I don't even know what to say to this.

It's an interesting concept and it certainly true to the spirit of Disney BUT I doubt it will go over well.  Too strange of an idea for a videogame

Personally I find musicals hard to watch.  Whenever I'm watching something and a character just bursts into song I feel awkward like I'm observing someone in an embarassing moment but they're not aware of how humiliating it is yet.  It's like when a really drunk person decides to make a speech at a wedding, makes a complete ass of themselves, and makes everyone around them awkward and uncomfortable.

Though the worst is if you're watching something that is normally not associated with a musical and suddenly turns into one.  Animated shows do this a fair bit.  Comedies will have a one-off musical episode.  The transition to a movie can do this as well as South Park demonstrates.  Every time it happens I always wonder why the creators though it was a good idea.  I've never met anyone who likes musicals outside the context of a live play, where it somehow seems acceptable.

Though it is acceptable in animated Disney films.  I expect it.  But something like West Side Story is MST3K territory for me.

South Park proved that it could be hilarious and entertaining. I mean "Uncle Fucker"...."Uncle Fucker"....

Also, this is perfectly in line with Disney and if they are willing to go out on a limb and put what could be considered one of their strongest aspects into a video game, then I applaud them and hope that it turns out well.

I don't mind this game being a musical.  I like musicals, if they're done well.  I don't like the thought of this being a musical with new Disney songs, as I haven't liked the songs in an animated Disney musical since probably Tarzan (and Hunchback of Notre Dame before that).  Disney just hasn't been able to write good new songs since the 90s for their animated movies, so I have a feeling this game's music will be just as lame as their Direct To Video movies' soundtracks.

On the flipside, Disney did release The Muppets last year, and that had a very good soundtrack so maybe it's possible the songs in this game won't suck.  But I doubt it.

Some of the best games came from strange ideas.

I don't really see this being too crazy. When I first read this news, I imagined something like The Great Mighty Poo boss fight from Conker's Bad Fur Day. That song totally made that boss fight. It wouldn't have been the same without the song. I think Spector is a smart enough designer to know that it would be a bad idea to interrupt the flow of the game just so the characters can sing and dance.

I agree with broodwars though. Disney songs haven't be especially strong in years. The last Disney animated film I saw was Tangled and the music was my only major issue with it. The songs weren't awful but they don't hold the candle to the songs in say, The Little Mermaid.

This sounds perfect for the people who actually did enjoy the first game.

Yeah, I was never a fan of musicals until I met my wife, who loves them.  So I also like musicals now, though I find that the ones I like (90's Disney movies, my god the Little Mermaid was great, Steven Sondheim, Wicked) are ones my wife isn't crazy about.

With that said, I really DON'T like the idea of a musical/video game hybrid, because either the characters are going to be singing while you're playing (which means you will most likely ignore them while you're doing platforming or painting or something) or it will be a 2 to 5 minutes CUTSCENE.  Not a fan of either option. 

Whoa, that was crazy Adrock.  We both posted about The Little Mermaid at the same time.  Great minds....

Unfortunately, there's a really horrifying high-profile precedence for this... (watch at your own peril)

Whatever they do with this game, it had better not turn out like that (which, also coincidentally, was Disney attempting new music in a musical sequence of a game).  *shudders*

EDIT: I guess I'm one of the very few people who just don't like The Little Mermaid, though I can acknowledge its importance.

@leahsdad

It sounds more like you're copying my extreme genius. I already have one doppelgänger on these boards. ;)

In response to your previous post, do you normally ignore music in games? If it's good, it'll stick with you. The characters can sing all they want while I'm playing as long as it doesn't suck.

Wait, wait....WHAT!?

For me, the best musicals are ones that don’t seem like musicals.  This normally happens when the music and singing don’t interrupt the action of the performance; the action still continues along with the music. When the narrative stops for dancing in the street, that’s what becomes annoying to me; and this is only exacerbated while trying to play a game. It will be interesting to see how the gameplay and music will be incorporated together.
In terms of Disney movies, I started becoming less interested in correlation with the amount of CGI used. I just watched Beauty and the Beast special edition yesterday on Blu-ray, and it was amazing; no CGI needed (obviously there is some re-mastering). In terms of music, when are we going to get the next “Under the Sea”, “A Whole New World”, “Colors of the Wind”, or “Be Our Guest”. Songs that I actually want to remember after seeing the movie. From what I’ve read this game has a massive development team, so I’m sure they won’t disappoint.
d

You obviously haven't seen the Beauty & the Beast Ballroom scene lately, then (despite claiming that you just watched the movie again)?  Most of that sequence is CG, as well as other ones like the Escape from the Cave of Wonders in Aladdin; the Clock Tower fight in Great Mouse Detective; the Stampede and Be Prepared Sequences in Lion King; etc.  I wouldn't be too harsh on Disney for the CG era, especially given the quality of Pixar's work.

To be clear Broodwars, I wrote this before I read your comment. I will admit I was wrong, but there is no need for condescension. In addition to my first statement, I realize Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast both used some CGI. What I meant was the hand-drawn animation looks superior to me, and the movies didn’t need CGI to look exceptional. I agree those movies wouldn’t be as memorable without the special effects; it’s just unfortunate that computer-rendered graphics have effectively killed one of the most beautiful art forms of this last century. Also, I did watch Beauty and the Beast yesterday, regardless. I also enjoy Pixar, and recognize their exceptional work in this area. I could talk for an hour about realistic hair fibers mixed with unrealistic skin textures because it looks too real that is looks fake (Toy Story 3). Of course, let’s all get back to Nintendo now, sorry for the divergence.

I just hope the fanbase that made a sequel possible gets the same game (in SD) as on the other platforms.  If they slap together some insulting imatation of the "real" game it would not be cool.  ... especially since those are usually followed by observations like "see? it sold worse on Wii so we couldn't put much effort in."

I know I'm jumping straight to Bitter-town, but it's just happened too many times before.

I honestly would rather an equal game come out for PS3/60 and Wii U and skip the Wii all together unless it is going to be the same game merely upscaled for the HD consoles.

I know I have bad allergies today, so someone clarify this for me. Did I read that right, a musical?

They are fools if they do not implement the ability for players to switch between characters. If I am playing solo, I want the choice to play as either Oswald or Mickey and be able to switch on the fly. Dear Warren, see the Lego games for what I am talking about.

Other than that, game ideas sound great. looking forward to purchasing. Hope there's a WiiU version.

Heh heh...

I love music in games.  In recent memory, SMG2, Pilotwings Resort, all the Skyward Sword songs except for the last one you get at the Volcano....I love it.  But those are background songs that meld with the action that you're performing in a really beautiful way--the complement and accentuate the experience, adding an aesthetic or even emotional component that wouldn't be there otherwise.  But with musicals, with singing, will it work the same way music did in these games, or will it be like "Eyes on You" in FF8?  I really hope it is NOT like FF8.  It's a nice song, but seriously, when that came on, it was sandwich time for me. 

And I don't want to completely write off recent Disney stuff....the songs in Tangled seem nice, or at least, the first 15 minutes before my daughter got so scared by the witch that we had to leave the theater. 

The more I think about it, what I'm really concerned about is how it will be done.  How often do you play a videogame where they're trying to do some "dramatic" scene but the lip sync is poor or the movements are awkward and the whole thing comes across as embarassing?  It is really easy for this idea to be done very poorly and then it will be a total groanfest to sit through.  For this to work it has to be done REALLY well.

It's a fairly huge risk, and they'll have a hell of a time pulling it off, but I can't help but admire their ambition. I'm not really interested (largely because it takes an awful lot for me to get excited about a non-handheld game these days), but I really hope this turns out well.

Those rumors about all the hundreds of people working on this worldwide suddenly make more sense.

I am both very surprised and disappointed that there is no Wii U version.  I was hoping they would have been developing the game ground up for the Wii U platform and then port down to the other consoles.

If there is a Wii U version it's likely they are not allowed to announce it yet.
if you don't hear about it in a little over a week (FY2011 ends), then wait till E3.

Either that, or they figure doing both Wii and Wii U versions would splinter the user base.

There is still that trademark issue with the Wii U name that is still going on.

That is a long shot, but still another possible reason why this and many other games are not mentioned for Wii U or show no logo. (name change incoming?)

@BnM

Incoming name change would be awesome!

@Insano

Yea, but, why would anyone care if the user base was splintered between one Nintendo platform and another?

Plus, since copying and pasting games between the PS3 and 360 is apparently so fun and easy, they might as well drop it on the Wii U too.

The Xbox 360 version will most likely be Kinect compatible and will allow the player to dance along with the musical sessions. If Fred Welker is voicing Oswald then he msut be doing his Fred from Scooby Doo voice. Although it would be nice if he voiced the Blot as well with his Dr. Cllaw voice. He only has two voice types.

I am excited for this, Disney has shown a lot of improvement with Princess and the Frog along with Tangled in regards to their music. Wishing them the best success for attempting to incorporate musical elements to this, trouble is that if it is not handled right it will sink the game. As a fan of Disney I really want to see Epic Mickey become a successful and well made series.

I think the idea would be that the Wii U version would lower the sales of the Wii version, which needs to be independently developed. They could just do a Wii U version and not a Wii one, but that would upset a lot of people as well. Really though, I was just hazarding a guess. It's very possible that there's a Wii U version as well and they're choosing to wait to announce it.

This got me thinking. If they are doing a Wii U version as well as a Wii version, I think it would be in their best interest to make the Wii version its own thing, and not just a downported version of the PS3/360/WiiU game. That way, you might see someone buy both the Wii and Wii U versions, and instead of splintering the user base you've gotten some people to double dip (or triple, if they also got the 3DS one).

If they put an equal amount of effort and mainstream appeal in to this ground up Wii game? Sure.  But has that ever been the case?  Usually when companies do that it's like, over here is the real game, and on the Wii we have Epic Mickey - Those Little Gremlins Party: Rail Shooter Edition.  In other words, a game people wouldn't even be interested in no matter what platform it's on.

No, the Wii is capable of great games, the smartest thing they could do (both in terms of sales and not ignoring the girl who brought you to the dance) would be to either:

A) build an awesome Wii game and then up-res it for PS3/60(/Wii U?)
or
B) cancel the Wii game, put the same game on PS3/60/Wii U and give Nintendo fans that 3DS game as that nod of loyalty.

Not sure how they are going to handle it, I do know it would be stupid to throw a poorly ported game onto Wii. The game sold 1.3 million copies, so it was a success. Hopefully that factors into what they do and they take the Wii version seriously. I can see the Wii being the lead platform in this case.

Guitar Hero World Tour and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed come to mind. But you're right, not many.

If they have this many people working on it then it must be good this time, right?

Right?

Well, the first thing they should do is put a gag order on Warren Spector, assuming he's affiliated with the project.  His Peter Molyneux-esque antics last time (i.e. hyping and promising things he couldn't actually do) is probably mostly responsible for the general disappointment with the first Epic Mickey.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED
Agreed with broodwars for the 5th time.

I doubt that's the case for most people. I didn't know much about it before I bought it, but I wish I had because then I'd know it wasn't a good game. I have to go back to the days of the Nintendo 64 before I can name a platformer that's worse than Epic Mickey.

Eh, I don't. I just have to go back to Super Mario Sunshine, and I've got a platformer worse than Epic Mickey.  :P:

I really don't think Epic Mickey was that bad of a platformer.  It was just kind of middling in that regard, which I was kind of indifferent towards because of the emphasis on exploration.  My big issue with Epic Mickey was that it never lived up to its potential.  The moral choice system was utterly pointless because no matter what you do, it has minimal impact on the overall game (especially the ending).  The backtracking was also pure tedium at times, and the game was never as imaginatively dark and interesting as Warren Spector (and the concept art) teased early on.  It felt like a game that was pulling its punches, and unfortunately since that sold I don't have confidence that the sequel will buck that trend.

I wonder how much it had to do with Warren and how much it had to do with Disney making him pull things back. Honestly I would not be surprised if he was overruled quite often, especially when it came to the art direction, since it did get less twisted looking visually then what we seen in the first released artwork of the game.

I remember some of the early interviews where Spector made it sound like Oswald was the main antagonist because of his jealousy. Mickey got all the fame while Oswald was forgotten so Oswald basically made himself king of the Wasteland, attempting to give himself the life he was destined to have but never did. It seemed like Epic Mickey's story was completely different at one point. This is just conjecture on my part but I feel like Disney made Spector change it, perhaps because they didn't want Oswald's homecoming to be as a bad guy, even if just initially. If Epic Mickey (as part 1 of a trilogy) was a story about how Mickey, more or less, saves his brother from the Dark Side, the morality system would have made a hell of a lot more sense.

That's what I was about to say. The game felt restricted by an outside force, not the artist's vision.

Yeah I remember those too. Found an old article from IGN on it as well. I think it all points to Disney changing things or overriding him.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/104/1040693p1.html