00:00Disney Illusion Island is a fun metroidvania for kids that doesn't quite live up to its
00:05retro legacy.
00:06When it comes to gaming, Mickey is probably best known for his Sega's 8-bit and 16-bit
00:21illusion titles, and while Disney Illusion Island is a revival of sorts that will delight
00:25kids, it does fall short of rejuvenating the beloved retro series.
00:29The characters have loads of personality, it's fun to jump around and you have lots
00:32of assist options, but the basic environment design, co-op not adding much and it petering
00:37out towards the end means that it's not quite living up to what we expected.
00:42Disney Illusion Island stars Mickey Mouse and girlfriend Minnie Mouse alongside pals Donald
00:46Duck and Goofy, sporting simplified designs, both the animation and comic writing feel
00:50in keeping with the Mickey Mouse TV shows.
00:52In cutscenes their constantly squashing and stretching facial expressions are wonderfully
00:56expressive, and while the script's meta jokes can grate, it's still chuckle worthy and
01:00should keep children entertained.
01:02The excellent animation carries through to the game, with each four of the heroes having
01:05their own distinct run cycle packed with personality.
01:08And as you unlock skills to help you traverse the metroidvania style island, each one's tools
01:12are bespoke.
01:13Mickey, for example, can boost jump with his short range jetpack that has him briefly snap
01:17on goggles.
01:18While Goofy, for some reason, thrusts his hips into a red hot chili pepper.
01:22They're fun, distinctive flourishes, and with quite a lot to unlock in order to access more
01:26parts of the expanding map, they really add up.
01:28It's excellent detail and quite the sight to see all four animating differently, popping
01:32off their own moves in sequence as they jump from one platform to another.
01:36Indeed, the metroidvania structure isn't the only change up to the level based fare that
01:40came before.
01:41Disney Illusion Island is fully playable with up to four players, enabling some multiplayer
01:45specific moves, such as a leapfrog jump and a Kirby-like embrace that rewards players with
01:50an extra heart of health over their current maximum.
01:52A rope can also be deployed to haul other players to higher levels, which is perfect if a jumping
01:57sequence is too much for a little one.
01:59Illusion Island can be played with any number of players from solo to the full four, without
02:03the design of the game really changing at all.
02:05That does mean that there's not too much depth to the actual multiplayer in and of itself.
02:08While the rope move may add a nod to the 1994's World of Illusion game, players are never
02:13required to work together as they were in that opus.
02:16The co-op works best in the odd room where there are multiple collectibles to hoover up,
02:20and boss battles where multiplayer targets spawn and you need to bash to disable them.
02:24Other than that, you're mostly all just hopping one after another down a fairly straightforward
02:28route, occasionally skidding to a halt when you notice a hidden pickup behind a bit of
02:32foreground.
02:33Obviously aimed at younger players, which is fine, the game can often feel frictionless.
02:36Even though you'll only take 5-6 hours to hit credits, what you're doing can get
02:39quite repetitive.
02:40The powers you unlock are expected platforming fare, a wall jump, swimming, a glide etc.
02:45And the objectives usually just ask you to head to one corner of the map, where you'll
02:49find you need a certain power, which is just around the corner.
02:52Along the way you'll continuously come up against locked doors that always require three
02:55keys from nearby challenge rooms.
02:57There's little here to surprise.
02:59You'll need the map a fair bit, purely because the level design is bland enough for you to
03:03easily get a touch turned around.
03:05While visually each of the three biomes has some fun stuff going on, the platform level design
03:09doesn't move far beyond what you might scribble on the back of a maths book.
03:13And even the old biome specific hazard doesn't provide much in the way of personality.
03:17It's a shame as the past games in the series were much better at making you feel part of
03:20the space.
03:21It doesn't feel like you're exploring an interactive cartoon, merely navigating cartoon characters
03:26through fairly rigid, boring geometry.
03:28The extremely zoned out perspective doesn't help either, and good luck to you if you're
03:32playing on a small screen because it's just as bad when you're playing solo, but if
03:35you do, you at least zip around quickly and the movement feels great and responsive.
03:40If you die or take a whack, you do always feel like you were to blame.
03:43Combine that with an almost pacifist approach when it comes to avoiding dangerous, often
03:47spiky enemies rather than fighting them, and the shifting gauntlets of jumps can feel
03:51a good way to worm your way through the levels, even if they don't offer much of a challenge.
03:56Still, as the moves add up, you start to feel the lack of, say, Mario's elegant and
03:59simple controls.
04:00The multitude of moves are all mapped to different buttons, which risk becoming overcomplicated for
04:05younger players.
04:06Mostly inoffensive, the loop of jumping towards an objective and occasionally nabbing a slightly
04:10off-the-beaten-path collectible, many of which reference classic Disney cartoons, is
04:15enjoyable enough.
04:16It's a shame then that the final main portion of the game dumps you unceremoniously into
04:20a lengthy underwater sequence without that pleasing cadence, and then into a final challenge
04:24gauntlet that so stops, start with story scenes that it's hard to appreciate the dialed
04:30up platform challenge.
04:31Disney Illusion Island is a lightweight metroidvania, which is perfect for kids.
04:35Ok, it's not as good as its more level-based Illusion predecessors, nor is it as good as
04:40the true titans of the genre like Castlevania Symphony of the Night, but I also wouldn't
04:45expect 8 year olds to get on with those classics as much as this.
04:48While I personally would have loved Illusion Island to feel a bit more like a cartoon world,
04:53and less like a sketch on a napkin, it's Mickey's best platformer in a long time.
04:57We give it 3.5 stars out of 5.
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