"You know how Disney said you never outgrow the magic? Well, in this instance, they were right!"

Castle of Illusion is one of the first games I've ever played in my life, and now, years after I've played it, I still love it. It's a great game for the Genesis, and it should be loved by anyone who plays it, whether or not they're a Mickey fan.

STORY:
Once upon a mouse (that's how the game introduces the story) there were two mice named Mickey and Minnie. Minnie was very beautiful, and that angered the witch, Mizrabel. So, Mizrabel one day decided to kidnap Minnie and steal all of her beauty and make herself look more beautiful. And Mickey, being the brave mouse he is, goes to rescue Minnie by chasing the Witch Mizrabel all the way to the...CASTLE OF ILLUSION! To save Minnie and show Mizrabel true beauty, Mickey must go through the Castle of Illusion and collect the seven gems that resemble the colors of the rainbow.

GAMEPLAY: 9/10
Who would have thought this game would be so fun to play? For a Genesis side-scroller, this game is actually about as good as you get. Yes, you just have to get from one side of the screen to the other, but you have to do more than just walk. Sometimes you have to jump across pits, or if the pit is too wide, you have to use vines to get across them. Of course, there will be enemies trying to stop you, so what do you do? Why, you jump on them, of course! Jump on enemies to kill them, or throw a gravity-defying object at them. Just a warning: if you jump on them, you must hold the DOWN direction of the D-Pad to do damage, otherwise Mickey will just hurt himself. There are some surprisingly good puzzles that need to be solved, along with some impressive boss battles. This game has some of the best gameplay I've ever seen on a Genesis.

SOUND: 8/10
The sound in this game is great, just like the gameplay. The background music is almost perfect, the music sounds great and doesn't get too annoying to listen to after a while. The boss battle music is fine, the final battle music is fine, and the level background music is fine. The only background tracks that don't sound good are the intermission between levels, or during the game overs. However, you'll be listening to this music for less than a minute total the entire game, so it really isn't too bad. The sound effects are something else. Read any of my reviews for a Genesis game, and you'll find that I say the sound effects really aren't too great. Well, they aren't too much better here. Throwing items makes a high "swish" sound, an enemy dying makes a high clicking sound, and Mickey getting hit sounds like a baby beetle screaming. (okay, they sound better than all of these, they're just hard to describe)

GRAHPICS: 10/10
The graphics in this game are spectacular. Mickey looks like Mickey. Minnie (for the brief time she's in the game) looks like Minnie. Mizrabel looks a little like the Queen from Snow White, both in her ugly and beautiful forms. However, the game really shines in the enemy and background designs. The enemies look great, from the stumps, to the plastic soldiers, to any of those weird suits of armor in the final level. The backgrounds look awesome as well. The forest looks detailed, the toybox looks detailed, all of the levels look detailed, with the exception of level 3. The graphics have earned every bit of this perfect score.

LENGTH: 7/10
The game took me about 9 years to beat, but I have a very good reason for that. (I could tell you that story, but then, no one cares about all those stories about the games people tell in their reviews) Anyway, this game is actually pretty short, and it's not one of those games that you're going to need a password to beat it. If you can just survive long enough, you'll beat the game in about 35-45 minutes. It's a pretty nice Sega Genesis game.

DIFFICULTY: 8/10
The difficulty is practically perfect. Let me just tell you: DO NOT play this game on Easy Mode. (called "Practice") That mode, if you can call it a mode, is about 10 minutes long. No bosses, levels are 1/3 as long as they are normally, and there are only three levels. Hard is surprisingly difficult for a Mickey Game. My recommendation: try it on Normal mode. You aren't missing anything by not playing it on hard mode.

REPLAYABILTY: 5/10
If you liked this game, you will probably want to play this game again. If you don't like it too much, then you probably won't want to go back and play it again. I found myself playing this game again, and you probably will want to play it back as well.

Total Score: 47/60
Averaged Score: 7.8 (rounds up to 8)

Buy or Rent?
Where can you rent a Genesis game nowadays? Oh, that's right...NO WHERE! But that's okay, because if by sheer luck you find this game and you have a Genesis sitting in your basement that's been waiting to be used for 8 years, play this game. You should like it! (if it's not in your house or has been given away/sold, buy it somewhere if you've got six bucks)

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/18/05, Updated 10/10/05