Epic Mickey/YMMV

""Disney didn't own the rights to Oswald, so there was no way I could use him as a character in this game. But Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, went to NBC/Universal, which after 80 years still owned the rights to Oswald, and traded Al Michaels, a human sportscaster, for the rights to a cartoon rabbit.""
 * And the Fandom Rejoiced: No one really thought much of this until concept art got leaked.
 * Also, there was concern from a lot of people that Warren Spector would completely mess with the spirit of the Disney characters... until it was revealed in an interview just how much he loves Disney.
 * Another such draw-in is Disney's dedication to reinventing the Mouse himself. As Warren Spector put it:


 * Warren Spector himself takes the Peter Cullen role in this Trope. Who'd have thought that thinky-complex PC-gaming fans would suddenly be interested in a Wii (most-casual-of-the-consoles) game starring a licensed cartoon mouse?
 * Additionally, many were also thoroughly pleased to see Mickey return to his retro "pie-eyed" look, as opposed to the current, bland flesh face.
 * Not only is the sequel coming out, but a sequel in which you can play as Oswald, with co-op play and a multiplatform home-console release.
 * There's also not only full voice acting, but it's a musical too. This is even affected by the Karma Meter.
 * They're fixing the camera. In fact, they said that they've been working on it right from the beginning of development.
 * For Wii users, the fact that the Wii version is the lead platform, extinguishing fears of getting the half-baked version compared to the HD versions.
 * The game is also getting a release for PC and Mac. Hopefully they won't put DRM on it...
 * A Nintendo 3DS companion game is in development. The kicker? It's a traditional 2D platformer by the creators of Henry Hatsworth and Monster Tale, and it's a sequel to Castle of Illusion.
 * It gets even better: it has hand-drawn sprites akin to Wario Land Shake It. Now combine that to the 3D effects.
 * Alternate Character Interpretation: In SPADES. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, former Mascot of Disney with a similar personality to Mickey, is now a bitter and distrusting fellow. Also, in the comics and cartoons, the Phantom Blot was just a thief dressed in all black (or the Doctor Doom of Disney in his early appearances and European comics): here, he's been upgraded into a monstrosity made out of ink. Mickey himself has been reverted back from smiling The Everyman back into the courageous, mischievous, semi-hero who doesn't know when to quit messing with things he was to begin with.
 * Character Rerailment: The game aims to bring the character back to the "mischievous mouse" from The Golden Age of Animation.
 * Crazy Awesome: Disney. Yes, the company. Think about how the first meetings for this game must have gone: "Hey, you know Mickey Mouse? The extremely marketable character you last used in an educational show for children? We want to make an extremely dark Video Game about him." "Okay." "On the Wii." "Okay." "We're bringing in the guy who made Deus Ex to direct it." "Sure." "You'll have to buy back the rights to characters no one has cared about in nearly a century." "On it." "Here's the concept art." "Nice work." "Here's the opening sequence." "Cool." Seriously, what.
 * Putting it on the Wii makes sense, at least -- after all, Mickey Mouse is Disney's most mainstream character, and the Wii is unarguably the most mainstream-friendly console available at the time.
 * What's even cooler is that (according to an interview/trailer) Disney was the one to pitch the idea to the game, not Warren.
 * Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: When Oswald Also the ending scene, where  A lot of gamers (and possibly old-school Disney fans) feel really sad for Oswald being forgotten - but this game brought him back. He's not a forgotten toon anymore!
 * Crowning Music of Awesome: Dark Beauty Castle
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: Oswald has been Big in Japan for some time, but the game gives him ample time in the spotlight.
 * Fridge Horror: Oswald's 420 children. Not them directly, but it suddenly gets twisted with horror when you realize that since cats have broods of 3-5 offspring, this means that Ortensia must of had to go through the agony of birth at a bare minimum of 84 times. Then there's also the both physically and mentally exhausting task of raising all of them at once.
 * Well she was }} but they seem to be pretty much free to run around and do whatever they want, so she might not having to worry about the raising.
 * Guide Dang It: Using lock-on targeting in combat (you have to place your cursor over the enemy you wish to target, then hold down the C button for about half a second). It isn't mentioned in the manual, and it's so downright counterintuitive at first that most reviewers didn't even know the feature existed.
 * There's also the fact that you're supposed to point to where you want the anvils and TVs to go, which the game doesn't mention. It's entirely possible that you'll end up wasting several as you try to figure out why the TVs keep spawning 30 feet away above a bottomless pit.
 * Figuring out how to beat the Small World Clock Tower by using paint can stump some people who don't know that you have to keep painting both of its arms until they're both fully blue and hopping on the one that lowers its palms in order to reach the face and then use paint on its face until it's redeemed.
 * Harsher in Hindsight: While the game world is based on Disneyland, the fact that the Disney World's Toontown is gone as of February 2011 means it has been consigned to the Wasteland.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: In 2008, GameTrailers listed Warren Spector on a list of Top 10 Game Creators, noting that he (at the time) hadn't been heard of since his company was bought by Disney. The narrator facetiously added, "Here's hoping for a Mickey Mouse/Deadly Shadows crossover."
 * This wasn't the first Disney production in which Frank Welker voiced a rabbit who could remove his own body parts.
 * I Am Not Shazam: The Mad Doctor is named after the original short he starred in, rather than his actual name, Dr. XXX.
 * Memetic Mutation: During the time period it was thought Oswald was going to be the Big Bad, /co/ made him out to be either the Disney counterpart to Liquid Snake or an insanely creepy and jealous Eldritch Abomination constantly running with ink and blood. Also The Virus.
 * KILL THE MOUSE, TAKE HIS HOUSE. KILL THE MOUSE TAKE HIS HOUSE, KILLTHEMOUSETAKEHISHOUSE.
 * This right after hearing "It's a Small World" backwards.
 * Nausea Fuel: In the latter half of the game,.
 * Also, the effects of using thinner on the Small World Clock Tower.
 * Older Than They Think: First, this wasn't the Mad Doctor's first appearance in a Mickey Mouse video game or even as a boss in one. Second, the concept of Mickey being Trapped in Another World and needing to find a way to escape from it and return home has been used in World of Illusion. Third, this is the third Mickey game to feature the Lonesome Ghosts, the first two being The Magical Quest 2/Great Circus Mystery and Mickey Mania.
 * Wait, wasn't there a game for the Game Cube in which Mickey got trapped in a mirror by some mischievous ghost thing, which then proceeded to shatter the mirror and force Mickey to find its shards to get out? Pretty sure it was a point-and-click adventure sort of game... now, what the heck was it called?!?.
 * Ruined FOREVER: Some fans noticed the quick change in voice actors from the preview to the final game, from Rob Paulsen to Frank Welker took it a mite poorly.
 * Screwed By the Network: Despite Disney's Crazy Awesome status listed above, the finished game was originally supposed to be a late 2011/December 2011 release, but cut the development time by a full year, therefore the game technically isn't finished, which explains most of the problems.
 * So Cool Its Awesome: The Teaser Trailer gives more than enough merit to this Trope.
 * Not to mention the Cinematic Opening for the game.
 * Tainted By the Preview: Slowly crept in with the first screenshots, with the alterations from the initial preview not quite as Darker and Edgier as the concept art was, or that the in-game graphics didn't look as pretty as Super Mario Galaxy.
 * That One Boss: The fight with The Mad Doctor and his Beetleworx.
 * Especially trying to figure out how to beat him the "nice" way.
 * It's actually a lot easier to beat him the nice way than fighting him the other way.
 * Robot Captain Hook, especially if you're trying to get the thinner upgrade.
 * The Shadow Blot atop Mickeyjunk Mountain WILL kill you several times in your first playthrough, and even when you think you know him. It doesn't help that you can fall off the arena while you're trying to dodge his attacks.
 * That One Attack: His thinner hadouken is massive, and is practically impossible to dodge if you are close to him. And he loves to use it when you are.
 * That One Level: The Asia Boat Ride is unbelievably frustrating, mostly due to the fact that there's practically nowhere safe to jump thanks to you being surrounded by an ocean of thinner.
 * Unpopular Popular Character: Deliberately invoked by Warren Spector, who loved Oswald and wanted to make him more popular. Sure enough, the more the game showed that Oswald was forgotten, lonely and desperate for recognition, the more fans loved him and swore that he was as good as or better than Mickey.
 * Win Back the Crowd: The whole "angle" of this game, and we don't mean "putting Mickey into a current trend" in this case.
 * The Woobie: OSWALD. He could very well be the poster boy example of the Western Animation Woobie in this game. Life sucks when your half-brother usurped your popularity and became a major icon, while you became a footnote in history books, only known or cared about by the most dedicated animation fans.
 * To elaborate more -- first, he was abandoned by his own father over a dispute with Charles Mintz, and when Walter Lantz took over the cartoons, Walt openly approved of Lantz using Ozzie -- even though Lantz would eventually derail Oswald from his cartoony roots and turn him into a cutesy Funny Animal in an attempt to cash in on Disney (ironically). And it only got worse when his half-brother Mickey Mouse usurped Oswald's original popularity, which, coupled with Lantz's derailment of the character, as well as the gradual rise of Screwy Squirrel characters over cute funny animals in the early 40's (including Universal's own new character, Woody Woodpecker) sent Oswald to his grave in 1943, after limping by for the last several years. You would think that in the world for forgotten Disney characters he would have finally gotten the happy ending he deserved - but no, things got even WORSE for him. Said half-brother just happened to accidentally spill a jug of paint thinner onto Yen Sid's world, which wound up ruining the whole place by turning it into a savage wasteland, as well as unleashing the Shadow Blot upon the place, which would lead the entire world into even more mayhem and ruin, forcing Oswald and any remaining resistance underground. And by the time Mickey arrives is dragged there by the Shadow Blot itself, Oswald has built robotic copies of Mickey's friends to accompany him just to keep himself from going completely insane. And on top of that, he becomes jealous and hateful of Mickey so as to be an active obstacle. So much for him being a "lucky rabbit."
 * Seems like the game has its own meta Wastelanders of its own. Matthew Stringer and Chris Takami as well as the 8 other interns from Disney Interactive Studios were the initial core creative group that really started the idea of Epic Mickey. But they rarely, if at all, get any credit for their work.
 * After Walt lost him, Ozzie's life started to suck pretty bad.
 * Also
 * Interestingly, though, the comics and the game seem to take the view that Oswald really is quite lucky; he has a loving family, friends who admire him, and a land made in his own image. If he could only put his jealousy of Mickey behind him (as he seems to do by the end of the game), he'd be happy.
 * Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds:
 * X Meets Y: While Kingdom Hearts was essentially Disney meets Final Fantasy, Epic Mickey is, in a sense, American McGee meets Disney -- OR Deus Ex meets Mickey Mouse, with just a hint of Mother 3.