Back in 2010, Nintendo’s motion-controlled Wii was still a very popular console, so landing an exclusive game on the platform was a pretty big deal. Enter Disney’s Epic Mickey, an ambitious 3D platformer with an impressive pedigree behind it. On top of starring one of pop culture’s most iconic characters, the title was directed by legendary game developer Warren Spector. 16 years on, the innovative game has mostly been forgotten, but a surprising new port has brought it back.
That’s right, Epic Mickey has returned, and it can be played in the palm of your hand via the Apple App Store and Google Play storefront right now. The new mobile version isn’t a re-release of the original Wii title, but a port of the updated remake, 2024’s Epic Mickey: Rebrushed. The iOS and Android versions can be secured for $15.99, which may be a premium price for a mobile offering, but it’s a great deal for a title that still sells for $40 or higher on PC and consoles.
For those who never wielded the mascot mouse’s magical paint brush in the original version or its remake, Epic Mickey is a personality-packed platformer with some unique story and gameplay ideas. Its setup finds Mickey in Wasteland, a sort of alternate world populated by obscure, forgotten, and ignored characters. The sorta-creepy realm is like a darker version of Disneyland, with dedicated areas essentially being twisted takes on popular lands and attractions from the real-world vacation destination.
On the gameplay front, Spector and his team at Junction Point Studios leaned into the Wii’s defining gesture-based inputs with an interesting mechanic. From behind the console’s Wii Remote wand, players could shoot in-game paint and thinner to create and eliminate items, respectively, within the Wasteland.
The game also received plenty of pre-release buzz for including Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney’s first famous cartoon character that he later lost the rights to. Disney, of course, regained ownership and put Oswald in the game alongside Mickey, which was a pretty, er, epic pairing for Disney nerds.
Despite the game’s pedigree, imaginative ideas, and Oswald cameo, it ultimately released to mixed reviews, earning a 73 aggregate score on Metacritic. Among the major criticisms were a clunky camera that didn’t always play nice with the signature gesture-based gameplay, and a tone that ended up much lighter than the darker take that originally promised – and exemplified in an iconic Game Informer cover story.
Still, Epic Mickey was a success, spawning a 2012 sequel, the awkwardly named Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two. The follow-up fixed its predecessor’s camera issues, added co-op – with Oswald now playable – and took the franchise multi-platform. But it was all too little, too late, marking the end of the short-lived franchise and, a year later, the closure of Junction Point.
Thankfully, publisher THQ Nordic and developer Purple Lamp Studios revived the flawed, but beloved game with Rebrushed, besting the original’s Metacritic average by three points in the process. Perhaps coolest of all, the mobile version brings the original Wii title’s motion controls full-circle with optimized touch screen inputs.
