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La vieille dame et les pigeons
Introduction
I first played this game on the mega drive but recently I found out that they're also on the Master System and Game Gear. On these two systems the game is quite dire, the Mega Drive version was a complete revamp, changing many things.
Infact this classic series has quite a number:
Master System
Land of Illusion
Legend of Illusion
Castle of Illusion
Game Gear
Castle of Illusion
Mega Drive aka Genesis
Castle of Illusion
World of Illusion
The only good Master System one in my opinion is Legend of Illsuion. But that's not what I'm reviewing.
Story
Well basically the game opens with a nice intro in which Minnie and Mickey are twirling around quite happily in the peacefull, wonderful Vera city. Until dun dun dun the witch Mizarabel gets jealous of Minnie's beauty and kidnaps her. Mickey runs to rescue Minnie until......
The Castle of Illusion. "Press Start"
hehe, well basically that's how it goes, you then must get the 7 gems of the rainbow so you can defeat the bitch, ahem witch. And then Minnie's all yours again!
Gameplay
What can I say, this game is easy, for some perhaps annoyingly easy. There's some parts that will challenge you, but you'll soon overcome them, the heardest level is the Aztec level one in which the platforms are very short and the boss is quite challenging. You kill various evil-doers by jumping up in the air, pressing down and butt-stomping them ala Croc and Crash Bandicoot if you enjoy modern games
If you old "A" as you land on them you jump up supa-high just like the Mario series, meaning you can butt-stomp after butt-stomp to raise your points and speed up the gameplay. Ace!
Graphics
Disney have created some really nice looking games, they certainly didn't make their debue on the NES or the Master System though. The Mega Drive to me had a high enough res and a good enough pallette to really let Disney shine. The animation isn't perfect but the graphics are pretty but still no where near as good as World of illusion.
Sound
Really nice sound, catchy music. That basically sums it up, the game doesn't seem to put sound where it isn't needed, for example every monster's attack. The game isn't overcrowded with sound effects but when they're there, they're great!
Final Verdict
If you're an experienced game player, you'll nail this one in a couple of hours. It's really a pleasurable game to play, especially in the dark (some of the games set at night and it helps set the mood, infact all games are better at night but hey ). It's one of the games I was weened on that perhaps has given me a biased opinion. The main reason I want you to play it is because it's a great lead up to it's brilliant sequal, World of Illusion, I'll review that one soon
How to play
Well done you've made the brilliant decision to play the game. Here's what you have to do. Either download Gigadrive, Fgen or DrMD then put them in GPMM on your SMC. Also create a file called "genesis" in GPMM and put the Castle of Illusion Rom in there. You must find the rom yourself as it's not allowed to be written on these boards.
How it runs
This game runs at full speed on all of these emulators with no slow down. On DrMD it runs with a bit of sound but it's nothing like the real sound, so they're all pretty much the same.
EDIT: wow with the new 16 days release the sound that's there is perfect! There's just a few more advanced sounds missing.
Anyway, have fun with this kickass game for the Mega Drive, run PC-link, GP or Pho Drive now and put it on your SMC! I hope you enjoyed my review!