Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two – FAQ/Walkthrough

Introduction

Hi and welcome to the walkthrough for Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two. This walkthrough is intended specifically for players who want to obtain all the achievements for the xbox 360 version of the game. To my knowledge, there aren't differences between the x360 and PS3 versions of the game, so it is also a valid walkthrough also for PS3 players who want to get all the trophies and Platinum the game. Moreover, the achievements/trophies pretty much require the full completion of the game anyway (with the exception of Concept Arts, an optional collectible that I also cover in the walkthrough regardless of its usefulness), so it can also be used for a more general type of completionism.

So what does this walkthrough offer more than the others you can find online? Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two is a hard game to completely master, and you can probably guess from the title of the game why there aren't many hardcore gamers willing to learn and share everything about the game. For this reason you will find guides online that explain you how to get certain achievements, and complete certain missions, but they are just isolated fragments of a whole, and they leave it up to you to recompose the whole picture.

This walkthrough is the whole picture: a guide from the beginning to the end that will take you hand in hand to the completion of this simple but mind-taxing game, without asking you to remember what to do and when to do it. I did the thinking for you, I organised it so that you only need to read and do. You follow this walkthrough, and I promise you won't have to leave this page to find more information on what to do and when to do it elsewhere. You won't even have to use CTRL+F to search information within the walkthrough ahead of time, because I also made it so your journey would be time-efficient. You read this walkthrough and do as I say, and you'll have the game's achievements/trophies unlocked in 15-20 hours, worst case scenario.

Achievements Overview

Before we start with the actual walkthrough, here's an overview of what you're up to. The actual walkthrough contains all the information you need, but it's still a good idea to at least skim-read this summary to have an idea of what to expect (at the very least read the Generalities).

Generalities

There are 46 Achievements to be earned, worth a total of 1,000 G.

All achievements can be unlocked Offline.

You need a second controller to manually perform certain actions that your AI-controlled co-op partner, Oswald, sometimes can't or won't do. You can get most of the achievements without a second controller, but for full completion is extremely advisable that you use a second controller. Two achievements (Clear! and Oswald's New Groove) require a second controller by definition.

A minimum of two playthroughs is necessary to get all the achievements of the game, namely because of the achievement Off Track which requires you to completely ignore one of the quests (The Wasteland Limited), while other achievements (Perfectionist directly; other achievements also indirectly) require the completion of all quests. Your two playthroughs should be structured like this:
- Completionism playthrough: get every single collectible and achievement you can in this playthrough. The most demanding achievements of the game are Master Pin Collector and Perfectionist, and they basically require the full completion of the game, minus a few optionals that might be left undone. Anything less than that, and you won't unlock either achievement. This playthrough should take approximately 15 hours of gameplay time if you're using a walkthrough
- Speedrun to unlock Off Track (shouldn't take more than 2 hours if you know what you're doing)

Missable Achievements

There are many missable achievements. I could literally write a mini-walkthrough just to describe how these achievements are missable, because there are MANY things to pay attention to, and there is no definite chronological order that I can use to warn you of when to pay attention. The list below is just a quick summary of the 12 missable achievements; their full explanation in details can be found in the walkthrough pages.

- Blot Alley Superstar (10G): do no kill any enemy in the Blot Alley area during the main quest to unlock it
- Film Buff (30G): missable because some of the projector screens may not be available if certain choices are made during the story
- Heads Up (20G): it requires you to match the picture of a garden with the picture of a statue. The garden and statue will be different, and may not match, depending on your choices during some quests (namely Finding The Hidden Heroes for the garden, and Goofy's Fountain Mishap for the statue)
- Make Your Own Way (25G): it requires you to proceed in a certain way during the story in Ventureland, but if you take a different route you won't get the achievement during the current playthrough
- Master Pin Collector (75G): there are 176 Pins in the game; some are found in certain areas, others are awarded for completing certain tasks/quests. Some of the Pins are missable, and so is the achievement for collecting them all
- Off Track (25G): missable because it requires you to avoid repairing any of the four train stations in the game. This achievement is also the main reason why you need two playthroughs to get every achievement in the game (repairing the train stations is necessary for a quest, and completing every quest is necessary for an achievement)
- Oswald's New Groove (10G): play the final part of the Dark Beauty Castle with a second controller, early in the game
- Perfectionist (75G): this achievement requires you to complete all the 20 quests of the game, and it is missable because some quests can become impossible to finish if certain choices are made
- Picture Perfect (10G): one quest (A Friend in Deed) requires you to take one to three pictures of certain objects. You need all three for this achievement, but if you complete the quest before taking all pictures you will not be able to take the other pictures afterwards
- Statue Garden (50G): it basically requires you to have certain Pins in your collection; some of them are missable, and so is the achievement as a consequence
- When You Wish Upon a Star (10G): Paint every star/comet in Yen Sid's Lab, early in the game
- Who Left These Lying Around? (10G): you need to rescue all Gremlins (think of them as a collectible) for this one; the last Gremlin is missable

Glitches and Bugs

It's been reported that there are some bugs that may prevent you from unlocking certain achievements. As a general rule of thumb, regular save backups are strongly advised (more on this in the General hints and tips section), but in particular you want to be careful when dealing with these achievements:

- Blot Alley Superstar: it's been reported that sometimes the requirements have been fulfilled, but the achievement will not unlock because one or more enemies in the final area of Blot Alley will not spawn. I have my own theory on this, and I believe that the users reporting this glitch actually experienced an involuntary enemy-on-enemy kill (which can happen even off-screen), rather than a non-spawn glitch, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and report it just in case
- Race the Autotopia Speedway: it's been reported that if you sell and buy back the key items Tires, the game may not recognise the Tires in your inventory anymore (as if you sold them but never bought them back). To be safe, do not sell the Tires
- Perfectionist: it's been reported that selling certain quest items and buying them back may prevent you from completing quests for the same reason as the one explained for Race the Autotopia Speedway. For this reason, it's a good idea to wait until you can complete the quest One Toon's Trash (which requires you to sell some quest items) before selling anything at all; then you want to make a backup copy of your save, and only after that you can sell the items with a certain degree of "safety"

Story-Related Achievements

There are 17 achievements that you will unlock during the normal progression of the game. In other words, simply playing the main quest will necessarily earn you these:
- Things Are Worxing Out (20G)
- Trailblazer (20G)
- Tryptic (20G)
- Walking the Mean Streets (20G)
- You Must Be This Tall To Ride (30G)
- Your Conscience Be Your Guide (20G)
- Apprentice Pin Collector (10G)
- Dragon Defeat (30G)
- Fortified (20G)
- Fullcourt Prescott (20G)
- Go With The Flow (20G)
- Hard Hat Area (20G)
- Lab Tested (20G)
- Projector Corrector (20G)
- Running the Gauntlet (20G)
- Siphon...Siphoff... (20G)
- The Bigger They Are... (30G)

Miscellaneous

A quick list of the remaining (neither missable, nor story-related) 17 achievements:

- Clear! (10G): simply revive Oswald in co-op (requires a second controller)
- Devoted Pin Collector (25G): collect 88 out of the 176 possible Pins
- Dressed to Impress (30G): collect every costume. This achievement is quite simple and straight-forward in theory, but you still want to follow a guide to find all the Gold Cloth pieces in the game (Cloth is otherwise very hard to come by, and farming it is extremely slow tedious)
- Dress-up: change costume for the first time
- Fall From Grace (20G): in the Rainbow Caverns area there are two portions, the Angel side and the Devil side. They are apparently isolated from each other, but you can actually go from the Angel side to the Devil side. Entering from the Angel side and exiting through the Devil side earns you the achievement
- Get with the Program (10G): this is almost story-related (it's almost impossible to miss it, but technically speaking you could proceed without getting it); you get the power to reprogram a beetleworx for the first time in the underground of OsTown
- Heroes of Wasteland (25G): complete the quest Goofy's Fountain Mishap, and then do a little extra work to build a second statue after it
- Not-So-Sleepy Hollow (10G): there are six ghosts that you can find in Bog Easy; find them all for this achievement
- Junker (10G): destroy 50 enemies
- Thinderella: destroy 100 enemies
- Recycler (10G): befriend 50 enemies
- Prince Charming (25G): befriend 100 enemies
- Race the Autotopia (10G): complete the quest Restoring Autotopia, and then win the car race that becomes available after the quest
- Rogues Gallery (20G): take a picture of each of the 12 enemy types of the game (bosses are not included)
- Staff Photographer (30G): this one basically means doing the quest The Encyclopaedia Wastelandica
- Tunnel Mouse (10G): there are five D.E.C. sections, i.e. 2D levels that connect certain areas of the game. Most of them are story-related, but some are not
- We've Got Spirit, Yes We Do! (10G): collecting certain Pins lets you "awaken" the Spirits in the Museum of Mean Street South. Awaken one of the 12 Spirits for this achievement

General Hints and Tips

This page of the walkthrough is to give you a few extra bits of information and miscellaneous tips on the gameplay. If you don't feel like reading through it all, read at least the first five sections about Save Backups, One-Time-Only Areas, Choices, Fast Travelling, and Thinning vs Painting, since they could save you hours of frustration.

Save Backups

This is perhaps the most important advice I can give you: make plenty of save backups. Unfortunately this game handles saves very poorly: you only have one save slot for your playthroughs, and there is no way to directly make a backup copy. Combine this with the huge amount of missables in the game, and you have the perfect recipe for frustration.

Although you shouldn't have any problems if you follow this walkthrough word by word, there are two reasons why you should still make save backups. One reason is: just in case. As much as I've tried (and hopefully succeeded) to explain things exactly how they need to be done, in very simple words, with pictures to support the text, and even at the cost of repeating myself and sounding pedantic, and as much as you can be careful to follow the instructions I give you to the letter, there's always a chance of making a mistake somewhere. The second reason is glitches: although I didn't experience any major glitch myself, some people reported glitches (see the Achievements Overview page for more information) that could cause you to have to restart all over again. Just to be safe, it's recommended that you make a backup copy of your saves at least at every Episode start.

The easiest way to make save backups on the x360 is by using an USB device dedicated to your console. Hopefully you already have one you use for your console, or at least you have one old USB device to spare for this purpose. If not, well, it might be time to buy one. You'll need to let the x360 format your USB device before you can use it; from then on, at least part of it will stay dedicated to your gaming console.

You can transfer saves between the HDD storage of your console and your USB device at any time from the System Settings of the x360, but that's not optimal to manage multiple saves (you could only make one backup copy).

Instead, you can (and should) simply put your saves on the USB device in the first place when saving the game, and then periodically make backups on your computer. To make backups on your computer you only need to insert the USB device in the computer, and then use a program designed to read the x360-formatted part of your device (the default File Manager on your computer won't see your saves), which you can find and learn to use with a simple Google search (+ YouTube tutorials, if you need additional help).

I personally use USB Xtaf GUI, which works like this (it looks complicated at first, but it's really just the same as browsing your normal folder on the computer, except that the folders have "random" alphanumeric names):
1. File - Open Device Selector (select your USB device here)
2. Open the Data Partition folder
3. Open the Content folder
4. You'll now find one or more folders with a serial code like E000012BCACA7830. Each one of these is an x360 profile saved on that USB device. If you only use one profile, you'll only see one folder. Open the folder of your profile
5. Open the folder of Disney Epic Mickey 2, which is also coded. The code in this case is: 42560816
6. Open the folder 00000001
7. Here you'll find your save as a file called SAVEDATA. Simply drag SAVEDATA to the Desktop or any other folder you want to make a backup copy that will stay on your computer
8. Should you ever need to restore a save for which you made a backup copy on your computer, simply delete the SAVEDATA file in the content[Profile ID]"56081600001 folder of the USB, and replace it with the one you copied earlier on your computer

This procedure is perfectly safe to do (in fact, safer than never backing up your most valued game saves), as long as you don't tamper with the other folders and files on your USB drive, or rename files or folders (never do this). You're literally just copying/replacing your own save file. Plus it's very quick and easy to do. Just remember to quit the current gaming session before unplugging your USB device from the x360 (this should be fairly obvious though), or else the game will force-quit the session for you.

One-Time-Only Areas

Every area visited before Mean Street South is one-time-only (so, namely, Yen Sid's Lab and the Dark Beauty Castle). After that, there aren't really any more missable areas, although sometimes certain portions of certain areas might still become unaccessible after a certain event (for example the arenas of boss fights may become partially destroyed or completely unavailable). For this reason, it's important to always take what you can from an area as soon as possible, unless of course you're sure that you can come back there later and still get what you came for. I'll warn you in the walkthrough when to be particularly careful to missable sections of the areas.

Choices

Many times in the course of the main story and side quests you'll be given different choices on how to proceed. Be sneaky, or blow everything up; help character A, or help character B; blue pill, or red pill.

The game is literally riddled with these choices, and they lead to different opportunities which are usually (but not always) mutually exclusive. In general, but NOT ALWAYS, choices do not really matter in the end. A few examples should help you understand what I mean.

Example 1: in Mean Street North, early in the game, you can either proceed by paying some Scrap Metal to open a tunnel, or you can destroy a cave to make your own way to your destination. If you decide to destroy the cave, you will then have to find a few supply boxes in Mean Street North in order to avoid paying +50% for certain services offered by the Gremlins of Mean Street. Other than this, there are no other long-term consequences in this case.

Example 2: you can defeat the first boss of the game either with Thinner or with Paint. Using Paint will earn you the Friendly Dragon Pin; using Thinner will earn you the Ring of Fire Pin. You can only defeat the boss once of course, so you have to make a choice, and either get the Friendly Dragon Pin or the Ring of Fire Pin. On the other hand, after the fight you will then be able to purchase the "other" Pin at the Pin Trader: if you got the Friendly Dragon Pin, the Ring of Fire Pin will be for sale; if you got the Ring of Fire Pin, the Friendly Dragon Pin will be for sale. For this reason, the two are mutually exclusive, but they don't really matter in the end: you'll get one reward one way, and then buy the other reward later.

Example 3: the quest The Bunny Wranglers, like most of the quests, has two "branches". This means that you can either find and send bunnies to the character Paulie (thus completing his branch of the quest), or you can send them to Ortensia, thus completing her branch of the quest. Sending them to Ortensia is necessary to progress with one of the branches of another quest (Thanks for the Memories, Moody's branch), so although you could complete the quest by sending the bunnies either to Paulie or to Ortensia, in reality you'll want to send them to Ortensia. In this case the choices are still mutually exclusive, but they do matter: not only because giving them to Ortensia allows you to continue Thanks for the Memories, but also because, if you give them sometimes to Paulie, and sometimes to Ortensia, the quest may become uncompletable because neither of the two quest-givers is ultimately satisfied.

Example 4: the quest Clothes Make the Spatter also has two "branches". One is Ian the Ghost's branch; the other is Clarabelle's branch. You can complete the quest by completing only one branch of the quest, but this is a rare case where the quest's two branches can both be done. You can therefore satisfy Clarabelle's request first, thus completing the quest and getting a certain Pin reward, and then satisfy Ian's request too: although the quest was already completed before, you can still get Ian's rewards by completing his branch of the quest. In this case the choices are not mutually exclusive.

So, how do we deal with all the possible choices and branches of quests of the game? Simply put, don't try to make your own choices, but follow the suggested choices of this walkthrough, which were planned to ensure that you will achieve and acquire everything possible in a single playthrough. The choices made in this walkthrough are by no means the only possible way to achieve full completion, but they are a tested and effective way.

Fast Travelling in the Wastelands

There are three means of transportation to fast-travel between areas you already visited, as an alternative to walking on foot. These are:

1. The hot-air balloon service. This one only connects Mean Street South with Mean Street North, and costs 25 E-Tickets every time you use it (the first time is free).

2. The train stations. After repairing them, you can use the train stations to travel between the following areas: Mean Street South, OsTown, Bog Easy, Ventureland. Each trip costs 25 E-Tickets.

3. The projector screens. Towards the end of Episode 1 you will be introduced to the projector screens, which are short 2D levels that connect certain areas. Although you need to play through these 2D levels when going from area A to area B, the projector screens can be used to immediately return, free of charge, to the Mean Street North cinema. This is accomplished by spinning the gear before entering the projector enough times so that the projector displays Mickey's face on a yellow background.
Furthermore, if you collect the Film Reel in each projector screen (intended as the playable 2D level) you can then travel back from the Mean Street North cinema to the area where the projector screen is, making this an invaluable way to fast-travel between most of the areas of the game. Even if you don't collect the Film Reel in the 2D level you can still fast-travel from the cinema to the projector screen, but this will cost you 50 E-Tickets.

Thinning vs Painting

I will elaborate on this a little more in the section regarding the enemies, but for a quick tip, know that you can either Thin or Paint the enemies in the game. Make sure to Paint the enemies during the course of your playthrough, because there is an achievement (Prince Charming) for Painting (= befriending) 100 enemies, and it's VERY tedious to befriend additional enemies other than the ones you can find during the course of your adventure.

It's true that there is also an achievement for Thinning 100 enemies, but it's much, much faster to Thin additional enemies in the Epilogue than it is to Paint them. Therefore, give top priority to Prince Charming if you don't plan on spending hours to get extra kills when everything else is done.

One last thing to note is that in certain areas (specifically Blot Alley and Fort Wasteland) you must never Thin any enemy, or else there will be permanent negative consequences (missed quests, missed projector screens, missed Pins). I'll remind you not to Thin any enemy in these areas in the walkthrough, in due time.

Mickey & Oswald

Two characters can be controlled in this game: Mickey and Oswald (the latter joins in the Prologue).

Any item collected by Oswald, either in single player, or in co-op with a second controller, will be added to the inventory of player 1, meaning that you don't have to worry about him "stealing" your items.

Mickey's attacks and actions are mostly different from Oswald's.

Both can use a spin-attack with the X button, which can stun non-mechanical enemies and damage the armor/life of mechanical enemies.

After acquiring the Magic Brush in the Prologue, Mickey can use his Paint to make certain "disappeared" objects visible, with the RT button; he can then use his Thinner, with the LT button, to make objects disappear. Keep in mind that objects that disappear are not just somewhat "invisible" (they aren't truly invisible by the way, you can always see their profile), but they also lose their consistency: if you Thin a platform where you're standing, you'll fall down through it!

Mickey can double-jump by pressing the A button twice. You can make even longer jumps (longer in the horizontal dimension, not vertical) if, after the second jump, you add a spin-attack mid-air to increase the distance traveled. Keep this in mind, it can help during the platforming sections of the game!

Oswald can use his boomerang with the LT button; this is a ranged attack, but the AI-controlled Oswald rarely uses it. During the Prologue in the Dark Beauty Castle you then acquire the Remote, which is used with the RT button. If you tap RT quickly you can perform an "aura" attack that creates an electricity field around Oswald, while if you hold down RT you'll perform a "zap" attack with a stream of electricity. Oswald's Remote can also "reprogram" control panels (thus opening doors and changing certain things), which sometimes are in control of mechanical enemies.

Oswald can't double-jump, but his single jump is much higher than Mickey's (it basically equals to a double jump), and he also has the ability to hover above the ground if you press the A button again after jumping, and eventually even glide if you hold down the A button and then move with the left stick of your controller.

Control Panels (Oswald)

It's not very important that you know/notice this, but it might useful to know how to "read" that status a control panel (the ones that can be operated by Oswald's Remote). Every control panel has three light bulbs on top of it, and their color may vary:

- All three bulbs are "empty": this control panel is not responsive at the moment. Even if you were to manually operate Oswald and use his Remote to shoot electricity at the control panel, nothing would happen
- The middle light bulb blips with an orange light: this control panel is not active at the moment, but it can be activated with Oswald's Remote
- The three light bulbs are green: this control panel is already active

Co-Op commands

Co-Op commands when playing in single player are rather simple: a speech (thought) balloon will appear on both characters' heads when a co-op command is "suggested" by the game. There are several different co-op commands that may prompt in certain specific situations, and they'll be executed if you press the B button.

1. Launch Mickey up: the speech balloon represents Mickey's head and an arrow. This makes Oswald launch Mickey up in the air, higher than a double jump would allow. Useful to reach tall ledges.
2. Launch Oswald up: the speech balloon represents Oswald's head and an arrow. It's the equivalent of the previous one, except it'll be Mickey the one launching Oswald up.
3. Glide with Oswald: the speech balloon represents Oswald's head and his ears look like they are spinning. This command orders Oswald to jump up high in the air, and it indicates that you should then jump up with Mickey to grab onto Oswald's feet, and then glide across some gaps with him.
4. Use the Boomerang: this is and extremely rare command; it makes Oswald throw his boomerang on some objects far away.
5. Use the Remote to zap something: the speech balloon has the classic "lightning bolt" sign of electricity. This is typically associated with control panels that are necessary to activate some machines.
6. Use the Remote to reprogram something: the speech balloon has a series of binary code in it. This will be used on other types of control panels.
7. Ignite Fireworks: the speech balloon is a sort of "sparkle". It tells Oswald to ignite Fireworks, if they are nearby

You can force the launch-the-other-character-up command if you press the B button while standing near the other character. This works both for Mickey and for Oswald, if you use a second controller.

Unfortunately you can't force, or even "hint" the commands for using the Remote, so in battles against enemies that require damage from the Remote you'll just have to wait until Oswald decides it's time to do something.

Holding down the B button will summon Oswald when playing in single player (sometimes he won't reach you no matter what, but in an average scenario it usually works).

Fall Damage and Death

The game will teach you this in the Prologue, but always remember that you can avoid Fall Damage if you perform a spin-attack before hitting the ground, or also by performing a mid-air jump before hitting the ground.

If you fall off the edges of an area you will respawn somewhere in the same area (usually in the entrance, but sometimes it's by the closest exit) and you'll take one point of damage.

Dying in this game is usually no big deal, since there are very frequent checkpoints. Even when you can't see the icon of "save-in-progress" (bottom-left corner of the screen, it's a rotating gear), the game may be saving your progress. This is a sort of double-edged sword, however.

On the one hand this frequent save makes sure that even if you die you usually don't have to recollect important items (like Pins, Costumes, quest progression, and so on). On the other hand, some items that you've collected may disappear from the area after you respawn, but they will also be gone from your inventory. For example, I often used to quit and reload the game while writing this walkthrough, so I could explore different paths. Sometimes I would quit after collecting items like, for instance, Gold Cloth pieces. When I reloaded the game I noticed that the Gold Cloth was gone both from my inventory and from the area, so I couldn't collect it again! For this reason, I suggest that you try not to die and/or quit & resume your playthroughs if you are not sure that you've just hit an actual checkpoint (if you saw the rotating gear you're safe to go, and whatever was in your inventory at that point will stay there).

In any case, remember that it only matters if Mickey dies. If Oswald dies, he'll just respawn with no consequences for the player. Oswald can revive Mickey with his Remote (although the AI-controlled Oswald will rarely bothers to do so), and Mickey can revive Oswald with his Paint. That is, provided that they did not die by drowning in a pool of Thinner, in which case the characters can't be revived.

Common and Special Items/Currency; Treasure Chests

In addition to the special collectibles such as Pins, Costume pieces, and Key Items for quests, there are also common objects you can find in the game. These objects are currency for different types of stores/services, and they are: E-Tickets, Cloth, Scrap Metal, Generic Pins (aka Bronze Pins). With the exception of the Generic Pins, the other three items can be found out in the open in cities/dungeons, but also from smashing "shiny" objects and common treasure chests. Although these items are common by definition, it's a good idea to smash everything in sight to accumulate a few extra bits of currency -- it's not much in and out of itself, but it will add up over the course of an entire playthrough.

The E-Tickets come in form of Red Ticket (worth 1x E-Ticket), Grey Ticket (worth 10x E-Tickets), Green Ticket (worth 30x E-Tickets), Gold Ticket (worth 100x E-Tikets). Gold Tickets can only be found in certain specific locations, and they can't be found from common sources (like shiny objects or common chests). E-Tickets are the main currency for most of the game's shops.

The Cloth pieces come either in form of Blue Cloth (worth 1x Cloth) or in form of Gold Cloth (worth 100x Cloth). Gold Cloth can only be found in certain areas of the game, making it the main source of Cloth BY FAR. I'll keep track of every piece of Gold Cloth that can be found in the walkthrough. Cloth is only used by the Mad Hatter's shop of Mean Street South.

The Scrap Metal come in form of smaller/bigger pieces, worth 1/5/10x Scrap Metal. They are typically requested by Gremlins to repair certain objects and/or open certain paths.

Generic Pins are a bit halfway between common currency and valuable items. On the one hand it's possible to get as many of them as possible, in theory, by exchanging Scrap Metal for Generic Pins (20x Scrap Metal converts to 1x Generic Pin). On the other hand there is no other way to get them other than finding a limited supply of them throughout the game and exchanging Scrap Metal for them at a quite inefficient ratio. For this reason, kinda like the Golden Cloth, it is extremely important that you try your best to find every Generic Pin available for the take in the game. Of course I'll keep track of every Generic Pin available for you in the walkthrough.

There are three types of Generic Pin: the Bronze Pin (worth 1x), the Silver Pin (worth 3x), and the Gold Pin (worth 5x). Generic Pins are used only at the Pin Trader store in Mean Street North.

There are three types of treasure chests: one is the common, breakable type, and it yields common objects (currency). The other two are the non-breakable type, and they appear as red&golden chests, which can be opened only by Mickey, or blue&golden chests, which can be opened only by Oswald after he uses his Remote on the control panel next to these chests. The non-breakable chests always contain something somewhat valuable (either Generic Pins, or even more valuable stuff like Pins, Costume pieces, Key Items). It's no big deal to miss on the common chests for obvious reasons, but we'll need to hunt down pretty much every "special" chest for just-as-obvious reasons.

Lastly, we can also mention the Concept Art items, which can be found in various areas, and also bought. These are not associated with any achievement, so you can completely ignore them. I've listed the ones found in the areas in the walkthrough since they are quite in plain sight and it feels kinda wrong to pretend they don't exist, but it's up to you whether to collect them or ignore them. One thing I do advise though, do not buy them, at least not until you've finished your end-game shopping in the Epilogue: the last thing you want is to have a collection of useless (for achievement purposes) Concept Art but no E-Tickets left to buy the Pins for sale.

Farming Currency

Farming currency (E-Tickets, Cloth, Scrap Metal) really shouldn't be necessary, especially if you bother to try and destroy common shiny objects every now and then (especially the common chests) and if you don't purchase unnecessary items. Common shiny objects and common chests will respawn if you leave the area, although the definition of "the area" is not always the same. Most of the times, you need to completely leave a place to respawn the objects (for example, go from Mean Street South to Mean Street North and they will respawn; if you just enter a shop in Mean Street South they won't respawn). Sometimes this is not the case though, and this makes these exceptions your best chance to farm currency. If needed, these are the best ways to farm the common currency.

E-Tickets: reach the first area of Bog Easy, and destroy the four common chests in here (one outside the Shanty Shop; three more on the roof of the buildings nearby), as well as a couple of wooden planks near a wall, and the top hat on the roof (this last item becomes available after the quest A Friend in Deed). This should earn you an average of about 100 E-Tickets per trip. The sweet thing about this location is that it's enough to enter the Shanty Shop to respawn everything outside of it.

Cloth: unfortunately your best bet after getting all the Gold Cloth you can find (which is more than enough to buy everything that Cloth can buy, so farming shouldn't be necessary at all) is to use the same method used for farming E-Tickets, with the addition of wearing the Brave Little Tailor costume, which converts any Scrap Metal you find in breakable objects into Cloth.

Scrap Metal: this is the only one that you may need to farm, since it's required for some quests, to gain access to certain areas (particularly the Underground of Mean Street), and it's also the only way to get more Generic Pins. You still shouldn't have to farm it all that much (probably for less than an hour; hopefully even less than 30 minutes; even less so if you diligently smash common items and chests for extra currency), but thankfully there is a somewhat efficient method you can use. Your best shot in this case is the back (Northern) side of the Emporium in Mean Street South, where you can find 15x Scrap Metal behind some wooden platforms that you can simply Thin-away to make them disappear. The good thing about this spot is that even though you get a fairly low amount, respawning this amount will be as simple as entering-exiting one of the shops of Mean Street South (the closest one is the Mad Hatter's shop).

Generic Pins: get every single Generic Pin you can, and hopefully you'll have enough Scrap Metal left to buy the few extra Generic Pins you'll need to complete your purchases.

Challenges

In this game there are "Challenges" to be completed. In case you were wondering what's the deal with them, and if there are achievement associated with Challenges, well, the Challenges are, in fact, the same as the achievements (read the list of Challenges, you'll see it's the same list as the achievements).

Enemies

There are two main categories of enemies in the game: mechanical and non-mechanical enemies. Among these enemies, there are then 12 types in total that you can find (some of these types even have "palette variations", but they behave exactly the same).

In general, the non-mechanical enemies (Blotlings) can be dealt-with only by Mickey, by means of the Thinner to kill them or Paint to befriend them. The mechanics are simple: spray enough Thin and you'll kill them, spray enough Paint and you'll befriend them. Given that there are achievements for killing (i.e. Thinning to death) and befriending (i.e. Painting until they are surrounded by little blue hearts) 100 enemies, but the one for Thinning them to death is much easier to acquire than the other one, it's advisable to Paint them since the beginning, and then maybe switch to Thinning them after getting the achievement for befriending 100 of them (assuming you are not in one of the areas, namely Blot Alley and Fort Wasteland, where you must never Thin an enemy for quest-related reasons that we'll see in the walkthrough).

The mechanical enemies are a little more annoying to deal with. Not because they are really harder to defeat in theory, but because Oswald is necessary to defeat them most of the time, and since the AI-controlled Oswald is a complete moron, dealing with mechanical enemies is usually quite annoying. We must also distinguish between "truly mechanical" enemies and "hybrids".

"Hybrids" (Blotworx) are machine enemies controlled by a Spatter that operates the machine from inside it. Mickey can usually defeat these enemies alone, but Oswald's Remote can definitely help exposing the enemies' weakness. The hybrid enemies work like this: first you must destroy part of their armor to expose a red button; then you must step on the red button; then the Spatter inside will be exposed for a few seconds. If you Thin him dead/Paint him friendly quickly enough, this is the end; otherwise he will retreat inside the machine and you'll have to press the red button again for another chance.

The truly mechanical enemies (Beetleworx) are the worst of the bunch, because Oswald is really important to expose the weak spot of these enemies, and only he can befriend them by "reprogramming" control panels. The only exception is if you're dealing with the smallest of these enemies and there is a ledge nearby -- in this case you can spin-attack them off the ledge, thus instantly killing them.
In general, however, there are two approaches to these mechanical enemies. The hard but sometimes only way is to Thin the armor of the enemies; then look for the green button on the enemy and hit it with a spin attack. You can only hit the green button once for every time you stun the enemy; after that he will recover, re-Paint its armor, and you'll have to repeat the whole thing another time or two. Against the strongest of these enemies you'll need Oswald's Remote to shock them dead though (Mickey's spin attack won't damage them even if the green button is exposed).

The easy way (and sometimes only way to really get rid of them) is by Reprogramming control panels near these enemies. During the story, starting from Bog Easy, you'll find plenty of situations where there will be "portals" (Replicators) from where these mechanical enemies continuously spawn, and the only way to realistically get rid of them will be to reprogram the control panel. This procedure takes little effort and is very quick, so it's obviously recommended whenever possible.

Below is a list of the 12 enemy types and a convenient location to find them in the Epilogue (in the walkthrough I'll remind you to take a picture of each enemy type whenever we come across one that we can photograph, so don't bother memorizing or taking notes of the following list if you plan on following the walkthrough), just in case you need to find them to take their photo for the achievement Rogues Gallery:

1. Spatter: the simplest of the enemies. It's the first you come across in the game. You can find him in Blot Alley.
2. Blocker: the first "hybrid" enemy, also encountered early in the game; they look like small humanoid robots. You can find them in Disney Gulch.
3. Dropwing: the fat floating enemies. You can find them in Disney Gulch.
4. Hopper: the simplest fully-mechanical enemy. He can have the appearance of a dodo, owl, and others. You can always revisit the first one in the first Underground level of Ostown.
5. Sweeper: the slim ones that throw buckets of Thinner at you. Easily found in the treehouse area of Ventureland, or in Prescott's Arena.
6. Rocker: the car-looking enemy first seen in Disney Gulch. He will pester you again throughout the game, especially in Autotopia.
7. Spinner: the enemies that have spinning saws all around their body. You see the first one in Bog Easy, and you'll find plenty of them elsewhere too, including for example the final area of The Floatyard.
8. Spladoosh: the fat, stationary enemy. He's typically found in the Angel side of Rainbow Caverns when you come back from the Southern projector.
9. Tanker: the big mechanical enemy armed with a Thinner gun and a Paint gun. He can be found in the Angel side of Rainbow caverns when coming back from the Southern projector.
10. Shocker: the big shaman mask/baboon-looking mechanical enemy. He can be found in the Devil side of the Rainbow Caverns when coming back a second time.
11. Slobber: the strongest non-mechanical enemy of the game, who can only be damaged by shooting Paint or Thinner in his mouth while he's sucking you in with his mouth.
12. Seer: the big humanoid-looking mechanical enemy. He can be found in the Train Tunnels area (second diorama) when coming back a second time.

Costumes

You can change Mickey's and Oswald's Costumes in the Mad Hatter's shop in Mean Street South. You can acquire new Costumes by collecting all the various pieces that make it up. Most of the Costumes have to be bought at the Mad Hatter's store, but a few pieces can be obtained from treasure chests in the Wasteland, thus cutting down the Cloth necessary to buy all of the Costumes from the store. If you own a Costume piece and then open the treasure chest that contained the same Costume piece, you will receive 3x Bronze Pin instead of a second copy of that Costume piece.

Costumes in this game not only change the appearance of the characters, but they also give them special powers/properties. Although this might sound cool at first, truth be told they aren't half as interesting as this sounds most of the time. Below is a list of the Costumes available and their effect. For more information on the Costume pieces available in chests or at the store, please refer to the main walkthrough page.

Mickey's Costumes:
- Steamboat Willie Costume: this costume is probably the only really good one, because it makes a Gold Pin spawn in every Film Reel 2D level. This means an additional 90x Bronze Pins can be found and collected -- big time-saver, so make sure to get this Costume as soon as possible, and keep it on the rest of the game! (I'll tell you when it's a good time to go get it in the walkthrough)
- Touchdown Mickey Costume: cuts down the damage taken; virtually useless in a game as easy as this one
- Firefighter Costume: makes your Thinner/Paint jets hit objects farther away. This one is actually quite good and useful; too bad that the Steamboat Willie Costume is just more important, and it's not worth switching between these two Costumes every time you enter a Film Reel
- Brave Little Tailor Costume: its description reads "salvaged Scrap Metal turns into Cloth", but unfortunately this is only true for Scrap Metal found in destroyed common objects (shiny objects or common chests). This will NOT turn the 15 Scrap Metal source behind the Emporium of Mean Street South into 15 Cloth! Regardless, it's also your only way of farming Cloth faster, if for some reason you need to. Another benefit of this Costume is that you can trade 1 Cloth for 10 E-Tickets at the Mad Hatter's instead of the usual 1:5 ratio; the deal is still terrible though
- Construction Costume: its description reads "salvaged Scrap Metal turns into even more Scrap Metal", but again, unfortunately this won't apply to the 15 Scrap Metal to be found behind the Emporium of Mean Street South. Since those 15 Scrap Metal pieces are the best way to farm Scrap Metal, this Costume has no practical use
- Sorcerer's Apprentice Costume: it allows you to store more Thinner/Paint. Cool-looking, but not very useful

Oswald's Costumes:
- Track Runner Costume: allows Oswald to knock aside enemies by running into them. The game is too easy and the AI too stupid to make this a valid support in battle
- Mad Doctor Costume: it makes Reprogramming easier (= faster). Overall in the entire game it might save you somewhere between 20 and 30 seconds. Big whoop
- Tron Costume: Oswald's Boomerang can hit objects further away. Given that he never bothers to use his Boomerang in battle (and if he did, it wouldn't have any effect on most of the enemies), it's close to useless
- Knight Costume: reduces damage taken
- Gremlin Costume: "lets Oswald sense where special chests are". It could be useful if you weren't using a walkthrough I guess

Walkthrough

Prologue

Mickey's House

After the introduction scene, examine the TV for a scene.

Yen Sid's Lab

After more scenes, attack the glass jar on the table (press X to make a spin attack) to get the Sorcerer's Apprentice Hat costume piece. In this room you can also attack some items (pots and buckets) in the corners of the room to get a few E-Tickets (they appear as red cards), which are common currency you'll find throughout the game.

Proceed as it comes natural, double-jumping across gaps to reach a mirror-portal that will take you to the next area.

Yen Sid's Lab - Starry Path

Go forward to get the magic Brush. From now on you can use RT to spray paint from the brush -- if by doing this you hit certain "invisible" (or rather partially transparent) objects, those objects will then appear. Most of the objects you can Paint are not important, but sometimes they are necessary to open up new paths or even acquire certain items/achievements. I'll let you know of the important ones of course, starting with the comets and stars in this area required for an achievement.

You may notice that, as you consume Paint, the blue bar on the top-left of the screen gradually depletes. That blue bar indicates how much Paint you have, and indeed it's possible to "run out of Paint"...sorta. You can refill the blue bar, and therefore the amount of Paint you have, by collecting paint cans, which appear as blue cans on the screen (you'll find plenty of these cans soon, since some of the rocks you paint on the path ahead will spawn paint cans after you Paint them the first time).

Moreover, since Paint is a crucial part of the gameplay, the game will automatically regenerate a little bit of Paint (a third of your max) over time, so you really don't have to worry about getting stuck in the game because you don't have any more Paint to go on.

For the record, as you'll soon learn, the green bar on the left of the blue bar indicates the Thinner you have. Thinner does the exact opposite of Paint, i.e. makes certain objects disappear, "become invisible/transparent". Those objects can then be re-Painted, and then re-Thinned, as much as you'd like. Just like Paint, there are Thinner cans you can collect, and a little bit of Thinner (again, 1/3 of your current max) also regenerates over time automatically.

As anticipated a moment ago, here in the Starry Path you want to make sure to paint every "invisible" object you can find. This concerns not only the path ahead necessary to proceed, but also some floating stars/comets on the left/right of the path.

They are really in plain sight, and you'll know that you've Painted them all when the achievement When You Wish Upon A Star pops up.

~ Achievement Unlocked - When You Wish Upon A Star ~

Go through the mirror when you've unlocked the achievement, and you'll be back to where you started the game.

Mickey's House

You can now use the Thinner. Mess around with it a bit if you want, and then go Thin the wall behind the TV in the living room to reveal a new area (an observatory).

In the observatory, Thin the base of the giant telescope to make it collapse, thus opening the path to the upper level. Here there are also a couple of "secrets" you can uncover, if you wish. They only give you a total of 90 E-Tickets, so it's nothing important, but since we'll need a bit of E-Tickets early on it doesn't hurt to get these.

The first secret is unveiled if you Thin the second painting on the left of the giant telescope -- behind it you'll find a Green Ticket, worth 30x E-Tickets.

For the other secret you need to Thin every "sweeper" (the brooms using buckets of water) on the lower and then higher level, and also Paint every painting of sweepers pouring water.

After doing this on all the sweepers and paintings (including the two paintings on the highest level of this area, which you can reach by stepping on some big hemispheres), two chests will appear at the bottom of this area, each one containing a Green Ticket (ergo, a total of 60x E-Tickets).

Anyway, once you reach the higher level you need to Thin some giant floating balls to make half the sphere fall down, and then Paint back the other half to create platforms where you can step on. Use the platforms to reach a ledge leading to a room, and in this room you'll be given a choice: either Thin or Paint the door ahead. Make sure to Paint it, so a treasure chest appears, or else you will miss the Mouseterpiece Pin (Pin # 01/176) found inside that chest!

You will also unlock the Apprentice Pin Collector achievement for collecting your first Pin.

~ Achievement Unlocked - Apprentice Pin Collector ~

After some scenes you will then unlock the achievement Lab Tested for completing this section of the game.

~ Achievement Unlocked - Lab Tested ~

Episode 1 - A Family Reunion

Dark Beauty Castle

Oswald joins Mickey from now on. His character is automatically controller by the AI (Artificial Intelligence), but if you plug in a second controller and press Start on it you can manually control him in a split-screen mode (player 1 will be on the left half of the screen; player 2 on the second half). In some sections it will be necessary to manually control Oswald to perform certain actions, but for the rest of the game you can simply leave it to the AI.

You can join in and out (press Start again) at any time, without interrupting the gameplay at all. Make sure to also sign in an xbox profile after plugging in the second controller, or else it won't make player 2 join the game. Also keep in mind that anything collected by Oswald will be given to Mickey anyway.

Walk forward, double-jump to cross the gap, and continue to trigger a scene.
At this point you'll be told about using the B button to call Oswald. Do so (hold the button down) in front of the wall facing East, then release the B button again when Oswald is nearby so that Mickey launches Oswald up in the air; then Oswald will automatically knock down the wall for you, thus creating a path (made of debris) to proceed.

Climb up the debris, but don't attack the gears to make them spin just yet. Instead, turn around (face away from the door near the gears) and you'll see a treasure chest up on a platform. Call Oswald again if he's not already near Mickey, then use B again to launch him up in the air; then double-jump so Mickey can grab Oswald's legs. Then glide along with Oswald towards the platform with the chest and open it to collect the Steamboat Willie Hat costume piece.

When it's done, go back to where you were a moment ago, call Oswald, and then hit one gear with Mickey while Oswald will hit the other one -- hitting them both at the same time will open the door to the East. When it's done, proceed through the door, check on the right side for a chest containing some common items (the exact content is random, but they can have a few E-Tickets/Cloth or even recovery items), and then fall down to the lower level when a piece of the floor collapses.

(Note that you can still climb back up after falling down, so just make your way back up using the debris on the West side if you missed something from the previous section)
After falling down, go forward and Gus will tell you to find something to Paint to proceed: that "something" is a lever/switch right behind him, so Paint that to open up the way.

You'll be told to use Oswald's Boomerang to grab the Remote now; if you don't have a second controller plugged in to directly control Oswald, he will automatically do that for you (otherwise throw the Boomerang with LT). Getting the Remote allows Oswald to use his second type of special move with RT (a sort of electric discharge from the Remote).

This will also spawn a Generic Pin, aka 1x Bronze Pin, which is a non-unique pin: these are not directly necessary for achievement purposes, but you'll still need plenty of them for other reasons, so make sure to pick them up as you find them.

After getting the Bronze Pin, go on and use the turnstile-elevator along with Oswald to go up.

After another scene you'll be told to use Oswald's Remote to operate some machines. Before you do so, use your second controller to control Oswald (press Start to join in), and use his Remote on the small electric panel near a blue chest to unlock the chest and get the Track Runner Wristbands costume piece in it.

When it's done, go back to controlling only Mickey (press Start again). Oswald will be using his Remote on some other machinery around the room, and with Mickey you need to pull the "Mickey-head" lever on the right of where Oswald is.

While Mickey pulls the lever, Oswald will automatically use his Remote to activate both the control panels nearby.

When it's done, follow Oswald and go Paint the cables where the electric impulses are flowing (they are above the machine near Oswald). Oswald will then use his Remote once again, and a series of platforms will appear -- don't jump on them just yet.

Before jumping on the platforms, use the Thinner on the cables of the machine you just used, so that you short-circuit the machine -- the resulting explosion will spawn the Beauty Only Thin-Deep Pin (Pin # 02/176).

Ignore the area beyond this Pin, since we'll get there from above after getting more items on the way. You may now jump on platforms you previously activated to reach a couple of ledges (to the right of the third and the fourth platform) with a total of three chests on them (nothing important inside). More importantly, jump to the left of the second ledge to reach a balcony with another red treasure chest; this one contains the Charge It! Pin (Pin # 03/176).

Drop off this balcony to find a few monsters to fight (these ones are Spatters, in particular). You can hit them with regular attacks (X button) for a brief and basically useless stun, kill them with the Thinner, or you can even "befriend" them with the Paint.

There are achievements for befriending 100 enemies (with the Paint) and for destroying 100 enemies (with the Thinner), so you'll want to use both of these methods (kill/befriend) during the adventure. However, since it's much easier to farm kills (by Thinning enemies) than it is to farm befriended enemies (by Painting them), it's a good idea to always Paint every enemy that you can Paint, at least until you get the achievement for Painting 100 of them (Prince Charming), or else you'll be in for a painfully slow and time-consuming grind at the end of your playthrough. Don't say that I didn't warn you.

After the fight there will be another short scene. After that, make sure to check the Northwest corner, on the lower level, to find an "invisible" treasure chest -- Paint it and open it to get 3x Bronze Pin.

Then climb up the debris and make your way across a long gap by co-operating with Oswald (launch him in the air with the B button, then jump to grab his legs, then glide across the gap together).

Continue and you'll find a new enemy, a Blocker. In order to kill these robots you need to jump on the red button on top of them; doing this will expose the real enemy inside, so you can then use your Thinner/Paint on him to finish off the enemy. You may have an easier time hitting the red button on top of the robot if Oswald releases an electric shock, thus stunning the enemy for you beforehand. Either way, kill this enemy and then proceed toward the next door for another scene.

After the scene, press Start on your second controller to join the game with player 2, since it's required for the next missable achievement. Then go grab the Fireworks and drag them where the yellow sign is. Then use the second controller to ignite the Fireworks with Oswald's Remote. By doing so (manually igniting the Fireworks to complete the Dark Beauty Castle section of the game with a second controller) you will unlock the Oswald's New Groove achievement.

~ Achievement Unlocked - Oswald's New Groove ~