![]() Levels are accessed by going into different rooms of the castle, which acts like a hub where your unlockables are displayed. Outside the main game you can revisit levels and do timed runs. There were points where I was willing Mickey to reach a ledge faster than the speed he was actually going. There was something about jumping that felt a bit off to me when I played through, and it was only after that I realised that it felt quite floaty and slow in some places. However, losing a life and having to repeat a section that was tough to do the first time around can be a bit disheartening. Losing lives isn’t a major penalty, as when you run out of lives you’ll have to start a level again instead of spawning at a checkpoint. In some levels, such as Library, jumps have to be timed perfectly or you could get shoved off the screen and lose a life. As it’s a Mickey Mouse title I’d expect it to be aimed at young children, but some of the gameplay can be incredibly hard and at some points frustrating too. I’m also not entirely sure who the game is really aimed at. Add in full voice acting for Mickey, Minnie and Mizarabel, and you have some real magic. The opening slides, in conjunction with the narrative skills of Richard McGonagle, the voice actor behind characters such as Victor Sullivan from the Uncharted games, help set up the game’s story in an unmistakable Disney way. The images have been drawn excellently, and the artwork would not look out of place in a Mickey cartoon. The first thing you’ll notice is the narration and initial cartoon story images. I remember playing a bit of it when I was younger, and reminiscing that I wasn’t great at it, but I was only around six years old. Under the guidance of the original’s director, Emiko Yamamoto, Sega Studios Australia have brought Castle Of Illusion into the modern age. That was seven years ago. God almighty.It’s been 23 years since the original Castle Of Illusion first appeared on the Sega Mega Drive, pitting Mickey Mouse against the evil witch Mizarabel in an attempt to save love interest, Minnie. It's nice to see that every so often there's a licensed game that gets it right. Surprisingly enough a remake of Castle of Illusion was released in 2013, and even more surprisingly it was excellent level design had more in common with the Master System game than the staid, familiar Mega Drive effort. It certainly represents the apex of Disney's fruitful relationship with Sega, though that was never the same after Aladdin. Some of that's going to be nostalgia, yes, but I also sincerely believe it to be one of the best-designed games of the 8-bit era - certainly superior to the Mega Drive version, which registers to me as a dumbed-down (but still fun) take on the Master System game. ![]() And yet, despite the intensity of my familarity with Castle of Illusion, I never tire of it. It's trivial to me now, more or less, though I still take hits from the final boss due to pure laziness. I've played it at least twice a year since I got it, on the original hardware as often as possible. I know this silly little game so well that I can clock it near-effortlessly, though that one bastard of a treasure chest right at the end of the clock tower often eludes me. To call it memorable is a disservice to memories. Every stage offers a different hook - the underground ventures of the forest, the multiple routes of the toy box, the auto-scrolling nightmare of the chocolate factory, the fully-playable piano of the library, the rotating screws and mechanisms of the clock tower and the darkness-plunging basements of the wicked witch's castle. Sorry, losers! This ain't a hula hoop! No, Castle of Illusion was and is a tricky beast, laced with clever stage design and sparing in its gimmickry. Far beyond the pitiful abilities of my 1950s parents. The ultimate transgression.īut, thankfully, there was always Normal mode. Not only had my parents been playing my game without permission, they had finished it. I came home from school one day a couple of weeks later only to find my parents sitting and watching the ending sequence of Practice mode, having completed the game in my absence. The stages in Practice mode are about three screens long. The game opens onto a choice between Practice and Normal modes, and I picked Practice, because I was five years old. ![]() I played Alex Kidd in Miracle World first, but this was given to me that same Christmas, in its case. This is the first boxed game I ever owned. ![]() No, this is more than just some specifications. See more of my work at Ĭastle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse for the Master System is not a game I can judge with any sort of objectivity, but I'm not sure why you'd want that, anyway.
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