![]() That same year, Warren Spector formed Junction Point Studios and started pitching to various studios, including Disney. While that deal was completed in 2006, Disney had been in the process of regaining the rights to Oswald since at least 2005. In what will remain the strangest sports trade of all time, The Walt Disney Company and NBC Universal reached an agreement where Oswald would rejoin the House of the Mouse while Monday Night Football play-by-play announcer Al Michaels would join John Madden on Sunday Night Football. They also wanted to reintroduce the world to one of Walt Disney’s earlier creations in Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, which it didn’t actually own at the time. It’s honestly a miracle Epic Mickey ended up as endearing as it did given its beginnings as a corporate-driven idea to rebrand Mickey Mouse as a video game hero that’d appeal to players of all ages. For that, we need to go back to before Junction Point Studios came on board, when what would become Epic Mickey was just an idea in some Disney executive’s head to make Mickey Mouse relevant again. To understand where I’m coming from, we’re going to have to look at the origins of this project. The additions made in the sequel - co-op, Inkwells, voice acting, musical numbers - did it no favors in winning over those who were left unimpressed with its predecessor, but I’d argue this franchise’s death warrant was signed even before a followup was ever greenlit. ![]() It would be easy to point to Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two as the culprit in this series’ demise, but truthfully, its problems are merely a product of what Junction Point created the first time around. How could the surefire idea of “Mickey Mouse in a world of forgotten Disney characters” result in two different studios ceasing to make video games? I wanted to find out what killed this franchise, and to do so, I dove back into the thinner-soaked Wasteland to see exactly what went wrong. Ten years later, I’m still asking that question. After a year of buzz and excitation for a Mickey Mouse game that wasn’t aimed at the Elementary School crowd, I sat there staring at my television asking how could this have gone so wrong. The idea that I’d fall madly in love with this game gradually thinned away like many of the walls of the Wasteland. I tore into Epic Mickey like a doctor had just given me a week to live, but by the time I reached Lonesome Manor, I had to put the controller down. Instead, what I got was a lesson in hype and how easy it is to set oneself up for eventual disappointment. I pre-ordered the collector’s edition, fully expecting some sort of religious experience from the game. Heading toward its 2010 debut, all signs pointed to this being, perhaps, one of the biggest new franchises in the industry. ![]() It was everything somebody like me could want at the time: a Wii exclusive from a third-party developer lead by an accomplished game producer that would offer us a new look at the classic cartoon character. Have you ever heard an idea that you knew just couldn’t fail? Something so spectacular and creative, and yet so blatantly obvious, that there would be no way it could possibly end up as anything other than an absolute triumph? Back in 2009, I was sure that Disney and Junction Point Studios had come up with a flawless formula as that was the year the world got its first substantial look at Disney Epic Mickey.
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