Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Epic Mickey 2 is Finally a Real Thing


It's been rumored and leaked and talked about openly as a factual product for a while now, but Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two (now with title!) is an announced commodity.  The interesting thing here is that while its predecessor was a Wii-Exclusive title, the Sequel will find itself on the Playstation 3, XBox 360 and, of course, the Wii, spreading the magic of Disney into even more living rooms than before.  Or....something to that effect, I'm sure.  Having not played the first title, for the reason mentioned, that it was on a console that I simply don't have the leisure to play, I find that I'm really lacking reasons as to how I find this in the least interesting.  It's certainly the biggest story of the day, however, at least what I could find, so I thought I -had- to at least touch on it a little bit.

Of course, that's not the only Epic Mickey story that's been in the news lately, as word has been tossed about of a possible 3DS version of the Sequel or at least some iteration of the series itself.  If it's not the sequel, it's possible that the game might have the tagline of "Power of Illusion" which seems to allude to a series of Mickey games from years past, way back to the days where Console Wars meant yelling at your friends that the Sega Genesis (Or Mega Drive) was better because of the games and such, and/or yelling at your friends that the SNES was better because of the games and such.  We didn't really have a lot, back then, looking back on it.  Just mostly the first-party line-up and the general differences between the consoles themselves, which had better graphics and which had better sound and the like.  That link also offers you a more thorough look into the storied history of Epic Mickey 2's long-foreshadowed existence that I'm simply not too inclined to overly detail here.

Something I am admittedly curious about with the reveal that Epic Mickey 2 will be on the PS3 and 360 is just how it will look and control.  One would think that, to achieve the best look on all three platforms, the way to go is to design for one of the HD consoles first (It would be better to lead on PS3, since it's pretty much simpler to port to 360 from it, rather than the other way around) and then port from there.  The Wii version obviously can't push the same graphics, but with a little care and a good art style (which I do believe Epic Mickey has), it won't look bad on it.  Of course, how I expect it to go is that development will lead on the Wii, since the assets (that will likely be reused to cut costs) were designed for it and then it's probably not that hard a matter to up-res for the PS3/360, which, again, if the art style holds up, will not result in bad looking graphics.  Not the best, but not awful.

Of course, that Epic Mickey utilized the Wiimote begs the question of whether or not it will do the same for the Sequel, which will then implement the Move and Kinect, or if it will eschew that for more 'traditional' controls to placate the majority of the people that will play it?  I'm going to level with you here, I have -very little knowledge- of how Epic Mickey played, so how simple a task, or how difficult, I have absolutely no idea.  I am pretty sure that it played a heavy part in it, something like painting the world back into existence or something, but I could be wrong.  Regardless, the only way I'll be interested in this is if we get an HD port of the original since, as I believe I've stated here several times, I hate jumping into a game's story unaware and will just straight-up refuse to play a game if I can't first play the story that came before.  Still, like I said, it's news!

Update!:  It's a minor one but apparently Epic Mickey 2 will support Move but not Kinect.  I guess it was a little far-fetched to think that they could make it work with the controller and Kinect, because so far, only a couple games have said functionality announced.  (One of them being Steel Battalion, I believe.)

Update 2!:  So, when it rains, it pours, I guess.  Thanks to a Nintendo Power cover, Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion for the 3DS has been confirmed as well.

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