"Sega, Disney, and Infogrames bring us a symphony of mediocrity"

In 1941, Walt Disney released what was arguably his most ambitious concept ever - a concert film. A film comprised entirely of classical symphonic music set to animated short films. His dream was to update the film every few years, adding new segments, so that it would be a new film every time you saw it. The film was Fantasia, and unfortunately, Disney did not live to see that dream. Fantasia was a financial failure for the company, so no new segments were ever produced for the film. Yet, as the years went on, the film has found quite a large audience. Today, it is considered one of Disney's best films, and a masterpiece of animation.

In 1991, the Disney studio re-released the film to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Sega had found success with an earlier Disney title (Castle of Illusion with Mickey Mouse), so they thought they could not go wrong by releasing a game based on Fantasia. Now, it may seem odd to base a game on a film comprised only of animated sketches and music, but it's really not that bad of an idea. Fantasia the film has a large variety of fantasy-based characters and settings that could translate very successfully into a video game format. Unfortunately, Sega turned to developer Infogrames (makers of the recent Dragon Ball Z games for Game Boy Advance), instead of relying on the same staff that had done Castle of Illusion. The end result is an instantly forgettable game that is not even worth your time or trouble, not even for fans of the film.

Since the movie did not really have a storyline, Sega and Infogrames decided to improvise a little. Mickey Mouse is the apprentice to a wise old sorcerer. His master has left him with the task of watching over the sheet music that the orchestra needs in order to play the songs for the film. As Mickey is guarding the music, he falls asleep. As he sleeps, the window is blown open by a wind from nearby Bald Mountain. The evil demon who resides there does not want the orchestra to play (why, I have no idea), so he uses the wind to literally blow the music notes right off the sheets! When Mickey wakes up and finds the music notes gone, he sets off to find them, so the orchestra can play again.

You must guide Mickey through five lengthy levels based on settings from the film. These include the Sorcerer's Dungeon (where you battle the famous marching brooms from the movie), a mythical forest, a prehistoric wasteland crawling with dinosaurs, ancient ruins - home to giant hippos that dance ballet, and finally, the evil Bald Mountain. Each of the five giant areas are made up of many levels. On each level, Mickey can find numerous blue music notes scattered about. He must collect them all before he reaches the end of the stage. If he does not, he has to start the level over from the beginning. As mentioned earlier, the areas of Fantasia are huge, holding many secrets and hidden rooms. And you'll have to look everywhere for these notes.

Mickey has two main attacks at his disposal. He can do the traditional bounce on the heads of enemies, which has been featured in just about every side scrolling platform game. He can also rely on his magic powers, and shoot blasts of energy at his foes from a distance. This can be useful, but his magic power is limited, so use it wisely.

Unfortunately, all the abilities in the world aren't going to help Mickey on this adventure. Don't let the Disney theme fool you, this is one of the more frustratingly difficult platformers I've come across in quite a while. The screen can literally be crawling with enemies, difficult pinpoint jumps that require almost Zen-like patience to perfect are frequent, and searching for the music notes can be a pain. Some of them are hidden extremely well, so you often find yourself having to replay a level a lot more often than you'd really like to.

Now, a game like this requires perfect control to pull off these difficult feats that the programmers expect of you. Unfortunately, Sega and Infogrames decided it'd be more fun if Mickey moved a bit sluggishly. Due to the fact that our hero is a bit slow to respond to the buttons on the controller, it makes the game even harder than it already is. There's no way a kid (the obvious target audience for this game) is going to have the patience for Fantasia. And, I figure, most older gamers won't, either.

The graphics seem to be the one area that the programmers got right. Although obviously dated by today's standards, the graphics were pretty good back when it was released. The character sprites are fairly large with some good detail. Anyone who's seen the movie will instantly recognize many characters straight out of the film. From the marching broomsticks, to the enchanted dancing mushrooms in the forest - they're all here. I have to commend Sega and Infogrames attention to detail here, as even characters who only appeared briefly in the film (like the flaming ghost heads on Bald Mountain) made it in the game.

Now, since the movie is built around famous classical music, you'd expect a soundtrack based around these famous tunes, right? Well, there's good news and bad news here. The good news is that Sega shelved out the extra cash to use the actual songs from the movie during the levels. The bad news is these are some of the worst renditions of the songs I've ever heard. The Genesis was not known for its sound capabilities, and this game proves it. Imagine the joy of hearing selections from Tchaikovsky's ''Nutcracker Suite'' performed by primitive-sounding ''blips'' and ''bloops''. Or, how about ''Toccata and Fugue in D Minor'' by Johann Sebastian Bach performed by, what sounds like, a broken toy synthesizer? I wonder if the sound designer knew what he was doing to these classic pieces? The sound effects don't hold up much better, and are actually pretty sparse and instantly forgettable.

The obscene challenge and even more obscene butchering of famous classical pieces are enough to drive just about any gamer mad, but what really gets me is the ''reward'' the game gives you for reaching the end. Now, anyone who has seen the film knows that it concluded with a very cool segment with a giant demonic monster summoning an army of the undead, set to the song ''Night on Bald Mountain''. The demon would make a great final boss, especially since he was the one who stole the music notes according to the game's storyline. But, what happens when you reach the end? You come across the demon in the background, get yourself prepped for the difficult fight, and then...

The screen goes black. And you are then shown the game's ending sequence. (Which is only a picture of Mickey shaking hands with the conductor. No text, no credits, nothing.) What the??? It's almost like they cut out the game's final battle sequence right before it was about to begin! This is one of the most anti-climactic endings in video game history, and it leaves you feeling even more ripped off than you did while you were playing it.

It's a shame, this could have been a very cool and original platform game. Unfortunately, the uninspired gameplay, extreme challenge, and a complete lack of a climax makes this one of the worst Disney games ever made. It looks like Infogrames created a decent graphic engine, then pretty much stopped there. Makes me wish Capcom had gotten a chance to improve on the concept (they were in their Disney phase at the time). Either that, or one of Sega's better development studios. Fantasia is a prime example of wasted potential.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 06/28/02, Updated 06/09/03