i always like to play with inverted y-axis. it'll take a bit of getting used to but it should be ok
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Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
bugsonglass said:i always like to play with inverted y-axis. it'll take a bit of getting used to but it should be ok
So do I. Honestly though after faffing about with the manual camera trying to get used to the inverted controls, it's easier and better to just hit the c button centering. All you really need to remember to do is press down on the d - pad to make the camera hover up to give you a birds eye view for some jumps.
Having played 3D games from their inception most people should be used to getting by with a camera like this. Sure things have improved and maybe there is an expectation of a better automatic camera these days, but anyone who with experience of playing 3D platformers should be able to use it fairly well.
It's importance has perhaps been overstated in some reviews.
That said the game design is like an N64 platformer, a design that does feel old school compared to what Nintendo did with Super Mario Galaxy and even what Sonic Team did fusing the 3D and 2D sections of Sonic Colours.
But it's solid and good. Robio, sort of like Jett Rocket is for the price. Nothing amazing but really solid and of course Epic Mickey has bags more real estate and production values up the wazoo and the disney atmosphere and music, which elevates it.
And the paint mechanic, whilst simple, is fun to use. Almost De Blob like, in how you want to fill in and finish what the developers left unfinished.
Played more Epic Mickey, about 3 hours in now, it's pretty decent. Looks glorious in the 2D house interiors, some of the 2D levels are fun too. Wish the whole game was just 2D levels with more fleshed out design and mechanics.
Got to mean street, lots of fetch questing here, one character wants something from another who wants something from another. It's basic fetch questing but the happy music and visuals make it easy enough to enjoy. I painted up the town and the characters got these happy mickey icons which was cool. Painting the town can get obsessive and they hide some things right at the top of the screen so you have to search them out and paint in first person which is satisfying.
Now I'm into the game, I would give anyone who gave it a 6/10 a weird raised eyebrow look. At one point I was cursing the camera trying to jump up this windmill, until doh 
I realised I wasn't even supposed to be up there anyway, so I was kind trying to break the game design unknowingly. Had my first boss fight which was cool. It's a good game, lower your AAA expectations and you'll find a solid and enjoyable platform/adventure game.
Oh yeah the cinematics are beautiful and the story, tinged with sadness, is nice and affecting.
Been away for most of the weekend, engrossed with Epic Mickey. It officially gets my stamp of approval. It's much bigger than I thought it would be, there are lots of quests some of which are good, others stray too close to fetch questing.
It has some enchanting areas. I'm no hardcore Disney fan, but when the music, visuals and area is juuuuust right, it feels, almost, well magical.
The 2D sections are just little interludes between proper 3D areas. They are throwaway and don't feature any substantial challenge or innovation. But they do have delightful ways of using animation to change the environment, which makes them more than worth investigating.
Cutscenes - the animated ones that is, are brilliantly done. And the game seems to have lots of little secrets tucked away, for instance when I hit Mean Street I thought it was a superficial 2D facade, only to discover that there was a whole new level underneath when you started splashing the thinner about.
There is some BS, like there will be times where you have to find 4 things, and I spent ages looking for them only to find 3 and take the easy way out (paying a character to do it)
Camera is fine, actually, now that I am practiced on it. When it is fixed, it's honestly picking the right angle for the scene, even when you assume it's not and want to see what is unseen. You turn back to see the unseen area the camera wouldn't allow you to see, only to find either a useless drop to your death or a plain wall. Learn to trust the auto-camera and use the c-button centering.
This game is pretty good and is starting to feel "Epic" in a way. Some of the combat is getting more difficult and sometimes frustrating as you can be concentrating on one and several others will bum rush you from behind.
Tomorrow City was hard to see where you were going because of the dark art style, but hell, Tron boss Made it all worthwhile - I will say no more.
Oh yeah on the SDTV to HDTV comparison, SD wins hands down, it's a rounded, soft and jaggie free game, all of which is semi-ruined by HDTV scaling. Jaggies kill it.
Epic fake out in Epic Mickey. Just as I thought it was going to prematurely end, it doesn't 
But I do have one bug to bear with the game and no, it has nothing to do with minor obstacles like the camera or IR.
The game gives you quests to do, find this, go there, talk to him etc. Sounds good right? Well the game has this branching structure to the levels. Mean street is the hub world and then you go to say the Pirate world and then from there you get to other pirate locations like Skull island and Tortuga.
But then the game likes to shut off levels you've completed in story terms, so for instance I beat the boss in Tomorrow City and it closes off the level so I can't get back. But I still have parts of Daffy Duck to find in Tomorrow City and I can't go back. I can still get the parts, but only if I pay an extortionate amount in the shop - and even so, I want to find them myself.
It almost means that you have to get the most out of each area and do all the quests in said area before you face the boss and move on. And I hear from others that once you complete the game you can't go back into the game to polish off the quests either. I am headed back to Tomorrow City in a moment so I will see if I can polish off the quests there or if it's just a continuation of the Blot boss fight.
The other minor concern is that some characters give you multiple quests and once you do them you have to go back and talk to them. But say you have done quests A,B,C and D. You go to see a character and he will say "Whoa! Nice you have done quest A" and that is it.
Then you have to talk to him (initiate new conversations) three more times to get the payoff for B, C and D. It's more a minor annoyance than a big problem.
Okay I think I've played long enough to give some slightly intelligent feedback on the game. Basically I'm split on this game. The gamer side of me is not overly impressed. The Disney freak in me on the other hand is in nirvana.
The game itself I don't think is bad, but there's not a whole lot that I've seen that's impressed me. Most of the platforming elements are pretty run of the mill. The painting and thinner feature adds a neat perspective, but more often than not I feel like I'm not really playing a game as much as I'm just playing hide and seek looking for hidden items or pathways. Too often I feel like I'm just thinning the walls to see if there's anything behind them. Also the camera is problematic at times. At one instance I walked into a new zone and the camera panned behind me. Three steps later I fell into a hole and died. At other times the camera get be stubborn, if not impossible to move. I don't want to paint the picture that it's really awful or kills the experience, but it should be better. At this point in gaming there's no reason why the camera can't be steady. The camera in this game acts like it did in Kingdom Hearts if you want a comparison.
On a more positive note about the gameplay, I do like the combat. It's simple but it gets the job done. And it's fun to turn some of the weaker minions into your friends with the paint and watch them fight for you. Also, the first boss fight that I've come across was a fun battle. The 2-D segments are good too. Very brief, but that's probably for the best as they're not really hard and really there more to break up zones and change the pace for a moment. The story is very good too. I think a lot of people have overlooked that, but it's a surprisingly serious story even though it's told with lighthearted characters. Actually I suppose that's what many Disney's best films have been about.
Now as a Disney fan, all I can say is Spector and Junction Point are gods. They didn't just dig up a few old characters for this game. They've resurrected old movies, old rides, old cartoons, and reference and use them througout the game. It's absolutely amazing. Of the areas I've seen so far, Tomorrow City, OzTown and Mean Street it's just remarkable how well they did using the Magic Kingdom as a model and twisting it ever so slightly to create something new. Much to my surprise though, the best parts are some of the original creations. Mickey Junk Mountain is visually one of the most amazing things I've ever seen on the Wii and it's actually quite close to some of those original dark and twisted pieces of concept art that first appeared when the Epic Mickey rumors started just over a year ago.
Plus the extras are just wonderful icing on the cake. I unlocked one of the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons and got to watch that. I can't say it was really good, but it was from 1928 or so and it's a very interesting piece of history that until now not too many people have seen, so you got to appreciate that kind of stuff. Lots of good concept art, and hopefully more to come too.
ANyway much like Muramasa, even when the game feels like it's just plodding on, I'm so curious to see what's next that I don't mind playing just a little bit longer. So at this point I'd say rent first before buying unless you're a huge Disney fan, in which case this game is absolutely required.
I'm 15 hours in and still not at the final boss. Seems like a tough rental when it might take some people a week to finish. When the camera becomes as you say immovable it is deliberately framing the action for you at the best possible angle. You feel like you want to move it to look around, but if and when you do, you find that there is nothing hidden where the camera wouldn't turn. You just have to trust the auto camera, there is nothing wrong with it at all.
Also there are parts I have seen other people and I did this myself, where you only partially thin out an area, run behind a thin-able wall and then wonder why the camera only shows your shadow. It's your own damned fault, you should just thin out the top part of the wall/object too.
Personally, as I love adventure/platform games and the camera hasn't been a hassle for me, this game is a 9.0
As my impressions said before, it starts out as nothing special and an 8.0 game but I warmed to the game and its world over time. I used to love N64 platform games and no one makes them anymore, even Retro's DKC game I wanted as a DK64 type game.
I can understand when people say things like "the quests are boring" etc as that is subjective, personally I enjoy most of them and I like the banjo like platform gameplay. I do however think that many people have made huge deals about the camera and combat, when they are in my mind, minor obstacles that melt away as you play more. I'm still of the opinion that if you came through the PS1 and N64 era of 3D games, this camera should present no problems to you. But I am someone who can deal with a manual camera and use the stick at the same time, I did it on Crystal Bearers which had a similar manual camera. Sure it could and should be better, but you can still play the game and it doesn't ruin the experience at all.
Most people I have seen give up before they even reach Mean Street, which is where the game properly begins and then claim that the game is unplayable and so poor etc. I feel sad that they don't persevere as I have seen other people reach this point and start enjoying it. I can already see myself playing this through again doing things a little differently to see what changes. Personally the only area I don't like so much is Tomorrow City as it is often hard to see where you should be going and there is this electric rail that keeps shocking you.
Great impressions guys.
I hear a couple of people complaining about hit detection on the 2D levels? I haven't had any problems at all.
Anyway finally they had a Cinderella 2D level and when I saw the er.... I wont spoil it but I was grinning like a fool 
And I thought, damn, finally into some cool as shit 2D stuff, I hoped they would flesh it out some more but instead it ended 30 seconds later 
The 2D levels, you see them in screens and you immediately start thinking Mario Galaxy or Sonic Colours. Instead they are just 2 minute segways between 3D areas, almost like stuff to do whilst the next area loads. There is usually a film reel to grab from somewhere which unlocks stuff, but otherwise they are just visual diversions.
What the hell is this sheeeeet?!!!!
Why was this not in Epic Mickey?
You can buy it here: http://www.shopncsx.com/tronmickeymousevinylcollectibledoll.aspx
Why isn't this guy in Epic Mickey too?
robio said:Why isn't this guy in Epic Mickey too?
Obscenity laws.
Also even though there is a Fantasia 2D level it was pretty unrecognisable to me. Where was this?
And LOL, why do I picture Vader as the Mickey Mouse guy in this news story?
gamingeek said:Also even though there is a Fantasia 2D level it was pretty unrecognisable to me. Where was this?
What did the Fantastia level look like? There were multiple segments in it, though most people only remember the Soceror's Apprentice since Mickey was featured in it.
robio said:gamingeek said:Also even though there is a Fantasia 2D level it was pretty unrecognisable to me. Where was this?
What did the Fantastia level look like? There were multiple segments in it, though most people only remember the Soceror's Apprentice since Mickey was featured in it.
It was just a bunch of flashing stars going upwards. Fairly characterless.
Look at this:
Shacknews:
"As a third-person platformer, the quality of the game's camera should have been the primary concern for the developers. Instead, the game's camera feels like a regression to an N64-era game and effectively ruins every other aspect of the gameplay, though it is not the sole culprit of the game's poor gameplay experience."
Really? It ruins everything? Jesus am I some master genius of the camera system or am I living in the twilight zone?
You just have low standards, that's all.
robio said:You just have low standards, that's all.
Oooops, 2nd fantasia level is in there.
17 hrs 50 minutes and I completed it. Quite a long adventure here. The end section had a few too many enemies and made you fight a fair few but nothing troubling - it was the last room of the game.
Really excellent ending, the production values and story are really well done. It's not a deep story with tons of twists, it's more an atmosphere and the concept and idea that you are to blame for all this.
Really enjoyed it overall, couple of technical complaints but nothing that really bothered me. The quests were interesting and fun, but they do fall into the Banjo type collect this, talk to him model. Levels were good, really enjoyed using paint and thinner to uncover things or build platforms.
Oh, only thing is:
WARNING
When you complete the game, you can't go back into it later to polish off the quests, you restart your save file from the beginning. Also like I said before the game can close locations off on you so you need to make sure you do everything you want to do in any given area before leaving. Ostown and Mean street are the only areas you can dick around in ad nauseam. If one of the robot characters tells you to get his/her pieces in a particular area, make sure you find them all before leaving the area or you might not get the chance to do it. You can buy the parts from the store but they are ridiculously expensive.
Oh yeah and the game has about 20 hrs of content (I didn't manage all the quests), so bear in mind that the first 3 hours are a little slow and uninspiring, but it gets better and there is a lot of good content in context.
WARNING
Thanks GG. You're really helping fill in the gaps for a lot of lingering questions I've had since the initial reviews came out. Still picking this up the first second I can on Tuesday