asking for the item from another character within the base. In short your a postman or postmouse.
The point of the postmouse missions are to give you additional currency to buy upgrades from Uncle Scrooge’s store or simply give you the upgrade outright. Additional they also unlock some additional special attacks or abilities such as the ability to craft an additional platform or call in Uncle Scrooge to pogo around and attack enemies (pretty sure that was Ducktales on the NES). Although aside from the specials (which cannot be purchased from the store) I never really found myself that short of cash that I felt the need to grind out all of the side quests and stopped roughly half way through the game.
The sad thing is that the padding does the game a downright disservice and doesn’t even really work as it took me roughly four and a half hours to see the game from start to finish and that included more side quests than necessary. Still I suppose four and a half hours is better than say three. (I guess three as it took roughly an hour to clear the first two stages with one or two side quests)
And so when all is said and done Epic Mickey fails to be more than a bad platform adventure for the heroic mouse. Its a below average adventure that I’d recommend avoiding even if you are a fan of the mouse and his past adventures. The padding is simply terrible and the paint mechanic interesting for the first few hours but soon develops to be more of a bore than anything else.