Epic Mickey Panel: New Screenshots, Information Overload – Contains Spoilers

With Epic Mickey arriving late next month, the hype train continues to build for one of the most highly anticipated titles of the year. You heard right, Mickey Mouse stars in one of the most highly anticipated games of the year, and it doesn’t start with the word “Kingdom”. At the New York Comic-Con there was an entire panel dedicated to Epic Mickey, where they released a ton of new information. We’ve gathered everything we can all in one spot, so hit the jump and prepare to have your mind blown.

• Warren says his first play through took 26 hours
• The way you interact with enviornments and characters changes your playthrough of the game
• Takes up to 3 playthroughs of the game to collect everything
• characters such as Goofy will play a large role
• the game’s ending involves Mickey’s handling of Wasteland, and changes depending on what you’ve done
• one portion of the game asks you to choose between saving a gremlin or taking a treasure
• this decision will change the story
• 64 page graphic novel being released will add to the game’s story
• Warren still shows interest in a Ducktales game
• some characters leave the world if you take an evil path
• over 100 collector pins
• also collect Golden Ticket money and Film Reels
• Spector has plenty of ideas for a sequel
• a Jr. Game Designer came up with a much better way to do the moral system, which is why things changed from the original
• the soundtrack is going to be classic Disneyland and Mickey Mouse music done new, epic, demented and “Disney like”.
• Oswald is the main focus of the story
• Oswald views Mickey as the younger brother that took the life that was meant to be his
• this relationship becomes worse or better depending on how you play the game.
• he is the driving force of the exploration and story
• Oswald is incredibly lonely, and once worked with the Mad Doctor to keep Wasteland under control before it was ruined by Mickey’s tampering
• Oswald isn’t friends with the Mad Doctor anymore
• robotic Goofy and Donald are gifts from the Mad Doctor so Oswald can simulate living the life Mickey lived
• Oswald also has his own AI
• In one clip, Oswald is like a Boo from Mario Bros, because when you look away he makes obscene gestures of displeasure at Mickey but when you look back at him he is all innocent and idle
• one of the comic series’ is a prequel to how Oswald ran Wasteland during Mickey’s screw up
• The clips shown at Comic Con will be online in about two weeks and most likely will be on the bonus DVD of the Collectors Edition
• Waren made the game for Wii for three reasons. 1) The main game mechanics at the time were only possible on the Wii Remote. 2) The Wii’s expanded audience is more of a fit to Mickey Mouse than on the XBox 360. 3) Waren is a self admired HUGE Nintendo dork. “Miyamoto touched me on the shoulder at E3 and I suddenly became a better game designer!”
• Warren Spector has never seen Darkwing Duck, but he plans to watch the series and see if he believes it could be turned into a game
• the game gives you choices every three to five minutes
• the game will immediately give you repercussions and rewards from the choices you make and will log the data for behind the scenes calculations to adjust the overall story
• there is no “Good VS Evil” binary moral system
• the game will always have the same conclusion, but it will have elements that are different depending on how you’ve played the game
• “We wanted to challenge the player on ‘what is heroism?’ Is it the guy who takes torturous time to do every little thing, or the guy who gets only the most important things done in the most efficient way possible. Do you make bread or bombs. Neither is right or wrong. The choice is up to you!”
• Spector’s first job was making Mickey Mouse a hero in the vein of Nintendo legends Mario and Link
• Spector’s second job was to tell the tale of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
• Spector is honored to bring Oswald to the console screen
• Epic Mickey is the first time Oswald ever had a voice of any kind
• Oswald’s voice is performed by Frank Welker
• Spector hopes Oswald will be launched into commercial success once more, and would love to see an Oswald plush.
• the idea of the DigiComics and graphic novel is to let the player know what’s going on inside the head of the characters
• Tales of the Wasteland will be a prequel anthology of six stories inspired by Oswald’s life
• all of the stories take place before Mickey inadvertently releases the Phantom Blot on the Wasteland
• Oswald and the Mad Doctor had a great relationship at one point
• ‘Clocktower Cleaners’ is a send-up of the Disney classic short ‘Clock Cleaners.’
• ‘Oswald the Lucky Duck’ is where Oswald decides he could be more popular if he wasn’t a rabbit, so he attempts to become other things such as a Lucky Duck, a Lucky Stiff, etc.
• one of the stories is based on the beloved (and defunct) Adventurer’s Club at Walt Disney World
• the free iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad app for the DigiComics will be released within 10 days
• the map of the Wasteland will be mostly grayed out, but lands will be progressively unlocked on a week by week basis leading up to the November 30 launch of Epic Mickey
• graphic novel will follow the prequel Tales of the Wasteland anthology will be released alongside the game on November 30th
• Spector says that a really good gamer can get through Epic Mickey in 15 hours
• Yen Sid does appear once more in the game
• lots of hidden rooms, secrets and Mickey heads to find
• E-tickets serve as currency
• music written by ‘Pushing Daisies’ composer Jim Dooley
• Spector auditioned about twelve different people for the music
• in an earlier concept of the game, the ‘real world’ characters were in the Wasteland in a ‘save Mickey’s friends’-type storyline, but since the characters currently exist in the ‘real world,’ they cannot be forgotten or discarded and thus don’t belong in the Wasteland
• John Lasseter provided two vital elements to the game, but declined to say what they were at this time

“I love our guy, I think this is the best Mickey ever, but he is the video game Mickey. … You have to find the core of the character, what makes Mickey relevant after 82 years, when no other characters are, and no other movies are. And the list is pretty short and pretty straightforward: he’s smart, he’s loyal, he is a friend to all, he’s persistent, he never gives up, he is overly enthusiastic, doesn’t always think things through, gets himself in mischief and has to get himself out of trouble. That’s true everywhere, intensely curious. So what I wanted to do is take smart, loyal, friend, and overly enthusiastic, mischievous, curious… that to me defines a great video game character. And then do what you have to do in a video game is give players something they’ve never seen before – in our case it’s drawing and erasing. And I think you’ve got a little guy who can take on Mario and Sonic, Link, Master Chief.” – Warren Spector

Source: Stich Kingdom, GameDaily, GoNintendo