Castle Of Illusion


kknd_cf

La vieille dame et les pigeons
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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 :p ). 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 :p

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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. :D

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! :D


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You're right, it is an excellent game, one of the megadrives best. If you think its a bit easy i challenge you to complete it on the hardest difficulty - i'd say its impossible!

-Craig

www.gbax.com
 
craigix posted on Oct 16 2004 at 07:15 PM said:
You're right, it is an excellent game, one of the megadrives best. If you think its a bit easy i challenge you to complete it on the hardest difficulty - i'd say its impossible!

-Craig

www.gbax.com
I may give that a go, thanks Craig. If I had to choose one part as being the hardest it would be that blinking Aztec temple boss.
I'm really thankfull for everyone's positive replies :D
Tommorow I'll write a World of Illusion one, I promise. And then I promise I'll write a review for a more mature game lol ;)

EDIT: I was annoyed that I couldn't find any lovely pictures from the libary and sweet levels. btw Craigx or infact has anyone played World of Illusion?
 
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I bought world of illusion on the back of castle being excellent and found it painfully easy and boring, completed it on my first go, so I took it back to the shop!

-Craig

www.gbax.com
 
craigix posted on Oct 16 2004 at 08:34 PM said:
I bought world of illusion on the back of castle being excellent and found it painfully easy and boring, completed it on my first go, so I took it back to the shop!

-Craig

www.gbax.com
lol, a difference in opinion there :p
I just love it because of the far superior graphics, the wonderful music and the cool little features, like when you're in candy land and you sit on the bottle cork :p
 
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worldwriter posted on Oct 16 2004 at 10:53 PM said:
sounds like a actual good game... wouldn't have expected that from a Mickey game.... nice review.

Check Mickey's Racing Adventure on the GBC out too.
 
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From '92 thru about '95 i worked my way through as many platformers on the megadrive as i could get my twitchy little mitts on (including the occasional strange japanese one :) )

& i have to agree with kknd_cf that castle of illusion was an excellent example of it's genre. And whilst easy to beat, COI is a game you can easily return to again and again... just as you can with games like Quackshot, James Pond2 Robocod, Rolo, or Magic Turbo Flying Hat Adventure.

as Craigx said, World of Illusion was simply way too easy, i personally found it all eye candy, under-challenging and as such, way too boring.

nice review tho kknd_cf, it's always nice to see other ppl appreciating these platformers as i did.

keep 'em coming :D

SYF
 
cool, what a great response, I didn't realise this one was quite so popular :D
I will try and write a convincing review about World of Illusion as well. But I'm starting to
think on your lines, COI does demand more effort and concentration. I just advise you greatly to avoid the MS version if you're seeking pleasure form it. The only part I found interesting was seeing the cutscene and the levels differently. The sprites are more cartoony with little shading, and the backrounds are bright and harsh. Also you decide the doors which begin in a poorly furnished drab room.

Anyway, play COI, World of Illusion and Legend of Illusion on MS everyone ;)
Thank you!

PS I'll write s'more reviews tommorow before I leave for my trip to Germany :D
 
I do really love this game. Although it's very easy, and not very long, it really showcased what the megadrive was capable of back in its day. This is one of the better games that came out early in the life of the system.

If you really want a treat, play the same game on the Sega CD. Although you can't put it on an MMC and GP32 it, the Sega CD's audio processing really was worlds above the Genesis itself. It makes the same game feel a lot more significant, even though when it was ported over to CD, it was getting on in years.

Nice review. Good game. You should all give it a shot.
 
Wasn't Fantasia essentially a pirate game with no licence from disney and taken off the shelves quite soon after its release? I seem to remember something like that happening and reading about it in the mags at the time, and yes it was an awful game, it looked unfinished.

Sonic seems to work fine on fgen@166, and many more games surely with the new Dr.MD?

-Craig

www.gbax.com
 
hey does anyone rmember the 2 player micky mouse game for genesis/megadrive.
i used to play it all the time with my friend. There were
a bunch of different worlds like a circus and a jungle and
you could get different costumes which gave you different powers
srry... don't remember much more :(
anyone know what i'm talking about? ;)
 
Fantasia was nasty. While Castle of illusion is my most favourite Disney game. Quackshot is pretty good too.
 
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