Epic Mickey is real!

The Game Room
41

I’m playing it and loving it. The gameplay is fine, the camera is annoying but not intolerable. I tend to consider camera issues as being just another limitation planned by the designers, such as only being able to jump x high or only able to run y fast. Yeah, I could beat that boss quicker if my hits did 2z damage instead of z, or if my line of sight was clearer from the one safe spot in the room, but that’s part of the challenge of the game.

The one thing that has made me sometimes want to put the controller down and not pick it up again, though, is that it’s pretty depressing in parts. All the old, forgotten characters, living in this shabby Disneyland-simulation, knowing that it’s thirdrate at best…it tears at you after a while. Or it did me, anyway.

42

Wait, camera limitations are there by design? I can’t see why someone would actually think that.

43

I am sure they rushed the game out for Xmas, because the camera issues are just too glaring to go unnoticed by designers.

44

I’m playing it, and I find the story intriguing, but the execution leaves something to be desired. The camera angles are a problem often, but they’re a problem in other of games, too. I don’t agree, though, that making the camera angle difficult is somehow the same as limiting how fast I can run or the damage or whatever. It’s just a lazy way to up the difficulty.

One stupid thing that took me a while to figure out that might help someone else: to change the view to look forward, you need to briefly tap the “C” button, not hold it. Because holding it is saved for… who knows? Most of the time it does nothing. Sometimes it makes the vertical size of the viewing area shrink, for no purpose that I can figure out. (This only works where you’re allowed to look forward, obviously.)

A big frustration to me is Gus. Every time I enter or leave a building, Gus asks me if I really want to. And I have to wait for him to finish talking to click “Yes”. Even to enter a stupid one-screen shack that I can just as easily leave if I accidentally go in as click “No”. But when I’m exploring an area, if I wander down a hallway that happens to be the exit hallway, suddenly, with no warning, no “Are you sure you want to leave?” I can’t get back. There are many things to collect, people to set free, places to explore, but I can’t because I’m being forced to go to the next area. As far as I can tell, I’m never going to be able to get back, not even restarting the level from the beginning. (Maybe after I defeat the final boss, they’ll let me, I don’t know.)

This is also a problem with some of the “missions” we’re given. You can do something innocuous, or that you’re not sure about, that is “wrong”, and you’ve failed the mission, with no way to complete it. Where’s my warning about that, Gus? God I hate you…

Another frustration is that when I’m looking around through Mickey’s eyes, they’ve got up and down flipped from how Legend of Zelda does it. This is a Wii exclusive, follow the damn standard.

There’s also too much hand-holding for my taste. Just let me figure out how to solve the puzzle without all the hints.

What really bugs me, sitting here, writing this, is that I can see how it could have been better. The ability to make choices that affect how the game progresses is an interesting idea. The story is good. It’s disappointing that it isn’t better polished.

If you’re a hard-core gamer who wants a challenging game, this isn’t the game for you. Don’t mind a laid-back game without too much fighting, and when you do die you come right back to life? There’s a good chance you’ll like it.