Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse

"Once upon a mouse...there was a chronically happy rodent named Mickey who smashed bookworms with his butt."

The place: Vera City, a land of sickeningly sweet happiness and joy.

The time: 1990, on what appears to be a bright, sunny spring day.

The situation: two lovestruck cartoon characters are together in a meadow. It’s Mickey Mouse, star of stage, screen, and pixels! Along with him is his girlfriend, Minnie Mouse, in what has to qualify as the longest romantic courtship in American history. What are they doing? Well, Mickey has his head in Minnie’s lap as she strokes his rather oversized ears and croons, “Oooooh, Mick, sweetie, you know they say that the size of a mouse’s ears also tells the size of a mouse’s...”...errrrrr, OK, so that’s not what they’re doing. This is Disney, after all. No, these two are just innocently holding hands and frolicking through the meadow.

Alas, there is something rotten in Denmark - I mean, Vera City - and her name is Mizrabel. Out of nowhere, the jealous old witch snatches the innocent Minnie and flies away, as an aghast Mickey looks on. We discover that Mizrabel intends to steal Minnie’s beauty for herself. (At this point, we wonder why anyone would want the looks of a female rat, who at the time of this game, was pushing 75 years old. OK, so Minnie’s not the ugliest-looking 75-year old rat in the world...but I digress. Again, we must remember these are cartoon characters.) Back to the story at hand, love-struck Mickey finally snaps out of la-la-land after being initially startled motionless at the abruptness of the capture, and before you can say “Jiminy Cricket,” he chases his girl and her captor all the way to...THE CASTLE OF ILLUSION!!!! *insert dramatic overture here*

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the introductory storyline for “Castle of Illusion: Starring Mickey Mouse” for the Sega Master System. In short, what you have just seen is the old, overused “villain kidnaps girl and boyfriend braves a castle to rescue her” storyline. All we need is a fat plumber and a decoy who says “But our princess is in another castle!” and the picture will be complete. That said, Castle of Illusion is a game that I thoroughly enjoyed as a youngster when I first played it almost 15 years ago. Upon more recent examination, however, I find it not without flaws, but a solid and ultimately successful game when you realize that it is geared at the younger game-playing demographic. With this in mind, the game hits its mark well.

The game starts with Mickey at the door of the Castle of Illusion. He is confronted by a old man in a robe who states that Mickey must find the Seven Gems of the Rainbow to reach Mizrabel and Minnie in his effort to rescue the fair mousie, but that the gems are heavily guarded by the Masters of Illusion. Mickey must go through five stages to beat the Masters and get the gems. (If you’re sitting there trying to calculate how five bosses can guard seven gems, I’ll get to that later.) Once the Mickster has collected all the gems, he goes to the interior of the castle where Mizrabel is hiding. That’s a whopping SIX whole levels, in case you’re counting! This is not a long game, though when I was young and was playing it, the game certainly didn’t feel short, so again, the length was probably designed with younger gamers in mind.

Mickey starts out with access only to the first three levels, and he can choose in what order to beat them; then two more levels are accessed, and you can beat them in any order. When this game bills itself as “Castle of ILLUSION,” it does not kid. Behind the doors of this supposed castle are: a forest, a “toyland” type city, a land of sweets and desserts, a library complete with teacup pool, and a clock tower. Why a nasty, malicious witch would have use for rooms with nothing but toys and candies, I shall never know, but who needs a plot without holes at Disney? Defeating the bosses at the end of each level will net you five gems; the other two mentioned earlier are “hidden” in the 4th and 5th levels. However, I’m not sure hidden would be the right word, seeing as how a gamer would have to be still in diapers to not be able to find them, especially the Library stage gem. Couldn’t Disney have made them even a teensy-bit hard to find?!

The bosses themselves do not pose an exceedingly difficult challenge for the veteran gamer, but as a novice, I remember enduring some frustration. The very “first” boss (though depending on what order you take the first three levels in, it doesn’t have to be the first one technically) still is pretty hard in that you have a small window to make a relatively sharp maneuver to hit him without getting whacked by projectiles. The Library boss also makes mastery of the “butt-bounce attack” a must. However, as a rule, these bosses are not a major challenge for experienced gamers, and even younger gamers should have little trouble once they get the patterns down.

As with any gaming platform-style adventure, there are badguys to bash, pits to leap over, and platforms to test your jumping skill. Mickey’s plan of attack against the enemy minions is twofold: he can either bash them with his little red-overall-wearing hiney, with a resounding “bounce” in the air afterwards, or he can pick up blocks that are littered throughout each level and fling them at the offending creatures.

As for controlling our hero, Button 2 makes you jump, and Button 1 controls your attacks, which sounds simple, but honestly, I found the controls in this game to be somewhat awkward at first. The method for the “butt-bounce attack” is to jump in the air with Button 2, then hit Button 1 in midair. Maybe it is just me, but it would have felt more comfortable to tap Button 2 twice to initiate this attack, rather than to switch buttons at such a quick rate. However, while it may take a little longer than perhaps necessary to get the hang of, you can pull off the move with ease before too terribly long.

Also, picking up blocks can be a chore. You have to push Mickey into the block he is standing next to, whereupon ol’ Mick will make a motion like he is getting ready to heft the block. Any slight tap of the directional button can cause Mickey to snap out of this pose, making you do it all over again. *grumbles words that Mickey would never use* Once you see the proper pose, make sure to press Button 1 without delay to make Mickey pick up the block. Once he is holding it, throwing it is a simple matter of pressing Button 1 again.

Speaking of the directional button, our big-eared hero needs a new pair of yellow shoes, some with better traction, as Mickey’s movements seem a bit too loose and slippery. This is not fun when you are in the forest trying to make those tricky jumps from one leaf to another, and wind up sliding right off the other side before you can stop yourself. This game overall is not overly difficult, but some rather cheap controls make some areas more frustrating that mere difficulty of level layout should make them. At least the jumping motion itself is not frustrating, as the game designers seem to have gotten that control aspect right.

The first five levels that Mickey traverses through have one distinctive characteristic binding them together; they are colorful and cartooney. There’s nothing scary about this forest, whacked-out monster trees notwithstanding. The scenery in these levels just screams “get happy!” with its colors and overly pastel backgrounds. In fact, everything in this Castle of Illusion screams Disney, from the brightly colored scenery to the almost CUTE enemies littered throughout - a rogue’s gallery of various goofy-looking characters which includes: jumping jellybeans, sugar cubes, unicycle-riding jugglers, bookworms, and maniac trees. I almost felt bad squishing those poor little pillbugs and butterflies...until they reached out and sapped my life away! They must pay! DIE, VERMIN!!!! Okay, I’ve got that out of my system now.

In any case, don’t let the cute enemies and colorful backgrounds make you think that our baddie-busting protagonist is supposed to go easy on them...despite that smile that almost never leaves the face of our iconic player named Mickey Mouse. Get hit by a bad guy? Mis-time a jump? No worries for Mickey; he keeps smiling, dangit! Of course, would you expect anything less from the little mouse, especially with - as I must again remind you - the game and its hero being geared towards younger gamers. In short, Mickey’s animations are fitting for his established character, and are relatively smooth considering the game system this game was made for...though his run seems a little gangly and overly bouncy.

Yet another aspect of the game that adds to this “happiness in the face of danger” philosophy is the level music. It doesn’t matter if you’re spelunking through a cave, braving a haunted forest, swimming around in a coffee cup (yes, you actually do this at one point in the game!), or swinging through a clock tower...the music always stays upbeat and happy! The tunes themselves are not bad for an 8-bit home system, nor are they inappropriate for the levels they go with in terms of fitting the game’s mood...but they are all upbeat, bouncy, and just plain happy. I hope poor Minnie isn’t feeling taunted by cruel fate as she’s held captive while her main squeeze gets treated to such a happy cacophony of sounds. Once you finally get to the last level with the castle that actually LOOKS like a castle, the music finally sobers up a little, but still retains that Disney feel.

As previously stated, this game’s difficulty is not all that great, and it’s pretty short, with only six levels, but I still maintain that it is a good length and difficulty for the young demographic it tries to sell itself to. I certainly never felt short-changed after completing this game in my youth. Plus the difficulty does take a bit of a step up in the last level, the “real” castle level. Yet would a gamer come back and play this again? It’s debatable. I found some of the levels to be cute enough to want to return to every now and then, but with no secrets and no continue or password feature, even as a short game, I found little reason to try to play all the way through it repeatedly.

If you know a young gamer (or if you ARE a young gamer) who can find such an old game for a relatively obscure system, then “Castle of Illusion: Starring Mickey Mouse” is a worthwhile game to add to your collection. If you like Mickey Mouse, regardless of age, you may enjoy it as well. However, veteran gamers who can do without the cutesiness of a Disney-themed game may be too put off by the difficulty, the brevity, and the overall “feel” of the game to give it a try. Yet as a final thought: in my own personal opinion...it’s the latter who will be missing out in the long run, missing out on a game that just radiates vibes of light-hearted fun and frivolity. Isn’t “fun” what video gaming - and timeless cartoon icons like Mickey Mouse - should be all about?

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/28/03, Updated 07/28/03