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In 2010, Disney Interactive and Junction Point released what appeared to be one of the most ambitious Disney video games in years: a Mickey Mouse game with a very dark twist, set in a world meant only for forgotten characters whose hearts had been lost to time. The world was Wasteland, and its ruler was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, swept away after less than a year in the limelight and replaced with the mouse we know and love today. Disney Epic Mickey wasn't your usual cutesy Disney title for the little ones: how could it be, in a world where friends are lost because they're forgotten, and mechanical replacements are built of those who still have their hearts?
Disney Epic Mickey was an incredibly charming game, albeit one with several flaws, which is why we were so glad to hear of a sequel - that, and the comforting notion that it wasn't just a one-off idea never to be touched again. After reintroducing Oswald the Lucky (and utterly adorable) Rabbit to the world and giving us a grand tour of the world of Wasteland, we hoped they'd stick around. We wanted to see more of them and we wanted to see just how much better the premise could get. Thankfully, the wait has been short and the outcome positive, as we can report Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two is just as good as its prequel.
In Disney Epic Mickey, Mickey Mouse inadvertently triggered the Thinner Disaster, dropping a deluge of paint thinner into the world created by his master, the wizard Yen Sid. This did untold damage to Wasteland, damaging buildings, destroying portals, and rendering entire areas uninhabitable. Working together (if a tad reluctantly) to fix the disaster and defeat the Mad Doctor and the Shadow Blot, Mickey and Oswald did their best to return Wasteland to its former glory. In The Power of Two, Oswald calls on Mickey for more help as earthquakes strike Wasteland - on the same day as the Mad Doctor returns, apparently having turned good and wanting to prove it by helping Wasteland in its hour of need.
If you're familiar with Disney Epic Mickey, it'll take you very little time to familiarise yourself with your surroundings, but it's nice and easy for newcomers to do so as well, since the game makes it quite easy to learn the basics. You control Mickey, who can run, jump and spin, but more importantly has control of the magic brush: using this, you'll be able to splash a bit of paint and thinner about, changing your surroundings and taking on difficult enemies as you make your way through Wasteland. Paint is used to - unsurprisingly - paint in anything for which you see an outline, be it the wall of a building, a lamppost or even a chest. Thinner, as you would expect, is used to thin things out, but be careful: you don't want to upset anyone by being reckless with it, and you especially don't want to do irreversible damage to buildings or to the landscape.
That said, perhaps you do. One of the main points made about the first game by Junction Point boss Warren Spector was that your actions will always have consequence, and characters will remember what you have or haven't done for them. If you want to make friends, you'll need to help as many people as possible and make sure not to damage anything valuable with thinner; alternatively, if you want to annoy everyone in Wasteland, then ignore them, thin everything out, give away their prized possessions. Heck, hit them with a spin attack if you're feeling really sadistic, but whatever you do, remember that everything has a consequence, and the game - most importantly, the characters you interact with - will change depending on your actions.
It's key to remember this because you're also taking control of Oswald this time around. In order to save Wasteland from the earthquakes and figure out what the Mad Doctor's up to, Mickey and Oswald team up to travel Wasteland together, righting wrongs (or wronging rights) while on their merry way. As such, not only will your actions change the way other character feels about you as Mickey, but they might also change the way characters talk to Oswald, or the way Oswald talks to Mickey. Regardless of how you progress through the game, though, Oswald will be there every step of the way with his Remote Control, which he can use to restore power to machines, reprogram doors and other objects, and even zap enemies to stun them while Mickey attacks them.
This is where the game's cooperative play springs into action. You have two options: play on your own, thus controlling Mickey while the computer takes control of Oswald; or make use of the drop-in-drop-out co-op functionality, in which a second player uses their own Wii Remote and Nunchuk combination to take control of Oswald in vertical split-screen action. By doing this, Oswald can be used to his fullest, and can travel around areas of Wasteland on his own instead of simply following Mickey wherever he goes. Both characters must be in the same area at the same time, but otherwise you're free to travel about the place as you like. In single-player mode, Oswald will display a prompt when near an item he can help out with, and a simple button press will tell the computer that you need his help in doing that, so you don't miss out too much when playing alone.
There are a few issues with computer-controlled Oswald, however. For the most part, everything works really well and he does what he's supposed to, but at times he can get stuck, causing you to have to go back and find him or just wait for him to show up. The minus button on the Wii Remote is used to "control" Oswald in single-player: hold it down to call him to your side, or just press it if you're being prompted to let Oswald do something. He tries to follow you as much as possible, but on the rare occasion that he wanders off, you might be waiting a while to get him back. We found that it was sometimes quite helpful to have a second Wii Remote handy just in case we did get into trouble, though this thankfully only happened a couple of times early in the game. You also find he gets in the way a bit, so get used to accidentally subjecting him to the occasional spin attack.
Other than those minor problems, Mickey and Oswald control quite well: the B and Z buttons allow Mickey to spray paint and thinner respectively, while Oswald uses the B button for bursts of electricity from his remote control and the Z button for his "boomarmerang" to collect faraway items. As you'd expect, pointing the Wii Remote at the screen makes using the magic brush nice and easy, so we've definitely no complaints there. For both characters, the A button is used for jumping and interaction, shaking the Wii Remote does a spin attack,, the minus button is used to alert the other player (or Oswald in single-player) to something, and the 1 button is used to enter first-person view or photo mode, in which you can take photos with a camera once you've obtained one.
As in Disney Epic Mickey, the D-Pad is used to control the camera, which is still pretty wonky, so you'll have to get used to adjusting it from time to time. It's a little looser than it was in the first game and it doesn't react quite as well in small areas, which can be frustrating, but it's by no means terrible. It's easy enough to reset the camera using the C button and rotate it using the D-Pad, and though it's nice to see the option to invert the camera on either axis this time around, it's a shame there's still no zoom function, which at times would be appreciated just to make the viewing angle a bit more comfortable. It's disappointing more hasn't been done to improve the camera, as it could greatly improve the overall gameplay experience by being a bit more reasonable, but it's adequate as it is.
It's easier to forgive the lack of work on the camera since much has been done to improve other elements of the gameplay. One of the first things you'll notice on your return to Mean Street is the much improved visuals: there's far more details in the buildings and the environment, while many returning areas seem to be larger than before and with much added to them, giving you plenty more to explore even if you found everything in the prequel. On the flipside, some returning areas have been given a complete makeover, presumably to allow the development team to do different things with them. While we do like seeing the returning areas, it's also nice to see new parts of old regions, so this is something we can easily get onboard with.
There's also more to collect than in the previous game: you'll learn throughout the game the various uses of cloth and scrap metal, each of which you gather in the same fashion as e-tickets, the game's currency. Cloth can be taken to the Haberdasher in Mean Street to make costumes for Mickey and Oswald, giving them improved attacks or other special effects, while numerous characters throughout the game will ask for scrap metal in order to fix things which have been broken by the quakes. It's important to collect these and their integration within the game makes it very easy, in turn allowing you to more easily reap the benefits of collecting them.
Taken straight from the theme parks is a dedicated Pin Trader, improving on the basis for pins set down previously. In the first game, there were a certain number of pins for you to collect, including special pins for completing certain tasks as well as general bronze, silver and gold pins. These served no purpose, except to allow you to hundred-percent the game, which took at least a couple of playthroughs anyway. This time around, regular pins are used for trading purposes only, and can be given to the Pin Trader in return for unique pins. You'll need certain pins to complete some quests, including the Spirit of Wasteland quest, which unlocks more upgrades for Mickey and Oswald the more pins you collect.
It seems initially like there's an awful lot more to do around Wasteland this time around, and while that's certainly true in some cases - quests are far longer, despite there being fewer of them - it felt to us as though the game was a little shorter than its prequel, and there wasn't quite the build-up to the end we'd expected, which made it feel as though it all ended somewhat abruptly. The saving grace is that you're allowed to carry on with the same save file even after the credits have rolled, so whether you want to collect everything or just have some fun, you're free to do that without having to restart the game, which is a big positive in our books.
Another noticeable change to the game is the introduction of voice acting for characters, including Mickey, Oswald and almost every non-player character you'll meet during your journey. It's an absolute joy to hear Mickey, Donald, Goofy and other much-loved Disney characters with their true voices, and it's wonderful to hear Oswald speak for the first time. It's difficult to say the same for Gus the Gremlin - people liked Navi, until she spoke - but perhaps that's an unfair comparison, as Gus has a wider vocabulary and is actually helpful a lot of the time. There's quite the variety of accents as well, with some rather notable (by which we mean awful) French and Jamaican accents, but most are pleasant, which makes the introduction of voice acting a positive one overall. That said, we do miss the "old sound" of the older characters from Disney Epic Mickey, even if they were only sound bits.
It's clear throughout that Junction Point have taken great care in ensuring Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two builds on the great foundations laid by its prequel. The idea of Wasteland - a world for forgotten Disney characters, ruled by the first Disney character ever to be forgotten - might not be the sort of vision you'd expect from Disney, but it's an original and wonderful idea which makes for a fantastic game world, and one that The Power of Two shows off magnificently. The characters are a joy to interact with and the locations will leave you impressed for a very long time. Our only real complaint is that the camera hasn't been fixed, but otherwise the various improvements and new additions are a great benefit to the game.
In short, then, Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two is just as charming as its prequel. If you haven't yet fallen for Wasteland and its residents - particularly the adorable Oswald - you likely will after a little time with this game. Knowing that the Wii version of the game is the flagship version, developed by Junction Point itself, this seems the clear choice of platform for the game if you want to invest your time in it. It might not be perfect, and it might grate occasionally, but the positives far outweigh the negatives, making this a fine example of how to make a decent, highly enjoyable platformer.
