(yo - can we get a separate entry for the MS/GG versions??? Different game lmao)

Does a Sonic 1 MS and redesigns the game entirely while preserving the fundamentals. The big tradeoff is that the MD version's Wonderland vibe has been heavily subdued, but in exchange the speed is much peppier and has more overtly-designed levels. Gameplay has lots of Capcom-esque beats that challenge timing, puzzle-solving, moving objects around to act as platforms or environmental triggers - hell, one of the bosses is just Yellow Devil ! :O

I think both the Genesis and Master System games are a good case study for the difference between passive/organic design and systems-driven design. Someday, I'd love to write a studied essay about the differences between them, and their role across different generations and sub-cultures of gaming

+the controls are much more natural than most platformers of the day: mickey has enough weight so that he doesn't stop on a dime, but still feels very controllable with animations that convey his jump arc well a la the modern dkc games
+I like the muted atmosphere to this game. you can definitely tell this is in the very early days of licensed disney games, as virtually nothing about this game has anything to do with disney beyond mickey, minnie, and the design of the villainous witch who traps minnie. as such, the game feels almost like a wholly original sega platformer reskinned to have a license, and the levels of the castle feel surreal and unsettling in an odd way. the excellent use of parallax and the cool colors create this effect for sure
+mickey is pretty much invulnerable when he's bouncing (a bit like scrooge mcduck's walking stick) and you get a lot of height when bouncing off an enemy. the levels are laid out in such a way that it becomes easy to bounce off multiple in a row to get to secret areas and alternate paths
+this is a little more aimed at kids so the difficulty is more reasonable today than many of the more "hardcore" games of this era. still not an easy game but much more approachable than other '90 action titles
+really great animation here. the designs are a little off compared to later disney titles, but once it's in motion it feels very disney, very expressive

-instadeath pits in later levels, usually hidden off-screen in such a way that you may not realize you're about to fall in one
-level variety is a little lacking, partially because the game is so short. also a little odd that there's 7 gems but only 5 levels, would not be surprised if cuts had to be made. I'd also say the themes in general feel a little generic; not all the time, but for some of the rooms there's not much going on
-the gameplay is def solid but there's not really a lot going on, since all mickey can do is bounce and throw projectiles a la shinobi. wouldn't say the stage gimmicks are particularly interesting either
-there's a swinging mechanic and the way it scrolls the screen is incredibly choppy. just unpolished I suppose

very solid action platformer for the genesis, and an early title that won people over to the genesis pre-sonic and price cut. this probably would've been a game I loved as a kid thanks to its simplicity and tight controls.

I played the remake first, which naturally dampened what I got out of the original. But the original ain't bad either. Simple, but not bad.

This is probably a pretty decent "baby's first platformer". It's pretty straightforward, with the main nuances being Mickey's slow, floaty movement and his projectile game. The game is very forgiving, though not a complete gimme - Continues are limited. I respect that you still have to put some effort in to learn stuff, even if the remake suggests that this is less a deliberate choice on SEGA's part and more a natural consequence of expected game design.

The game sure doesn't feel much like a Mickey Mouse title. If it wasn't for Mickey and Minnie, and Mizrabel kinda looking like Snow White's Evil Queen, you could mistake this as being any sort of generic cutesy fantasy platformer. But I guess it's all right in its own respect. Animation on Mickey's pretty solid, anyway, even if it's a far cry from Virgin's later efforts.

It'd always been weird to me that there are only five levels but seven collectables. Like so you have the Rainbow Gems, implying seven, but you don't have a full set of seven levels to make up for them? Why not come up with some other theming and make the Gems a set of five, then? Odd stuff.

Even on just the Genesis, I'd probably take any other Disney title, but I can respect this being pretty impressive if you were a kid in a pre-Sonic world.

Excellent little platformer. Ir doesn't do anything super revolutionary but I find the game to be very well polished and quite charming. The themes are pretty creative (especially for the time) with a candy level, a toy level and a library level. It seems Mickey is supposed to be tiny in this game as everything towers around him. The controls are super tight and precise. Mickey is a bit slow, but with the game level design I got used to it really fast. He can do a little butt bounce when hitting the jump button after jumping, and this is what a lot of the game is designed around. You can also throw various items you pick up as projectiles. There's really not much to fault here. Really solid game.

In terms of presentation, I like my 2D platformer to have color, contrast, nice animations, catchy tunes, and not-annoying SFX, and Castle of Illusion checks all those boxes. The stages always vary in visual design and gameplay, which shows that they're really trying to be creative even within such a restricted scope.

It's one of those precise platformers that require your attention all the time; otherwise, you're going to spend lives/continues that aren't easily refilled until you finish the game. When done right, these are among my favorites, so I enjoyed the game very much.

The only downside is the bosses; they're definitely a product of that era: you watch the long attack pattern the first time, taking some damage, and avoid all the other times because there's almost no variation. The songs composed by Tokuhiko Uwabo and Shigenori Kamiya deserve a special mention because I've been singing the Library and Dark Castle melodies for a few days.

It's worth mentioning that, even if sparse, the interactions between Mickey and Minnie are pretty cute and deserving for the ending of this good game.

A fun and colorful, if simplistic, entry in the pre-Sonic era of the Sega Genesis.

B

PB: 25:08

(This is the 26th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

Quick word on the challenge I'm doing. This will be needless for those of you who are looking for a review of the game, but it's still something I'd like to mention quickly for those following along (those +-0 of you).

The Sega Genesis obviously launched in Aug 1989 in NA already, so it's not like Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse is the first 16 bit game to come out since I started this, nor is it even the first Sega Genesis game I've played. So far I've played Batman and Michael Jackson's Moonwalker for the system.

But we're now in November 1990, and this game actually released on the same date as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which would be November 21st, 1990. That console, as is well-known, is the best-selling 16-bit home console, so that's why we're starting to really get into 16-bit territory here, and I am incredibly excited to try out a bunch of classics for the first time from an era many still call the best for console games - if not games in general.

Is this game, developed and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis, the highlight of the era already? Some say it's right up there with Super Mario World as one of the best platformers of this time (SMW also released on November 21, 1990) but to spoiler my conclusion a little bit, I don't really think it's close. This game is fun but has plenty of flaws, so let's get into it.
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STORYTELLING
The story is explained at the beginning and in the manual. Minnie is kidnapped by the evil witch Mizrabel (great name btw), because she is jealous of Minnie's beauty. So Mickie makes his way to the Castle of Illusion to save Minnie. An old man there tells him that he needs seven gems of the rainbow to rescue her. Why? Who knows.

There will be an epilogue as well but no other form of storytelling in between from what I can tell, so nothing worth talking about here.

GAMEPLAY
The gameplay is very simple and basic. You move from side to side in this 2D platformer and can either jump on enemies or shoot projectiles (often fruit) at them. If you jump on them, it catapults you up and enables you to reach otherwise unreachable platforms. That's definitely the most unique part about this game's gameplay.

Levels are heavy on platforming and the likelihood that you will fall to your death increases with each level you pass. One cave level where the next platform was so easily miss able if you jump a milli-second too early was especially frustrating.

The game starts you off with three health, 3 lives per continue and 2 continues. Your i-frames after taking a hit only last a second or so, so it's very easy to die within seconds. Since hit frames are sometimes too big, enemies sometimes just pop out of the ground with almost no forewarning and a jump on the enemy's head doesn't get recognized properly (you get damage for missing it), you often lose health unfairly. This is precisely where any comparison to a game like Super Mario World is just not reasonable. I'm playing Super Mario World as we speak and the difference in quality is so high that it actually surprised me quite a lot to see people actually comparing the two.

I've also encountered a bug where I somehow jumped over a tree during a boss fight and couldn't go back to the other direction, meaning that I was stuck.

Gems are acquired by beating bosses after the end of each level, which aren't too difficult, but I failed the second one twice because my jumps on his head just didn't register for some reason. I decided to abandon the game some time after the third boss because while I was doing platforming on tiny tiny platforms, I realized the game didn't immediately register that you let go of the forward button, which made me slip off the platform and fall to my demise.

Apart from these issues it's not a very difficult game, but there is also nothing really exciting about it. There is plenty of stuff you can argue for here apart from its gameplay, and I'll likely agree with you, but I must say that this was not that fun to play.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design was mostly pretty good and I liked how a lot of actions actually got a sound to accompany them, like even jumping or throwing stuff, which doesn't happen in a lot of platformers I've played recently. The music was fine overall but I can't say I liked it that much. My favorite track definitely was the one used for the boss fights but the soundtrack just didn't get me into a playful/whimsical kinda mood like I would have expected.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
Lots and lots of colorful, bright worlds are present in this game, with plenty of variety between them. To mention something a little more lowkey, I liked how the clouds outside kept moving even if you were standing still and how much detail was put into the horizon, even if it's not something a player will really focus on a lot.

But simply graphically, this is definitely one of the best one's you will find from this entire year.

ATMOSPHERE
I didn't always feel like the music used for a particular level necessarily fit the mood, but overall the colorful levels and their overall designs managed to do a solid enough job of putting me in the mood of playing a Mickey Mouse platform adventure. If someone is reading this: Sometimes I feel silly seriously critiquing a game like this, at the end of the day it's a game for children that isn't meant to be taken apart this way. Right? I don't know, I'm definitely going to be glad when a lot more mature games start coming up on the playlist.

CONTENT
There is some fine content here for platformer enthusiasts. This game should take about 3 hours for your average gamer and lead you through a variety of different worlds. But the game overall has pretty basic gameplay and plenty of frustration to come with it, even if there certainly is much worse out there in that regard.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
Mostly the levels are designed pretty much as you would expect. The difficulty is definitely lower than for many comparable platformers. Most of the time you just go into a specific direction and are offered with very little choice in how to deal with the dangers. Move, kill or avoid, beware of gravity, find the exit at the end of the screen.

Some levels also include underwater sections, and these just frankly sucked. A piranha would usually wait for you in there and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to move past it without taking damage.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION
The worlds are definitely lookers here, and there even is one part where you have to trigger a button to flip the level over. Your character can then still walk upside down, while all others fall down. Nothing major but a nice changeup. Other than that, this is a pretty basic licensed platformer, though it does look pretty good graphically for its time.

REPLAYABILITY
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there also are some secrets to discover, which might warrant a second playthrough for you.

PLAYABILITY
The game works well at pretty much all times, but I did encounter one bug and I disliked how letting go of the forward button would only register like a second later.

OVERALL
The game looks great for a 1990 game, and certainly it was a big deal when it released. You'll be hard-pressed to find a review below 9/10 back in the day. But in today's day and age, we have a game that simply shows its flaws and can't wow in the same way with its strengths. And turns out, its flaws, at least to me, are worse than in many other games I've played from this year recently. And if we just compare to Super Mario World, we can also see that a big difference in quality exists on pretty much every level. Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse is fine and should probably be played if you're looking to go through gaming history like I am, even if in a much more condensed way. Why? Because the ratings tell me you shouldn't look into my thoughts too deeply. But at the same time, I've played too many comparable games to really feel bad about standing where I do on this game.

WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- J. M. for VGCE, Issue 24 (Jan 91): "Castle of Illusion is, quite plainly, one of the most fabulous run-and-jump games ever created."
- Sushi-X, Issue 17 (Dec 90): "Music... a 10+!"

A flagship title of the Genesis' early years, and understandably so. Looks much better and plays much smoother than many of the console's games at the time, and notably marks a step towards appealing to children with easier but still engaging games, which was surprisingly uncommon at the time. I would probably compare it closest to McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure, which I promise you is a much better game than it sounds like it would be. Would recommend both for quicker, more casual playthroughs.

Man, March 2020 sucked. I had been working overnight for years before my job unceremoniously rolled back operating hours, forcing me to move back to days and lose a 20% pay differential. I couldn't just leave and find a new job either, as the COVID-19 pandemic was already impacting the job market - hell, by this point it was a nightmare just finding non-perishable food items. I was tired, hungry, stressed, and broke.

But working days meant I could do something I hadn't done since I was a child: play video games while the sun comes up. This was something I used to do while waiting for infomercials to transition into the morning cartoon blocks as a kid, and it had long since represented a weird sort of ideal where the only thing I had to worry about was whether I'd turn the TV on and see a PSA about spousal abuse before I could get my Genesis started. Being able to do this again was therapeutic, it gave me something small to look forward to each morning when I otherwise wanted to shut down.

Castle of Illusion was the first game I played on this new schedule, and I think it was the absolute best place to start. It's incredibly simplistic as far as mascot platformers go, owed to the fact that it was designed for an audience whose skills were still soft, but that also makes it the perfect game wake up to when you're 32 and running on 3 hours of sleep. As far as early Sega Genesis games go, it also feels remarkably good to play. Other games like Altered Beast or Revenge of Shinobi had a certain off feeling in the way they controlled, but Castle of Illusion feels excellent. Mickey's weight feels natural, bouncing on enemies is satisfying, and levels are well designed and fun to explore. It also looks pretty damn good for that era, too. At the time, the level of detail and animation quality was a point of pride both for Disney and Sega, and it was used to market the Genesis heavily, especially towards a younger demo. Of course, Genesis games would look far better in the years following its release, but for the time that this came out, it was one of the better looking games on the system.

As far as the Illusion series goes, I've already professed my preference (and love) for World of Illusion, but Castle is still a very solid game that I think holds up better than many of the other early releases on the Genesis. There's a remake of this as well, and while I don't like it as much, it's also pretty good and well worth playing if you enjoy the original. That said, I wonder whether this game is engaging enough to entertain most people nowadays, and I think a lot of my appreciation for it is both due to playing it as a kid and having it become imprinted as a sort of "comfort game" as an adult, especially given the context I played it in.

I didn't have any previous experience with this aside from knowing that it is pretty well-regarded. It's certainly capable! But I feel like this level of quality should really be the bare minimum expectation for a platformer, even in the early 16-bit days. Good difficulty curve, solid mechanics, polished look. Nothing particularly inspired going on, though.

You can see touches of some of Sega's other Genesis games like GHOSTBUSTERS and SONIC in here, but this doesn't really touch those at all, let alone any of the other big boys from this period.

Mickey does have an all-timer of a walk cycle in this though, gotta say.

Sega, in 1990, accidentally created the best Mickey Mouse design. Mickey is ever-so-slightly off-model in this game with more rounded features and smaller proportions and it's honestly the friendliest he's ever looked. I can trust this Mickey Mouse. A+, would purchase product from this corporate brand.

As for the rest of the game, it's alright. I can definitely see why it's still remembered today but I'm also not really wowed by it either. I imagine I'd be more impressed with this game if I actually grew up with it, but unfortunately my childhood game was World of Illusion, the sequel, and therefore my overall takeaway from this game is "wow this game is neat but I remember when World of Illusion did it better".

I did, however, appreciate the fact that the Castle-themed portion of the game has a clock tower level where Mickey Mouse platforms across some gears while traveling vertically and dodging bats. Mickeyvania.

I've had alot of strange childhood memories about this one, even though I've never played it nor owned a Genesis. From the playthroughs I saw back then, something always felt so mystical about this game, I dunno it was just my strange child mind resonating with it alot. It's not as mystical now to me as it was back then but finally getting to play it was a neat experience. It's a pretty harmless platformer, all things considered. It's pretty fun all around but it's also rather short too.

The library stage is still my favorite even after all these years, I really like the theming and the whole tea and milk sub-areas. (It's also probably where I got most of those mystical feelings as a kid)

Revi recentemente o vídeo do Sr. Sr. Wilson sobre o Castle e World of Illusion e fiquei mo afim de jogar. Peguei o Castle de maneira bem descompromissada e acabei zerando rapidinho.

Confesso que esse aqui não achei tão divertido, gostei do visual (tem fases muito bonitas) e as músicas são bacaninhas apesar de esquecíveis.

O que me irritou foram as fases, tinha algumas legais aqui e ali mas metade era ou chatona de se navegar, ou um amontoado de level design merda (a fase do castelo tmncccccc)

Enfim, espero que World of Illusion seja melhor (e também o remake do Castle, que não vou poder jogar agora porque não roda no meu pc infelizmente)

Mickey e Minnie estavam na deles no meio da floresta, e vem uma bruxa e pega a Minnie a troco de nada (??) Agora tem que salvar ela, vê se pode >:v
Antigamente eram tantas mídias que usavam do roteiro de namorada sequestrada, que eu cheguei a pensar que era proibido namorar kkkk

Castle of Illusion, na sua essência, possui um charme que só o Mega Drive podia fornecer, com seus efeitos sonoros chiptune e gráficos fazendo ótimo uso de cores. Você explora diversas áreas para encontrar as jóias que abrirão seu caminho para a Minnie, e é tudo muito criativo, com todo o toque da Disney.

Só a jogabilidade que não podia ser mais simples. Você ataca dando bundada nos inimigos ou jogando bolinhas, nesse quesito, é um jogo de plataforma bem básico, mas não deixa de ser um clássico que teve tanta popularidade que ganhou remake em 2013.

Esse jogo inclusive já chegou a aparecer em reportagem na Globo kkkk
O garoto Beto jogava com a repórter e explicava tudo que acontecia no jogo, o melhor caminho pra tomar e porque se m@t@r em certos momentos, como se ela estivesse entendendo tudo, era muito bom kkkkkkk