In it, you enter a room where the exit is right there, but the door is locked. Let me use the worst level in the game as an example. I quickly came to realize the slower pace was actually the product of genius game design. Castle of Illusion starts with a forest, so you think “well, that’s mundane” but, before that level is up, you’re hopping across leaves with gigantic spiderwebs behind you, which somehow still feels fresh over thirty years later. Mario games always take their time getting to the exotic stuff. Having memorable set pieces right off the bat helps. And I wasn’t sure that charmingly deliberate pace would work.īy the time I finished that first level, I was whistling a different tune, because Castle of Illusion is pretty dang good. But, while Sonic gets all the credit these days, Mickey was first. It’s kind of funny that Sega’s two best and brightest “Mario Killers” feel nothing alike each-other. A year later, Sonic went the other direction with speed and managed to pull off the same “nothing like Mario” feat based largely around the game’s movement and physics.
![castle of illusion mickey mouse castle of illusion mickey mouse](https://i0.wp.com/www.ubergizmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/castle-of-illusion-mickey-mouse-sega-disney.jpg)
Realistically, every first party Sega platformer was going to be compared, fairly or not, to Nintendo’s mascot. I remember specifically thinking “well, kudos to Sega for figuring out how to differentiate themselves from Mario, I guess.” This was the first tent-pole platformer on the Genesis, and it feels NOTHING like Mario. Was that you? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear your story! I imagine this game convinced many children of the early 90s that maybe it was time to move on from their NES.