Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed

After all these years, 'Epic Mickey' is finally accessible to people who do not own a Wii! It's wonderful that this game-and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit-are getting a second chance to reach audiences.

Though I personally never played the original release, if it was anything like the 2012 sequel, then this remake clearly made several crucial quality-of-life upgrades. The camera in particular is a vast improvement. The dash and ground-pound abilities were also welcome additions that made the game much more fun to play.

Most of the complaints I have only apply to the original game and are not the fault of Purple Lamp, as the studio stayed true to the source material and only deviated from it when necessary (which veterans of this series will very much appreciate). The gameplay is therefore somewhat dated, but not necessarily in a negative way. Missable content is the main issue, as it makes the game somewhat tedious, but that's just a consequence of the time in which the game was originally made. New Game + definitely helped remedy this somewhat, compromising between the game as it was initially made and the standards and conventions of more modern game design.

My only real complaint about this release is that New Game + seems to overwrite the original save slot instead of occupying a new one, which is very inconvenient for completionists. In my case, there were several pieces of concept art available for purchase in-game that I had planned to nab after inspecting New Game + that I couldn't access. Still, it's a solid game that was a delight to play.

I don't know if a remake of the second game is in the cards, but if it is, I very much look forward to seeing how Purple Lamp breathes new life into it, since they did so well with the first one! The original game was a labor of love, and it's great to see that the remake is, too.