Sega Mega Drive edition:

A little general info first. The game was first released in 1990. It was developed by the Japanese company Sega for the Sega Mega Drive console. This is the first game in the “Illusion” series of games (known as “I LOVE MICKEY MOUSE” in Japan), in which the main character is Mickey Mouse. In each of the games in the series, Mickey is in different (and somewhat similar) worlds filled with magic, tricks and illusion.

Genre: Action

Subgenre: Platformer (Jump ‘n’ Run)

“Castle of illusion” is not one of the games I had and played in my childhood. When I was a kid I adored and constantly played through one of the next games in the series, namely “World of Illusion” from 1992. After I pulled the dusty Sega out of the closet at the beginning of 2019 and started playing the games I saved from my childhood, I also started reading the story behind those games on the Internet. That’s how I discovered “Castle of illusion” and realized that these games are part of a series. It took me a long time to get hold of a real cartridge because very few people sell such antiques nowadays. Almost every listing available on marketplace websites said the cartridge was sold and it took me about a month of tracking and asking around to find it and get my hands on it. I had already beaten the PC version (which you can read about a little further down) because I had a whole month of searching for the cartridge and a lot of free time in quarantine due to the coronavirus.

There are 6 levels in the Sega Mega Drive game:

The Enchanted Forest

Toyland

The Storm

Dessert Factory

The Library

The Castle

You can play the game online right here: Lets Play Sega . com Setting the game difficulty to Practice (the options on the site are Practice, Normal, Hard), the site gave me only the first 2 levels and part of the third. These are The Enchanted Forest, Toyland, and half of The Storm. I imagine that the other difficulties will have more of the levels or even all of them.

If you are interested in my collection of Sega Mega Drive games or if you want to get the super super important and valuable information of if I ever managed to beat the games, you can check this info at the following link: Link to the blog post

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PC edition:

The desktop version of “Castle of illusion” is from 2013 and is a remake of the old Sega Mega Drive version. Of course, it’s made by Sega. The layout of the levels is very similar to those of the old version, the story is the same. The graphics, of course, are light years better on the PC version. 

The gameplay of the PC version is slightly different from that of the Sega Mega Drive. In the PC version, there is one big room (more of a hallway) with floors and doors where Mickey starts every time you start the game. Kind of like an eternal save. You can control the mouse and enter the different levels through the doors. No lives required. You can also return to old levels to collect a diamond or unlock cool costumes. Progress is saved, and when you pass a level after that on its door it says that it was passed successfully. Levels that you are not allowed to visit yet due to their sequence have chains on the doors and you are not allowed to open them. When a level is successfully completed, the next door is unlocked, and so on.

The level where Mickey is on a giant tree with leaves falling and spiders appearing gave me the creeps! (Haha, part of the first level) Without exaggerating, it must have taken me 200 tries to beat this part of the game. It turns out (lucky for me) that you don’t have to go all the way through that particular level to move on. After 2-3 days of cycling through the first level I got used to the controls and the dynamics of the game and things started to get easier. There were several such moments throughout the game that had me trying to pass the same place for an hour or two. There were also those cool situations where you have to stop and think or try to do something different to move forward. The final boss, Mizrabel the witch, was quite difficult to get through. All the other bosses were like Teletubbies compared to her. That alone took me about 2-3 hours of attempts. FYI, I played the game for about a month before I beat it. I haven’t played every day, maybe once every two days. Sitting down to play I haven’t played for more than 1 hour at a time.

The game is not one of the easy ones, especially when it lags slightly and slows down at times. What helped my machine (2-3 year old HP laptop with Windows 10) to stop lagging was to close all possible programs I had open that were running in the background, especially Google Chrome that made the game impossible, it’s like playing on screenshots.

The game is pleasant and relaxing. The graphics are cool but heavy on my computer. The story is a typical Disney mix of several fairy tales. Installation was very quick and the game file itself is small in size. I would try to beat it again years from now when I forget it. The PC version will always bring me fond memories and a smile because I played it while I was 9 months pregnant. Everything was so carefree and casual. I didn’t go to work anymore, my belly was huge and everyone around me was so protective that they didn’t let me do anything. I was playing with Mickey Mouse and snacking chips on the sofa, unaware of the action that awaited me after I gave birth. Baby won’t let me play computer games now, but I’m sure I’ll get back to them when she’s older (or at least when she starts sleeping through the night).