Cleared on April 26th, 2023 (SEGA Genesis Challenge: 6/160)
Review updated on May 14th, 2024.

Thinking back to my review of Castle of Illusion, I thought to myself that maybe it was too harsh because I played on the wrong difficulty. I accused it of being unfair, but when somebody said it was "easy". I thought it was strange to say, but then I remembered I played on Hard difficulty because when I accidentally set the game on practice, I thought you had to play Hard mode to get the full game experience, but now that I've gone back to play the game on Normal, I can say that the majority of the game's problems do not apply.

On Hard difficulty, the enemy placement was atrocious. I still remember that one bat that spawned right out of nowhere at the end of the Storm, all of those bats that kept gimping me on the flood, and just so many bats that it feels cluttered and undodgeable. To my surprise, that didn't even apply on Normal mode. There are still some level design nuisances like the falling block trap in The Castle that requires trial and error to know how to avoid because there is no indicator which one will fall and which one doesn't, but I think having three starting HP and not as many enemies to worry about throughout the levels do help give you more breathing room to figure that out. The bosses also go down much faster and by fast, I mean the tree boss took around 3 hits to beat, but on Hard mode? It reportedly takes 10 hits. Its attack pattern is also even faster.

I'm still indifferent to the slow movement speed, but it doesn't bother me as much as it used to, and after having played that god awful Fantasia game, I've come to better terms with how the jumping mechanic works.

Visually, I still love the well varied environments with an enchanted forest, a toyland, storming lands, candy land, library, and the castle itself. I still don't like the saccharine sprite for Mickey himself.

When I was replaying the game, I was expecting maybe a 2.5 stars at best, but this game managed to be an actually good game, and I can now see why people think positively of it. It still doesn't hold a candle to the remake, but I wouldn't going mind another round.

Moral of the story: Hard Mode sucks.

This is a classic platformer that I had always wanted to play, but never had the chance until I got the Genesis Mini. I knew it had great animation and fun controls, and it did. While not long, every level has quite a few secrets to discover and unique gameplay and obstacles to tackle; it's fairly bursting with great ideas all the way through. The game feels joyful to play from the start, and keeps that all the way through.

It's an interesting snapshot of the lifespan of the Genesis. This seems like one of the earliest titles to really start to show the promise of the system, in a way a prelude of the incredible action games that came in the next few years. As is, Castle of Illusion is a solid hop and bop platformer with beautiful animation and music, coming right before the true greats hit the system.

Played on Genesis Mini.

Castle of Illusion es un plataformero que lo hace bien en todos sus apartados, con una dificultad muy equilibrada. Podemos acabar con nuestros enemigos saltando encima de ellos (no todos) o lanzándoles manzanas (para Disney, en estos tiempos, el arma definitiva es la manzana) Esto último es interesante porque no son infinitas, las vamos recogiendo, y a veces es importante las manzanas que tengamos disponibles para superar partes mas fácilmente. Lo saltos son precisos, visualmente es genial, la música... Muy recomendable.

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

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.