Review: Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (Sega Master System, 1990)

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Back in May, I reviewed the original Sega Genesis and updated PlayStation 3 versions of Castle of Illusion. While the classic Genesis game is one of the most beloved of the 16-bit Disney titles, its 8-bit Sega Master System installment and two sequels aren’t as well known.

Multiplatform games are a double-edged sword. They are less interesting to me when they’re nearly identical across different consoles. A little extra and exclusive content here and there doesn’t do anything for me. However, when you have games that span across systems of different generations, things can get unique, and if you’re lucky, these ports and reimaginings can match and sometimes outdo their predecessors in certain ways with good design, creativity, and iteration, all on technically inferior hardware. Thankfully, Castle of Illusion on the Master System is a great example of the latter.

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Things start off familiarly enough, with the opening story unfolding much like the Genesis original. However, instead of being told via in-engine sprites, the visuals are presented as custom still-imagery that already do a nice job of stepping out of the shadow of its 16-bit big brother.

Two difficulties are included: Practice and Normal. Oddly, Practice is highlighted by default, but I would skip it unless you are totally new to the series or platforming games. It’s a very basic and almost insultingly easy 3-level course that’s over almost as quickly as it starts. Normal is what you want, and contains all the game’s worlds and bosses. The Game Gear version, which is nearly identical to this one, has Normal as its default selection, so I’m glad Sega fixed this for the handheld port.

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Obviously, Castle of Illusion on the Master System isn’t going to look as good as the Genesis version, nor should it be expected to. However, I think Sega did a wonderful job bringing the game to life, coming up with a visual design language that makes the world vibrant and fun to look at.

Mickey Mouse himself is animated quite well, with a look that is inspired more by the classic ’30s-’50s style vs. the Genesis design, which is a much more modern take on the iconic mouse’s features and personality.

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Mickey also does a lot of the same things I loved from the 16-bit game, such as how he precariously teeters on edges. He does so both forwards and backwards, which is a great touch. Additionally, his tail waves when he ducks, and he’ll look left and right if you pause while climbing a ladder.

All of these little details give the game a nice, high-quality feel, and you can tell that Sega’s artists enjoyed putting time into his frames of animation.

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Most notably, significant changes were made to this version’s level design and gameplay. Instead of just copying and approximating the 16-bit level layouts that so many gamers were used to, the Master System stages are more sprawling and exploratory.

Many times, you’re faced with multiple paths to explore, with experimentation being rewarded with extra power, valuable health replenishment, and extra lives. Even if you are just intent on getting to the end of a level, Castle of Illusion does a good job of not feeling linear — like you’re just running straight down a narrow hallway — and go in all different directions.

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The various stages in Castle of Illusion will feel familiar, with forests, caves, toy chests, treats, castles, and clocks all represented. I found the actual design of each level to be of very high quality, with some requiring excellent coordination, providing a surprising level of challenge.

Some areas have an auto-scrolling element, where you have to stay ahead of and get by moving obstacles before you get pushed off the left side of the screen. There are also puzzle elements, false floors, and other traps that are impossible to see and rely on repeat memorization, which are common to that era’s design. They are rarely fatal, but can certainly be annoying.

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Mickey still has his tried-and-true butt-bounce attack, but can no longer stock up on apples to be used as projectiles. Instead, he can pick up items throughout the levels to chuck at baddies. The controls to pick up items can feel a bit unresponsive at times, and it led to a good number of unnecessary hits, making that particular game mechanic feel under-cooked.

Items you can pick up can also be used — and are sometimes required — to access out-of-reach ledges, ladders, and other areas. The game respawns these items if you happen to accidentally lose them, but enemies respawn too. I’m glad it works like this, because it’s a much better option than having to lose a life to reset a level’s item placements.

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For the most part, controls are sharp, and Mickey moves a bit faster here than he did before. However, precision platforming isn’t his strong suit, and I was frustrated on several occasions trying to make some jumps that would have been a lot easier in comparable platformers.

Hit detection also seems a bit spotty and a bit unforgiving, which can make Castle of Illusion feel more difficult than it should be. It’s not a deal-breaker, but I’d say they’re slippery, and like the item grab mechanic, leads to too many unintended hits on our brave little mouse.

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Castle of Illusion‘s bosses are a highlight. They are colorful, large, and can be deceptively troublesome if you’re not careful. Several of them require some rather expert dodging and timing to defeat without losing a life, though, and I think most players will meet their doom several times facing them.

They’re not as difficult as, say,  the Mega Man bosses, but they are certainly much harder than the ones seen in the Genesis game, many of which were too easy to defeat.

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Speaking of Mega Man, you think some of the folks on the Sega development team were fans of the Blue Bomber’s first game?

Don’t worry, this guy isn’t anywhere near as bad as the Yellow Devil!

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The music in Castle of Illusion is very similar to that found in the Genesis version, and it’s perhaps this aspect of the game that saw the least amount of change. There are some different tunes and takes on those classics, but because of the lower quality and less accurate instrumentation, that authentic cartoon feel is somewhat lost in translation.

It all still sounds good, as I’ve always liked the warmth of the Master System’s sound chip, but they come across as a bit too derivative, especially when compared to the big changes elsewhere.

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You can probably tell this by now, but if you’re a fan of the 16-bit Genesis original, this is a fairly easy one for me to recommend. It has some weird control quirks and other 8-bit nuisances, but there’s more than enough new content here to make it a wonderfully charming complement to Mickey Mouse’s 16-bit debut.

  • Graphics & Presentation: A-
    Colorful and nicely animated sprites, clean backgrounds, and large, memorable bosses give it a premium feel.
  • Music & Sound Effects: B
    The same soundtrack you know and love, scaled down to Master System standards. Some new additions and solid sound effects round out the game’s good audio.
  • Gameplay & Controls: B
    Tweaked gameplay mechanics and completely new, non-linear level design make it feel like a different game, but loose controls and unforgiving hit detection can be frustrating. Good boss challenges wrap up each area.
  • Value: B-
    A quick game that can be beaten in a couple hours, but it will take additional time to explore and master all of the various branching pathways.

Overall: B

 

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My influences: Space Harrier

20140602_space_harrierI’ll never forget the first time I saw Space Harrier. It was at Disneyland’s Starcade in the mid-’80s. They were fortunate enough to have the deluxe sit-down version, too. The entire cabinet would tilt as you moved the flight stick around, a popular feature in a number of arcade games at the time, like Sega’s own Out Run and After Burner. I never would see that version in any other arcade after that, so looking back, I feel fortunate that I was able to play and experience it. More so than the cabinet, however, was the game itself.

The title screen alone was enough to capture my imagination with its huge spinning logo, one-eyed woolly mammoth, and beautiful-looking mecha. I was a huge Robotech nut as a kid, so how could I resist? I couldn’t. Even the sound the game made when you inserted a quarter or token was cool. That’s a small, but important detail that I really miss from modern gaming.

And then I pressed Start. Oh my goodness, those graphics! It absolutely blew my mind. Hardware sprite scaling wasn’t something we would see in home consoles until the Super Nintendo and Neo Geo in the early ’90s, and it was still a relatively new technology in arcade games. Using Sega’s Super Scaler technology, they took the concept of 3D gaming using 2D sprites to a whole new level. It represented a paradigm shift for me, establishing a very clear graphics capability line between arcade and home consoles, and altering my expectations from then on.

That was one of those moments where I figured playing an arcade-perfect port at home would never be possible. And I would be mostly correct for the better part of the next decade, until 32X and Saturn ports would finally make the impossible possible. It really shows just how advanced Sega’s arcade technology was back then.

However, that didn’t stop me from wanting the home Space Harrier experience ASAP. Back in junior high, several of my friends all generously chipped in and bought me the Sega Master System version for my birthday. I knew there was no way it would be as good as the arcade, but then again, I’m the one who thought Cobra Command was possible on it, so my hopes were still unrealistically high. After containing my excitement, I opened it up and turned it on…

20140602_shI was actually quite impressed with the title screen! It approximated the look of the arcade version, right down to the light glinting off the mecha’s gun, which was always one of my favorite details. It also had a new, majestic-sounding title screen song, which the arcade game lacked. So far, so good.

Then I started playing it, and that’s when disappointment set in. I mean, it wasn’t bad and I still played it endlessly for weeks on end, but when so much of Space Harrier‘s appeal is in its visuals, it’s easy to be let down. When you stop and think about what they achieved, however, on hardware that was never designed to do this, Sega pulled off a small miracle. It might not be as fast or pretty as the arcade original, but it still plays, looks, and sounds good in its own right.

One of the things that made the Master System version stand out was the exclusive final boss, Haya Oh. The first time I got to it, I was so surprised, because I was expecting the lackluster “The End” from the arcade game. In addition to it having an intense and memorable music track, it provided a good challenge and was a nice example of developers adding extras to the home versions. It also had a surprisingly lengthy epilogue hinting at a sequel, so that obviously got my attention. That sequel came in the form of 1988’s Space Harrier 3-D, but I never did play it because I didn’t have the SegaScope 3-D Glasses. I remember wanting them bad — real bad — but I think it was the limited game library for it that never made me ask for them.

As the Sega Genesis’ release date drew near in late-’89, so did that of Space Harrier II. With the Genesis being a 16-bit videogame console, and early signs looking terrific with strong entries like Ghouls’n Ghosts and Thunder Force II, I wondered if this would be the era for my beloved Space Harrier to come home in all its glory. Even though the review of it in EGM was very average, I still wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt.

20140602_sh2_titleOh, how wrong I was. Not only did it have an absolutely awful and generic title screen — seriously, what is that? — but the music was a complete downgrade except for the main theme, which was OK, but hardly came close to the classic original. Most disappointingly, the visuals seemed even choppier than the Master System version. The sprites were nice and big, and the scrolling playfield now shifted perspective, but the objects scaled poorly, and the artwork overall was very generic.

This was not what I was expecting out of Sega’s brand-new console, and it goes down as one of the most disappointing games on the Genesis for me. It would be another 6 years before I would reunite with the series, this time on the infamous Genesis 32X add-on.

20140602_sh_32xDespite its lackluster software lineup and hideous design, I bought a used 32X in late-’95, and it came with the only two games I would ever play on it: Space Harrier and After Burner.

Although the 32X version of Space Harrier suffers from some frame drops when there’s a lot going on, it’s one of the better ports. It controls well, and for all intents and purposes, looks and sounds exactly like the arcade version. I just couldn’t stand the 32X itself, and after only a few weeks with it, I sold it.

As I mentioned earlier, an even better version of Space Harrier would be released shortly thereafter in ’96 for the Sega Saturn under their Sega Ages label, and that’s the one I still have. At long last, what I consider to be an arcade-perfect version of one of my favorite arcade games now exists, looking and playing beautifully at home. I would spend additional money to buy the Saturn Mission Stick for an even closer approximation of the arcade experience. It was glorious, taking me back to that fateful day at Disneyland.

When I think about it, the reasons why Space Harrier was such a big influence on me seem superficial. It first and foremost came down to the graphics. For a game that’s pushing nearly 30 years in age, it still looks fantastic to me. It was really unique at the time to be playing a shooting game where you were flying forward, with enemies and obstacles coming at you at breakneck speeds. It has a terrific sense of style, with bright colors, individual stage names, amazing sound, a wide variety of enemies and bosses, and rewarding twitch gameplay. Successfully navigating one of its accelerated stages is still a tremendous rush.

It might be a one-trick pony, but it does that one trick exceptionally well. Perhaps one day I will own that elusive sit-down cabinet, too.

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Review: Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (PS3, 1990 & 2013 Versions)

20140520_coi_gen_1I remember Sega’s Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse like it was yesterday. I played it for the first time at my cousins’ house around Christmas of 1990, and I sat there completely blown away by what I was seeing and hearing coming out of their Genesis. Its animation, music, and colorful levels made a huge impression on me, possessing all the qualities of a Disney animated feature. It was one of the first examples of a licensed videogame done the right way.

Last month, Sony released both this and the updated PS3 version from 2013 via their PlayStation Plus service. Today, I decided to play through each of them to see how they compared (and to relive my youth).

The original game is considered one of the standouts from the early Genesis years, following some of my favorites from 1989, including Ghouls’n Ghosts, Thunder Force II, and The Revenge of Shinobi. Sega and its developers got good at developing for it quickly, and Castle of Illusion is no exception.

20140520_coi_gen_2Playing through it in its entirety again today, I was reminded of all the things I loved about it, most notably the lovely animation found on Mickey Mouse himself. He is so full of life, and I was immediately transported back 1991, where I would obsessively study his various animation cycles and perfect sprite work. His walk is particularly good, and so different from the more mechanical walking animations in games back then. His overall look remains one of my all-time favorites, and it brought a big smile to my face today.

I forgot how big these levels were too, with lots of hidden areas and multiple paths to explore. My memory of it was that of a simple, linear game, but there is a surprising amount of variety to be had here. Each level is distinct, full of gorgeous color, parallax scrolling, and the soundtrack is one of the all-time greats, with bright, original instrumentation and melodies.

I struggled with the controls at first, which is a common problem for games that old, even the historically infallible Super Mario World. I got used to them by the end of the first level, but I still died a lot later in the game, where certain levels require precision platforming, else Mickey falls to his doom.

Overall, this is still as fun today as it was nearly 24 years ago. I also need to give proper respect to M2 here, who did an excellent job porting the game to PS3, with perfect emulation and a decent range of tweaks and options.

1990 Sega Genesis Version:
Graphics: A
Audio: A
Gameplay & Controls: B
Presentation: A
Value: C
Overall: B+

 

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On the other hand, the 2013 version developed by the late Sega Studios Australia, is more of a mixed bag.

I enjoyed how it stayed true to its vision of re-imagining the 1990 classic on modern hardware. The characters are animated well, and the levels are beautifully constructed and painted. Many of them are sprawling, and like the original, have hidden paths to explore and hidden items to find. Their new 3D structure means that Mickey can now move in and out of the backgrounds, with some stages switching from side-scrolling to fully 3D on the fly.

The music — which includes both classic and modern soundtracks — is very familiar, and made me feel right at home. The game also has plentiful, context-based narration, which adds to its movie-like feel, as well as good voice acting throughout. These are nice touches that one would expect of a game starring one of the world’s most recognizable icons. Some key story segments are presented through semi-animated, storyboard-like sequences, which have nice art, but I think those would have been better fully animated via the game’s engine.

Unfortunately, this update suffers from a very average framerate. Running at about 30 fps, Castle of Illusion simply doesn’t look as polished as it should. The framerate drops even more when there are lots of objects on-screen, which is a big hit to its perceived quality, reflecting on its overall lack of optimization.

20140520_coi_ps3_2Controls are also borderline awful, with loose jumping physics, vague hit detection, near-nonexistent feedback when you take damage, and movement that makes it difficult to tell where you are in 3D space. This all makes traversal and precision jumping much more difficult than it should be.

The game provides a middling level of challenge and length, similar to the Genesis original. The new version adds collectibles, unlockables, and a decent set of Trophies for completionists, so replay value is better here.

As a free game included with PlayStation Plus, it’s passable, but I would have a very difficult time recommending its purchase.

2013 PS3 Version:
Graphics: A-
Audio: A
Gameplay & Controls: C-
Presentation: B
Value: B-
Overall: C

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