Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion

The first Epic Mickey game definitely had some issues; the camera didn't behave, gameplay was often tedious and it was just a let down of what could have been an amazing game. Then Epic Mickey 2 was released and even though the camera was fixed, nothing new was really brought to the the game. Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion for the 3DS however, appears to follow in the series but is a completely different game, and thank god for that!

The story line is simple yet effective. You play as Mickey Mouse, a beloved Disney character, who has to make his way through the Castle of Illusion which is under a spell of the evil witch Mizrabel. Along the way, Mickey will come across other well known Disney favourites ranging from classics such as Goofy and Scar to new modern day characters. Your main goal is to save them all from the spell of illusion and get them out of the castle. Having all of these favourite characters in the game keeps its fresh and you get excited when you get to save a favourite character of yours. Once you save the other characters they then offer you side quests, such as having to find a frying pan for Rapunzel, which is the strangest thing I've ever done! These quests are really great as they give you quite a bit more content to the game and most of them are references to bits from the movies which is great.

There is quite a bit of reading involved in this game. Any text has to be read, there is hardly any voice acting in this, which can be tiring especially for younger players. You will probably find yourself skipping over the text but in a game like this the story isn't really that important. The main reason I bought this game was because of the amazing graphics. They are very simple graphics and if anything people would say that it doesn't have the look of 'modern day games', and that's exactly the point. The nostalgic look will have people, like me, getting the game to simply relive their childhood games that looked very similar to this. The 3D aspect doesn't really add much to the game and you will no doubt turn it off after a few minutes.

The painting in this game is more simplistic than in the other Epic Mickey games mostly because I think this game is aimed at an even younger audience. You use paint to put objects in certain spots for example, to help you get up to a platform, and thinner is used to get rid of said objects. This works fine but it would be nice if you could decide where to place things instead of it just showing which objects can be interacted with. This game is a 2D, side-scrolling platformer which works for this kind of game and although it is very simple and easy it is still quite enjoyable.

It's a fun game with a good amount of content and enjoyable little side quests that are fun and exciting. 7/10