[quote name='phogoodness']Any opinions on this game? It got mixed reviews, so I'm not sure if it's even worth owning.[/QUOTE]
The camera IS that bad and you will likely fall to your death many times because of it. There are times when the camera is free for you to control and times when it is fixed so that you don't "miss" important map sections. Of course, when you really want to control the camera you can't, outside of those instances, the camera is fine. The game starts out great as far as puzzles working with the paint/thinner gameplay, but that dries up real fast.
I spent 20 hours going through the game without trying to get all the pins and concept art, and it was not a fun experience. I only finished it because I felt I got in too deep to just quit.
Like someone else posted, you CANNOT return to the early worlds, actions there affect your progress. Once you get to Mean Street (corrupt version of main street), you progress by doing odd jobs (forced side quests) for npcs, 25 at least in order to get enough power sparks to fully progress through the story. Many of these jobs require you to go back to another world that branches from mean street. Here is the problem with this (to me it was). You travel through worlds by jumping through projector screens. Once mickey gets into a projector screen, you have to travel through a side-scrolling mini map based on old mickey/oswald cartoons. They are fun mini-levels for platforming, so they are pretty cool. So every time you go from a - b, or b - a, you MUST do these little platforming levels. Really gets annoying because of all the errands you end up running just to get enough power sparks to finish the story. So you see the same enemies, the same worthless $1 collectibles, and you have to see the same animation clip of mickey jumping through a mirror and a projection screen. Oh yeah, if you happen to get hit a few times from some of the cheap tricks in these mini-levels (you will) your health does not replenish once you get to the main world. Which brings me to my next point.
Health and enemies really take the fun out of the game. You start out with 5 hp, by the end of the game I had 9. As soon as you start raising your health count, enemy damage scales accordingly (big enemies and the lower rank ones). What is the point of health upgrades if the weakest enemy type takes away 2 hp per hit and I have 9 hp? Lets say you accidentally missed a jump or you were killed by enemies. Respawning resets any progress you made on the current quest (I remember a side quest got erased despite me having just completed it) and brings your health back to 5 hp, even if you have a higher max hp. It wont even refill your paint/thinner, it brings it to the same default of 3 tanks even if you have room for more. Enemy types go from manageable to PiTA. Most enemies you will kill by pushing them over a ledge or by melting them with thinner. There are lots of ledges in every level which is great for small enemies but useless against the elite 3. The elite 3 take a long time to kill with thinner because they can't be pushed off a ledge. 1 hit from them will send you flying across the screen and in my experience, over a ledge most times. If you are lucky enough to survive a hit from them, there is practically no (usable) invincibility after being hit from the time you get sent flying to the time you resume control of mickey. The elite 3 often attack with groups of smaller enemies, so the little guys will be on you by the time you can move again and if the camera isn't behaving you'll take even more damage.
The final leg of the game is really just a test to see if you are willing to put up with even more crap (no opportunities to recover health, having to fight many types of enemies and the camera, of course) just to finish the game.
I hate this game, I had high hopes for it to be a decent adventure/platforming title, but it disappoints on many levels. The art is really well done and I loved the way important things in the levels were very noticeable because they were brighter than everything else (kind of like how you know something will happen in older hand drawn cartoons because an object is more brightly colored than the rest of the scene), along with the paint/thinner system that was really cool.
If you like bad games with good art direction, this is the game for you. If you like good games in general, just pass this up.
other then that, I wouldn't buy this game...