Epic Mickey: Rebrushed review – A little too thin(ner)

Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is a little too faithful for its own good

THQ Nordic

Back in the mid-to-late ’00s, there was a seeming desire to resurrect the golden era of collectathon platformers. Most of this came via licensed games, with games like SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom kicking off the trend and many more following, but this desire grew thin and, by 2010, the genre was synonymous with cheaply-produced garbage. One game was different, though, and that game was Epic Mickey. Now, it’s back with a ground-up remake, but you wouldn’t really know it. 

Epic Mickey Rebrushed feels like it straddles the line between remake and remaster. It’s undoubtedly remade and rebuilt, with gorgeous visuals and some fantastic quality of life changes, but it’s very faithful, almost to a fault. A lot of things that needed an overhaul got it, but just as many didn’t. 

Epic Mickey takes place in the Wasteland, a world of “forgotten things” from Disney’s past. A mishap with an enchanted paintbrush releases a monster called Blot into this world, and it, along with the forgotten would-be Disney mascot Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, wreaks havoc throughout the Wasteland. Mickey arms himself with the enchanted paintbrush, some paint and some paint thinner and goes about setting things right. 

It’s a fine enough story, but the way it’s told is very frustrating. Exposition is laid thick throughout a mixture of in-engine cutscenes, animated scenes in a completely different art style, and unskippable dialogue with NPCs throughout the world. You can barely take a few steps through the world without being interrupted by one of these, a problem worse at the start of the game than near the end, which is also filled with tutorials and reminders of mechanics you already know. 

Using paint and thinner to create and erase objects is a fun gameplay loop / THQ Nordic

The gameplay is where Epic Mickey shines, and Rebrushed is no exception. Levels are mostly small open-area playgrounds, and you have to use a combination of platforming, paint, and thinner to traverse and solve puzzles throughout the world. Paint can be used to fill in erased parts of the world, while thinner can be used to erase things, and that’s a pretty satisfying gameplay loop. You have a finite amount of both resources but power-ups refilling them are plentiful – much more so in Rebrushed compared to the original – so you’re mostly free to explore and solve puzzles at your leisure. Well, until you get interrupted by annoying dialogue. 

The level design could have used a rework, but it gets the job done. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s all too easy to erase a platform you’re standing on and fall down to the bottom of a long platforming section. This doesn’t happen often, but when it does happen it’s very frustrating. It’s not always clear where to go, either, but there’s a guide feature that will tell you exactly the path to take to get to your next objective. Getting there is another story, often requiring puzzle solving and chatting with NPCs, but that’s the game. 

2D sections are pretty, but not fun. / THQ Nordic

The pathways between levels are 2D platforming stages, and they’re by far the worst part of the game. They’re visually gorgeous, to be clear, but the level design is far too simple and far too frustrating. They feel tacked on, and Rebrushed hasn’t done much to turn these into something worthwhile. Combined with floaty platforming – a problem that exists in the main levels too – and it's just not a pleasant experience.

Something that is vastly improved, though, is the camera. The original game was absolutely terrible for this, it was almost impossible to get through any given level without getting messed up by the camera and falling to a cheap death. Here, it works exactly like it should, and that makes the game infinitely more playable. 

Platforming is fun, if floaty, but helped by a competent camera / THQ Nordic

The visuals are massively improved, too, and they’re absolutely delightful most of the time, although the drawn cutscenes feel like they were ripped from the original and look a bit fuzzy and dated. Not enough to take you out of the experience, but a strange oversight when the rest of the game looks so good. 

Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is a frustratingly faithful remake of a game that was already pretty decent. It looks great, and the quality of life additions make it much more enjoyable, but if you didn’t click with the original, there’s not much here that will change your mind. 

Score: 7/10 

Version tested: PS5