Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion hits a certain nerve in me. The demo I played at E3 invoked a feeling that I don't feel often when playing games. It's the feeling that made me praise A Boy and His Blob, both at E3 and when it eventually came out. It's the same feeling that made me love Kirby's Epic Yarn. Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion's E3 demo absolutely nails that joyous whimsical sensation that is a throwback to old classics while still keeping up with the times.

For the most part, Power of Illusion is a simple 2D platformer that is not too far off from its inspiration: Castle of Illusion and other old Disney games from the early '90s. The graphics look great in motion, and are especially emboldened by the subtle 3D effect. It gives a real sense of depth to the environments, and DreamRift's Peter Ong said that the team made a conscious effort to avoid going too heavy on the 3D.

Outside of its platforming roots, which involves timing bounces on enemy's heads to defeat them and maneuver around the world, Power of Illusion has two key components that help it stand out. The first is the paint/thinner mechanic. Every so often, you will have the ability to trace or erase an object, either bringing it into or out of the world. You're measured by your accuracy, and while it doesn't seem to be that involved at first, the potential for more complicated uses of it was teased.

Still, if you do a bad job building a bridge, the bridge might fall apart while you're going across. Do a great job, and you'll get a boost. There are also multi-tier drawings, such as one where you create the rose and its holder from Beauty and the Beast.

The latter ties into the other intriguing mechanic: the fortress. As you go throughout the game, you free trapped Disney characters. In the demo, I freed the Beast, Scrooge McDuck, and Rapunzel (from Tangled). These characters then reside in their own room in the fortress, which you can go to, completely optionally, to talk to these characters and complete quests for them. The quests range from completing drawing tasks to going back into levels and finding other items. The eventual goal is to make them happy and make their room more robust. Some characters, such as Scrooge, even open up a shop that you can then buy upgrades from. All your rewards from these quests then go into feeding your abilities in the main game.

Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion was a game I was looking forward to going into E3. Afterwards, it is quite easily my personal favorite game of the entire show. I cannot wait to play more of this game when it comes out on November 18.