Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two forges new territory for its franchise and action-adventure games as a whole. That a modern era game would even think to be a musical is daring enough, but mix that with an ambitious attempt to increasingly incorporate the ideas of choice and consequence with platforming, not to mention two-player, split-screen co-op, and you have one massive undertaking. However, whether Power of Two can successfully turn that into an enjoyable experience remains to be seen – our recent time with the game revealed flaws that have carried over from its predecessor, plus missed opportunities when it comes to the Wii U version.
The first Epic Mickey was a single-player affair that sent Mickey Mouse out to investigate the twisted world of Wasteland, and the creature seemingly responsible for its destruction – Oswald the Rabbit. This time around, Power of Two works to bring Oswald and his unique abilities directly into the game as a playable character.
Oswald easily holds his own against Mickey, and his power set, which is based more around mechanics and electricity, is a necessity to gameplay. The game requires cooperation to succeed. Some enemies are more vulnerable to different power sets, and various puzzles will require both players to complete. When a partner isn’t present for split-screen play (there is no online option), AI will take over. A CPU-controlled ally is reasonably competent, though attempting to issue some commands in our recent demo proved troublesome.
Epic Mickey 2 retains a strong sense of character and world design. Much like its predecessor, the game pulls in vast amounts of Disney lore – from its theme parks to cartoon shorts that are decades old – to create a cohesive, fully realized world that fans will spend hours scrutinizing. The way developer Junction Point amalgamates so many sources is truly admirable, and is only helped by great voice work and some truly catchy musical numbers.
The catch here is that Epic Mickey 2 struggles when it moves beyond conceptual design and into practical application. Though the development team swears it has spent time refining its camera, but playing through a section of the game revealed similar problems. Getting a proper, intuitive perspective for battling is still frustrating – even with manual controls and a targeting system. Likewise jumping from platform to platform is problematic. Surfaces have a very slippery nature, and the camera often sits too low, impairing your ability to gauge distances. Combining those two elements means needlessly sliding off ledges is all too common, a frustrating exercise if there ever was one.
Bringing Epic Mickey 2 to Wii U has resulted in some strange development choices as well. Though it would seem likely (and logical) that port developer Heavy Iron would simply apply Wii’s remote-based controls to this HD counterpart, it doesn’t. In fact, it actually forces the first player (Mickey) to use the GamePad and the second (Oswald) to a remote and nunchuk. There are no plans for Pro controller support, and you can’t use the remote if you’re playing alone. It would have also been great to allow players to take advantage of the GamePad’s built-in map and objective displays while using a different controller, similar to Treyarch’s approach with Black Ops II. These types of omissions are simply baffling, as Wii U, alongside PlayStation 3 with Move, could easily be one of the more ideal consoles for this game. The core concept simply begs for pointer-based controllers - certainly a missed opportunity.
For Disney fans, Epic Mickey 2 is a dream come true. It’s truly a celebration of everything that makes Disney so special, from its rich animation to the wonders of its theme parks. And it does that in a musical package that has remarkable ambitions in terms of co-op gameplay. But for a platformer to struggle so much with its camera and controls worries us, particularly as the game has just over a month until its release. Junction Point swears it is tending to the problems of the first Epic Mickey, but some of them seem to be making a comeback – perhaps even more than before. Here's hoping these flaws were simply limited to the areas we tried this time around.
Rich is an Executive Editor of IGN.com and the leader of IGN's Nintendo team. He also watches over all things WWE, Resident Evil, Assassin's Creed and much more. Follow him on Twitter, if you dare!
Source : ign[dot]com
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