Return to the Castle of Illusion - Preview
by Alex St-Amour , posted on 16 June 2013 / 2,824 Views
Tucked away in a quiet corner of Sega’s booth I stumbled upon a small set-up for The Castle Of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse, a re-imagining of the classic Genesis title. After the success (I’m not counting the sequel) of Disney Epic Mickey, the mischievous mouse has never been so popular in gaming circles.
The game is a 2D/3D platformer. What this means is that the hub world, boss battles and special sections are played as in a 3D platformer and the principle game is a standard 2D platformer. Now I’m going to be perfectly honest, I didn’t much care for the controls, they felt far too loose and imprecise, something that I suspect is caused by the game using the same jumping mechanic for the 3D and 2D sections. I really do hope that this issue gets ironed out before the game is released because apart from this issue this has the potential to be an excellent title.
Visually the game updates the look from the Genesis original excellently. The level I got to play through feels like a toy box come to life and the world as a whole looks very interesting (I'm getting pretty tired of ‘dark’ Mickey worlds). The sound design is also very ‘Micke’, with jaunty tunes that will have you bouncing along and Mickey’s trademark voice throughout.
Once I had put the controller down and walked away from the booth I was left with somewhat mixed feelings regarding The Castle Of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse. On one hand the presentation is top notch and I definitely feel ready to explore a ‘lighter’ Mickey Mouse world. On the other, the controls are so off that the game feels very sloppy at some points. Again, I really do hope that this issue gets resolved before the game hits our Xbox 360’s, PC’s and PS3’s this summer.
