And, while I’ve got over six-dozen left to go, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this Castle of Illusion ran the table from here. Better than the other Castle of Illusion. As a reminder, this is the twelfth Disney release I’ve played. I’ll take it a step further and say this is easily the best game in the whole marathon. In fact, 8-Bit Castle of Illusion has the best boss fights of any of the Disney games I’ve reviewed so far. And those bosses? Each one killed me at least once because I tried to cheese them and paid the price for it. When an enemy got me, I knew it was my fault for not attacking it right. When I missed my jumps, I knew it was on me. When I died via timing out, it felt like I deserved it. Each of the six levels is a joy to explore. So, seven gems, six levels, seven boss fights. After gathering the seven gems, instead of just cutting straight to the last boss, you play a sixth level. SMS Castle of Illusion doesn’t overuse the auto-scrolling, but when it’s there, it’s some of the best usage of this style of platforming design in gaming history.Īnd by the way, there’s six levels this time. Here, you have to allow the scrolling to push you under this gap. This is an auto-scrolling section, and I normally hate those. While rocks and balls vanish after a single use, the barrels can be used both as weapons and as stepping stones to reach higher platforms. And I didn’t even mention that the blocks aren’t just throwing weapons. I mean, come on! That’s charming! I was so certain I would prefer the frantic, fast-paced throwing action of Rescue Rangers, and boy, was I wrong. Instead, you have to get rid of their remote control. cars and planes where trying to attack them is pointless. They’re a jittery bunch, but in a good way. The way these baddies are designed is precision-engineered to require you to actually take your time and aim. You can’t just “deal” with enemies with the projectiles. That’s assuming there’s any at all and you’re instead expected to use Mickey’s legendary rear-end. Where an enemy lurks, there’s usually only a single block, maybe two, to deal with it. Like this “block” is a lantern that allows you to, you know, see where you’re going. I think this makes it more satisfying, as it gives the world a more nuanced sense of weight and gravity that the more “advanced” Genesis version was lacking. The butt-stomp from the Genny game makes its triumphant return here, only this time, you don’t spring-up the entire height of the screen off enemies. While the collision detection is a little bit on the iffy side, the challenge is more about timing. Whereas Castle of Illusion Genesis has its platforms fine-tuned for thrilling jumps, the 8-bit version instead focuses on fine-tuned enemy placement. I died a lot, and while the game is thankfully plentiful with extra lives, I admit, I was sweating a few sections. I think a big part of that is Castle of Illusion SMS isn’t a game you can sleepwalk through. For God’s sake, Cathy, its name is Sir Waffington III. Which I remembered after this was really supposed to be a waffle. And this one was only slightly more tolerable than the one from Cuphead. I’m going to just come out and say it: sentient chocolate bars as bosses are a crime against nature. I thought there was no way it could be true. Yet, a startling amount of my readers insisted this was the superior Castle of Illusion game. I figured, as great as those games are, 8-bit Castle of Illusion ran the risk of not having an identity of its own. Mickey doesn’t really do anything from a mechanical point of view to stand apart from those. In fact, this feels like an amalgamation of three elite Disney games: the Genesis Castle of Illusion, along with the NES classics DuckTales and Rescue Rangers. Think of it as the little brother to the Genesis game that bears only a passing “clearly they’re siblings but not twins” type of resemblance. No, this is not a “re-imagining” or a “demake” or anything like that. I don’t mean just in the level design sense, like the difference between, say, Crazy Castle on the GameBoy and the NES. Okay, it’s gone now, because thankfully, Castle of Illusion’s 8-Bit version is actually a completely different game. I’m always a bit of a skeptic when it comes to such lists, and. Take a look at pretty much any “best of the Sega Master System” list and Castle of Illusion is bound to show up. Yea, some of the themes repeat, but this is a whole different mouse, folks. I figured it was just going to be a journey through 8-bit versions of the Genesis game’s set pieces.
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