Epic Mickey
Yes, for real. Epic Mickey and its sequel may not have been successes when you look back at them. In fact, they’re the reason that Junction Point closed its doors, which is a shame when you remember that famed designer Warren Spector of Deus Ex fame is behind it. Epic Mickey, without any trace of irony, should be a universe in Kingdom Hearts III.
For those of you who didn’t play the games, Epic Mickey was a Wii-exclusive game from 2010 where players took control of Disney’s famous mascot, Mickey Mouse. He enters Yen Sid’s workshop and discovers a magic paintbrush that Sid used to create a model of a land he was working on. Mickey screws around with the paint and ends up creating an evil Shadow Blot, which escapes into the world of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Oswald grew jealous of Mickey’s success, and thanks to the Blot, became infected and had his realm to turned into the Wasteland. Naturally, Mickey has to put his mess back together with the help of… a magic paintbrush! Mickey of course saves the land and Oswald, which leads to the two working together in Epic Mickey 2. The two of them defeat the Mad Doctor and stop him from taking all the paint in the world, but the Petes of the Wasteland kidnap his henchman Prescott.
Kingdom Hearts III could serve to just lay that particular cliffhanger to rest. One of the big selling points for Epic Mickey at the time was that it would be a darker, scarier Disney. It sounds just about as effective as the contradiction implies, but that doesn’t mean the concept should be written off completely. The Heartless could justifiably come to the Wasteland and corrupt things and characters even further than they already are. Disneyland is an iconic place that everyone associates with being idyllic and wholesome, but how fun would it be to travel through an ugly, monstrous, twisted version of it? Friendship and redemption are big themes of the Kingdom Hearts series, and Epic Mickey certainly has the potential to do those two themes justice.
