Sega Genesis #1: World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck

So this is the first Genesis game I've done for my blog, but I'm not going to spend too much time introducing it. Not much to introduce really. I never played it until last weekend. I recently discovered that I have over 50 Genesis games at my disposal, but I have played through very few of them. Since so many of them are character based platform games I should be able to cross them off my list quickly. Hopefully the games don't prove me wrong.

I think it's fitting that the first game I picked to play was a Mickey Mouse game. Genesis was best known for two things: sports games and licensed character games. I'm not sure why they were so popular. Were there not enough original characters on the system? Many of the games were also released on Super Nintendo, but it seems like they were more popular on Genesis. I can't think of anyone who played the SNES version of Aladdin. It was all about Genesis. World of Illusion was a Genesis exclusive, and it's one I never played as a kid. That's kind of a shame, because I think my window for maximum enjoyment of this game passed quite a few years ago.

If there was ever a game that didn't need a password it's this one. It's one of the shortest platform games I've ever played. I think it's only got five levels, and none of them besides that water level are much of a challenge. The whole thing only takes about 20 minutes. On top of that the password is a little confusing. It has various Disney characters on playing cards. Most of them are recognizable, but there are a couple obscure ones. Back in the early 90s you would not have been able to take a digital picture of it, so you'd have to write it down. Hopefully you know who Horace Horsecollar is because that would certainly help. On top of that you have to toggle through all the different cards, so if you miss one you have to go all the way back through them.

Well for someone who claims to not need a password I sure seem to know a lot about it. Okay so maybe I used it once, but it was pretty late when I started the game and I had other things to do. I hope you don't think less of me because I admitted that. Okay now that I've written a giant paragraph about the password I can move on to the game.

World of Illusion is a pretty good concept, but I wish there was more to it. Mickey and Donald stumble into a magical world controlled by a powerful wizard. At least he thinks he's powerful. It's got your basic platform elements in it, but magic is the real gimmick. Every level you get a new magical spell. At first I thought I was actually going to use them when I felt like it, but they are used at preset times. You do get to hear Mickey and Donald say "alakazam" so that's pretty cool. The spells give you a magic carpet for the flying level, a giant bubble for the underwater level, and a teleporting box for the level where everything is huge (my personal favorite). It's not much, but it does make the game a little more interesting than just walking to the right and swooshing your magic blanket at everything.

You can see the Sonic influence in the level design. There are branching paths you can take with hidden power ups. All this is just fine, but what bugs me about this one is the bosses. This game has just about the easiest bosses I've ever seen. It's not only because it's a kid's game either. I've played many games designed for kids in my day but nothing compares to this. That spider boss doesn't even do anything. He just climbs up and down until you kill him. The clock boss is odd but definitely not a challenge. The only boss that was difficult at all was the shark boss, but I blame this more on poor design than anything else. In fact the final boss might have been the easiest of the bunch. I'm not sure if he ever even hit me. If his magic truly is stronger than Mickey's than you'd think he could at least fought back.

Oh yeah I just remembered something else that the Genesis is known for: bad endings. This one certainly fits the description. They get back and finish their magic act, and then as the credits roll Mickey and Donald walk over a hill in the forest. And then they walk over the same hill again. Then they walk over the same hill again. I was really hopping that they were going somewhere, but in the end they just stop and look at you. I guessed they realized that they weren't getting anywhere. That's about how I felt when it was all over.

Anyway I don't mean to be so hard on this game. It's not bad. It's a good one to pick up at your local used game store if you're looking for a Genesis game to beat. I just wish the developers would've went a little bit further. If it had more levels, harder bosses, and a way to select different magics for different situations than it could've been a great game. At one point the game shows you a list of the cast members. This includes Goofy, Daisy, Mini, and several others. However, their only appearance is in the audience during the magic show. You just see their little heads sticking out. That's how I feel about this game. It has potential, but it's just not all there. How's that for a good analogy?