Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse with BenCG and Jazzem - Episode 43.

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:16] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to the 43rd episode of Ed's Game Shack. Today I am joined by Jasm. Say hello. [00:00:26] Speaker C: Hello. [00:00:27] Speaker B: And Ben cg. [00:00:29] Speaker A: Hi. Thanks for having me. [00:00:31] Speaker B: No problem at all. How are you both doing? [00:00:35] Speaker A: Good, thank you. How about you? [00:00:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm doing good. Just been finishing up getting stuff for the kids for school, things like that. Busy day? [00:00:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:48] Speaker B: New Jasmine? [00:00:50] Speaker C: Yeah. Being reminded of fantastic Sega developed Disney games. So I'm in a. So I'm having a good day otherwise. Yeah, that's a good frame of mind to be in. [00:01:00] Speaker B: Yeah. So today we are going to be discussing Castle of Illusion or the Mega Drive Genesis for anyone in America. So obviously Castle of Illusion was released on the Mega Drive, as I just said, but it was also released on the Master System which I have played just before this and there was like, then it was like remade for the 360, but it's actually quite different from what I remember of it. And when I say remember I played it last week, I played a few levels and it's really rather different. What is your experience with it, Ben? [00:01:42] Speaker A: Well, I've only played the Mega Drive version myself, but for me Castle of Osteof Illusion is one of those precious childhood games, one of my favorites from that era. So I mean I, I just have like my childhood growing up playing retro video games. I had a Mega Drive and a game gear as a kid and I was pretty much Sega all the way. I never had a Nez or a snes. My only deviation from that was really a Game Boy pocket color and eventually know a Game Boy advance and so on and so forth. Yeah, but growing up with a Mega Drive I, I had a lot of games and originally it was my uncle who introduced me to video games as a whole because by the time I was about two or three years old, which is when like Sonic 1 came out for example, my uncle was still living with my nan and granddad in their home because he was a young man himself and he would have a Mega Drive and he would just play lots of different games in front of me and one of them was Castle of Illusion. And I think what makes the game so precious for me is because it used to scare me, particularly the intro cut scene where the witch from Israel steals Minnie in front of all that stark black lightning. And yeah, the intro cutscene, like considering I was like two years old, I was a thumb sucking toddler and autistic, you know, to say the least of things. You know, it used to really scare me and it got so funny. That like I would shield my eyes or run out of the room screaming if my uncle so much as started that game up and even threatened to start the game up if I didn't behave myself. [00:03:43] Speaker B: Cruelty. [00:03:47] Speaker C: I like the story of Schwarzenegger being like, oh yeah, if my kids misbehaved, I shouldn't have met Sonja. Like the really, really bad film I was in. It's punishment for entertainment media. Gosh, that's. That's one way to do it. [00:04:03] Speaker B: What about you, Jazm? What's your experience with her? [00:04:06] Speaker C: Yeah, it's funny because I'm a little younger than both of you. Born 91, but I was old enough to just catch the tail end of the Mega Drive here in the uk, where you might recall that was like the Mega Drive model too. It was a long time since until I saw the first model actually. Like the smaller one which had the red buttons over here. And yeah, that was off to the mainstay, like maybe kind of a hand me down system at that point. But yeah, certainly played a lot of stuff on that growing up. And I was trying to remember the order of this. I think a friend had the solo car version of this game. A friend I messaged today by the way. And I was like, oh, guess what I'm talking about tonight with people like Ben there. Similarly formative, but yeah, just us taking in turns on the game's practice mode which we might get into that. The game's actually very good with its surprisingly varied difficulty set. Like the practice mode being a nice little three level adventure, which even has a little bitty ending. Just doing that in turn. And then my middle brother gets the double pack they did of this game with another excellent Sega developed Disney one. Quack Shot. [00:05:19] Speaker B: The fantastic. [00:05:21] Speaker C: Yeah, he's got a plunger gun which is still probably my favorite weapon in any game. As good as the Doom shotgun. It is. I don't know man. But yeah, like Hearts of Illusions, one of those ones are really captured by imagination. Like the art was obviously so good and you'd be that sort as a kid. I'd like imagine my own versions of it with my own characters or stuff. I'd probably be very cringe worthy to dredge up. But you know, I was six. Fair enough. Really? [00:05:49] Speaker B: That's like yes. [00:05:52] Speaker C: Pedro's like. But yeah, it's like I've loved revisiting. I still love that era of games and I still think Castle is such a wonderfully made and probably the best Sega developed game on the system to that point. It's certainly in the running along with like Revenge Shinobi and Big Shadow Dance was out by that point as well. But it's so well made. It's so polished. It's a lovely looking game that's still in the pixel art era. So they're still doing these Disney designs very effectively just with classic pixel art rather than like say Aladdin approach later Right. Of pre render and stuff with cell animation or similar and yeah, just very tightly designed and it's kind of cool. We've got three really cool, interesting games because I later played the MAR system at the remake, all using the same basic template but doing surprisingly different things. I think the Mega Drive one's obviously going to be the favorite, but yeah, it's kind of cool. [00:06:54] Speaker B: That is it though. [00:06:55] Speaker C: You say that certainly mine. I definitely like the other two. [00:07:00] Speaker B: Yeah, for me by default. [00:07:05] Speaker A: By default, yeah. You can't beat sentimentality. [00:07:08] Speaker B: Yeah. See it's quite interesting because like normally the podcast it's. The main game has always been a more modern game. Either something very new or something fairly new. This is the first time that the. The main game of the podcast has been a retro title and it basically was me playing the Mega. The master system version of Castle Illusion. And I thought I'll do a little review for it. So I did that and then I thought, you know what would be cool? Do a podcast on the Mega Drive version. Because the Mega Drive version is just more game. Because it is more game. And then I mentioned it on in a group chat and Jasmine's like, oh, I'd be up for that. And I was like, way [00:07:56] Speaker C: that's a game that lives in my head rent free, like Soundscape and all. There's like 20 Mega Drive games that do that and this is definitely one of them. So I was like, I might as well get that out somewhere. This is a healthy outlet. [00:08:08] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a. It's a really. It's a. Well, the basic premise of the game is because we haven't said is Mickey and Minnie are having fun. A nasty witch called Miserable comes along and steals Minnie because she doesn't like Minnie. And then you go through a castle to get seven gems to then defeat Miserable to save Minnie. That's literally what it is. Every. Every there's seven gems. So I think there's seven worlds. [00:08:52] Speaker C: Well, it's a bit weird, isn't it? Because you got the library one and then you go. Because it's doing a tiny perspective in a normal world kind of thing. [00:08:59] Speaker B: Yeah, you do. Yeah. [00:09:01] Speaker C: And I only got like 30 years later, you fight worms there. It's like, oh, those bookworms, isn't it? Yeah. And that's like a level within a level. Like, I don't know if it's, like, weird. It works out quite well because one of the things I love is the game is just so varied. It has that arcade game pattern where it's just set piece after set piece. Like all these interesting ideas, kind of wasteful outfits in a way. Like, you don't see one thing for too long, but it makes it so nice to replay and just so varied. It's great. [00:09:31] Speaker B: The good thing about the variety in the game as well is it's kind of different to a lot of other platformers. Most platformers, it's like. Like the jungle theme, which you have. Then you've got like toy theme, a library theme. A Morse is like sand, ice, wind. I don't know. You know what I mean? It's very different in. In the actually aesthetics of the levels in comparison to most games around there, which would be quite. I don't want to say basic, but I'm going to quite basic in that regard. [00:10:08] Speaker A: One of the things I found most interesting about the variation in the level design is like, halfway through the library stage, you. You can, as Mickey, jump into what appears to be a cup of tea, and then suddenly you're in some sort of milk and honey and sweets land. [00:10:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:26] Speaker B: That goes to like another level within a level, doesn't it? [00:10:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:30] Speaker B: Interesting. And I think that happens twice, maybe. [00:10:34] Speaker C: Yes. Because that's the milk bottle. That's when you go to like, the. Like Homer's Land of Chocolate, almost. That kind of. I mean, that's definitely going into. Because a lot of this definitely is like the classic cartoons, isn't there, aesthetically? And you've got things like the witch is clearly like the evil Queen's disguise from Snow White. But yeah, like, you've got the milk bottle, then you've got the cups of tea where you. It's that weird way the Mega Drive does transparency where it doesn't really. It just like kind of divot, like the sound did that as well. Right. You're just living like among these. All these sugar cubes. Again, just these weird little creative set pieces that polished. Well made. And it just, again, it really captures my imagination. [00:11:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, no, I get you. I get you. I was just gonna say, speaking of the. The snow whites, the. The skies of the miserable. I'm pretty sure the last boss before miserable is the Huntsman or something, because that's what it makes me think of. [00:11:38] Speaker C: That's right. Yeah. [00:11:41] Speaker A: I can't remember the last boss from the Huntsman. [00:11:46] Speaker B: It's from Snow White. It's like. I'm sure it's the Huntsman, but it might. I might be wrong. It might just be some random Disney made character look similar to another character. [00:11:57] Speaker C: Yeah, they definitely. A few of the games from this era, I think to make them feel more kind of official, they would like. I think there's an NES game that has like some Alice in Wonderland stuff in it. Even though you played as Mickey and Minnie, like they would kind of use some of that mix and match. It wasn't there. [00:12:13] Speaker B: Yeah, well, there's a few different illusion games, isn't it? There's like. I can't remember one. There was one on the Master system, I believe in Game Gear. [00:12:25] Speaker C: So there's three eight bit ones. There's Castle of Illusion, which is one of those. Same name, same basic structure, but surprisingly different. Yeah, more like Mega man than I remember. Like, I don't know if you felt that. [00:12:40] Speaker B: I thought it was like a Mega Man DuckTales Hybrid over in comparison to say. Well, Castlevolution is on Mega Drive. The other one I can think of is Land of Illusion on Master System. [00:12:56] Speaker C: Yeah, sorry. So that's the second one and then. Oh wait, no, hold on, there's. All right, this always gets confusing because there was a. Is it Legend of Illusion? That might be the third one. That was Game Gear only. Yes, that is. So Land Illusion is the second one [00:13:10] Speaker A: that was called World of Illusion. [00:13:13] Speaker C: Yes, that's Mega Drive, I bet. [00:13:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:16] Speaker B: Yes. I'm gonna say yes. Is that the Co op one with Donald and is that a different one again? [00:13:21] Speaker A: Probably, yeah. [00:13:22] Speaker B: Me and you played through that, didn't we, Jasm? That was. That was fun. [00:13:25] Speaker C: Yeah. It's like split fiction. It Takes two. Like Disney. It Takes two. Yeah. [00:13:32] Speaker B: I remember playing as. I think I played as Donald. [00:13:36] Speaker C: Eh, I'm boring. I like Mickey the Goody Two Shoes. Nor do I like this game. The opening is very memorable that you mentioned. They're just frolicking in the fields of this lovely ballroom dance music that the Mega Drive is pulling off really well. And as Paul Ben said there, it is quite harrowing. But the Mega Drive soundscape can get eerie very easily and this game does do that a few times and then just fade to black, which comes in. Mickey dashes desperately to the castle. It's. Oh, it's so cool. [00:14:10] Speaker A: I mean, I mean to sort of pick up on it, because it, it's kind of like it's the result of a marriage of the sprite design and the sound design for me. So like when, when Minnie is captured and then miserable flies off. This is in the mega drive version of the game, the intro cut scene. You sort of see Mickey hop back a bit and he has this look of abject sad horror on his face. And it's just like. And it's literally just like I remember seeing that as a kid and just emotionally connected with it so much. And I, and I. And I think that's what kind of is liable to make, you know, a two year old autistic kid cry looking at it. [00:15:01] Speaker C: Yeah, you're very empathetic. Two year old. My goodness. You were feeling Mickey's pain there. I was. [00:15:07] Speaker A: I was feeling Mickey's pain. 100 but that is a testament to how good the marriage between the sprite designer, the sound design was in this game especially. And there is just this persistent eeriness throughout the game that I think is. Is what makes it so good and what makes me remember it all these years later. [00:15:33] Speaker C: Totally. The like, even like the brighter like I love the second Toy Lab level. There's just some very wonderful. I try to think what artists it reminded me of. Like a lot of the background kind of pop out like just a lot of geometry making up these little like paper castles in the background and such. But. [00:15:50] Speaker A: Well, a lot of it takes its cue from like the cartoons of the 20s and 30s. And you know they, they were not. They. They don't have the guard rails that cartoons these days do. Like they are quite happy to draw out some characters and animations that are absolutely horrifying and traumatic for children. And I think, you know, some people call it like rubber hose style animation which calls back to like Steamboat Willie and things like that, which is now. Which is now in the public domain. Um, but yeah, I think the only other game that's kind of really taken that concept of those horrific faces that you only otherwise see in I think Studio Ghibli movies these days would be Cuphead. [00:16:48] Speaker C: Oh yeah, of course. Yeah. [00:16:52] Speaker A: Very strongly inspired by that art style. [00:16:55] Speaker C: Totally. Yeah. Like Mouse PI as well. We've seen a few of these. Yeah. [00:17:01] Speaker B: I'm trying to think of other games that have got a kind of art style to them. And the only two I can think of is Mouse PI for Hire and Cuphead. But Cuphead I think is. Feels closer to something like this because of the type of gamer is. It's like obviously it's more shooter based but it's still like 2D platformer. Whereas from what I've seen of Mouse PI for hire, it is more. Yeah. Like, like Doom and stuff. [00:17:33] Speaker C: Well, Cuphead's fun because it's Gunstar Heroes. So it's another Mega Drive classic game, isn't there like. Yeah, it's inspired by that. [00:17:42] Speaker B: It's very, very Gunstar Heroes until you get to the boss and it's not. [00:17:47] Speaker C: It's interesting with you. Oh yeah, yeah. True to be there. It's interesting with Castlevolusia because that was a. I understand the context of this time was obviously the Master System was only regionally popular like Europe, especially UK and a couple of others. It did well in Brazil, it did well. US and Japan. It didn't. And I think especially in America they wanted a big push for the Genesis. And one of those pushes was a lot of kind of licensing or celebrity tie ins. And that's why you get like the sports. [00:18:18] Speaker B: Oh like Michael Jordan's Beat Down City or whatever it's called. I can't remember. Awful. [00:18:24] Speaker C: My gosh, that threw me off because I was like, yeah, yeah. Like wait, Michael Jordan's Moonwalker? Because that was like mj. Yeah. Obviously that was an early one. [00:18:35] Speaker A: I love Michael Walker on the Mega Drive. That's also a fantastic platformer. [00:18:40] Speaker C: Yeah. Again Sega developed kind of interestingly. I'm not sure if there's a crossover style for this game but there might be. It's. Yeah. So I think this was kind of part of that push. And it's funny because you know the edgy American Genesis marketing. There's an advert. There's one of the like Genesis Daz Nintendo adverts that's like you've got the coolest cartoon character ever and he's like here. It's like when Nintendo tried to like market Kirby in kind of a cool or edgy way. And I just, I think Mickey's too cute for that kind of marketing. But it was definitely still part of that push of like all right, let's get some big names on this. And yeah, it was just also I guess the Capcom thing, right. Where just because you're doing license stuff where the license might sell the game, you still will put a teams on it. You'll still put. Because yeah, Sega did quite a few like a Master System as well as the Asterix games they developed which are really good. And yeah, generally that Disney developed ones are really solid. I'd say as I say, I think this game came out in 1990 on the mega Drive. It probably is. It's not the best SEGA developed game on the system to that point. It's certainly in the running like it's one of the most polished, most well made, most ones that I'd say hold up the best today. It's kind of remarkable when you think about that. [00:20:02] Speaker A: It's got pretty solid gameplay and some pretty solid physics. I mean, as far as the gameplay is concerned, the. The pace of it is quite standard for the time, which is probably what made Sonic the Hedgehog so stand out when it first came out. But also the way that Mickey jumps and navigates the levels. He's quite floaty, isn't he? Like if you hold down the jump button, he can jump quite high, quite slowly. [00:20:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:20:31] Speaker A: And then he's got his attack move, which is basically just to use his bum to jump jump on enemies. But it's also quite interesting that you. You can't just jump on an enemy's head like you could in other platformers. You actually had to hit the jump button twice in order to get him to tuck his legs up. [00:20:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Interesting in that regard because obviously most games you just jump kill as you have to be like they were as there were times in the game where I'd forget that and I would end up taking damage and I'd be like, oh, why'd I do that to myself? But that's a me thing. That is. [00:21:10] Speaker C: It is satisfying. It's one of the games I really like. Bounces on multiple enemies on. Aside from like points, benefits and else, it just inherently feels good to do that. And it is a game I do find very. Like it might be because I know it quite well. But like I do find it very pleasant to control and it does feel great when you get the riverbolt. It is more of a stroll than a run kind of game, especially in the 50Hz version. Obviously it's a difficult game to speed run, isn't it? Yeah, I'd be curious to see that because you definitely can. I mean any platformer is an obstacle course at that point, right. You definitely could. I can imagine there being some quite good skips on that. Because the other mechanic of the game is you throw out an object just in the horizontal trajectory, right? Yep. The object type changes per level, but like whether it's like a little blue blob or similar. And there's a weird thing where if you jump and throw or if you duck and throw, that's quicker than standing and throwing. Because when you stand. Yeah, it's already noticed, right? Yeah, I didn't. [00:22:21] Speaker A: Yeah. If he's standing still throwing an object at an enemy, then he has to wind his arm back first. But if he's crouching, he just shoots out. [00:22:31] Speaker B: Yeah, never noticed that. [00:22:33] Speaker C: So I'm curious, like on the Speedrun, because there are definitely times where. No, you probably want to throw instead because there is quite a bit of crowd control in the game. You'll get like multiple skeletal fists jumping at you in the really awesome storm stage. Or [00:22:50] Speaker A: the enemies keep respawning, don't they? Even if you've already beaten them. [00:22:54] Speaker C: Yes. [00:22:55] Speaker A: Like if. If you disappear off screen and then retrace your steps that the enemies respawn, which is particularly frustrating on the hard mode. [00:23:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I never played the hardball. I literally just played the normal mode and I. I actually found that fairly challenging. [00:23:13] Speaker C: So it is, to be fair. [00:23:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. It is challenging. I mean, you know, considering I've been playing this game most of my life on and off. You know, every now and then when I get the Nostalgia Kick when I was a kid, I would only touch the practice mode because there were no bosses and it was just three levels and you could do it in about 15 minutes and beat the game fairly easily. And you know, it was really good to call it a practice mode and not an easy mode because it's so easy that you don't feel as though you've really beaten the game after the practice mode. So calling a practice mode is actually the perfect word for it. It was just to practice and get used to how the game works. [00:23:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:56] Speaker A: There is no full version of the game that is on an easy difficulty. [00:24:01] Speaker C: It's. Yeah, it's really nice though because as I say, my friends and I when we were young used to use that and I think it's because a few games in that era did that. You'd get the easiest difficulty where you wouldn't see all the game's content and usually the tech, you wouldn't get an ending. They would just say, okay, now do it on normal or hard. This is the nicest implementation of it I've seen. I forgot there were no bosses. Actually. That's a. Again, quite good. [00:24:26] Speaker A: Not in the practice mode, there's no bosses. [00:24:28] Speaker C: Yeah, well, it's relatively non combative because the ending is very. The witch is like, okay, fair enough, you can go home with her, that's fine. Yeah. [00:24:39] Speaker A: Which is quite open minded, isn't she? In the practice mode. But you know, speaking of enemies and bosses quickly like because we were Talking about Mickey's attack with his, with his derriere and, and with his objects. One of the other things I love is some of the enemies and bosses designs are. They also add to the creepiness of the game. And I think some of it is completely unintentional, but it just carries so well. I mean, to give you an example, the, the effect of when you actually hit an enemy, if we could, if we compare it to other games for the time, some of them would just go up in a puff of smoke, right. Especially in Sonic. They would just. They would. They would just kind of make this squashed sound and they would disappear in a relative path of smoke. What I like about Mickey in Castle of Illusion is that they, they turn into like this burst of twinkly stars. And especially for the unusual enemies with an unusual shape. For example, a spider lowering down on a string of web. In the first level you get the twinkling stars, like in miniature along the thread of his web. That's a really nice little bit of attention to detail that I really appreciate. And the sound that it makes as well. It sounds like you've. You've very softly hit a wind chime with a little mallet or something. [00:26:13] Speaker C: Oh, it's perfect. I've never. I've always loved that sound, but I've never had to describe it. [00:26:18] Speaker A: Yeah, but then you come to the bosses and it's a completely different thing because you have the sort of gentle eeriness of defeating these standard enemies. And then you've got this. And feel free to put video footage in here. Pens. You've got this chunk out of a tree with the most demonic looking face that's like it. It draws back to that kind of rubber hose style of, you know, these horrifying evil characters that would traumatize any child. And then you. And then you jump on him and he doesn't make this pleasant twinkly sound at all. He makes this sort of. I'm gonna make your audience laugh just by trying to impersonate it. But it's just like it sort of sounds like. Yeah, yeah, it sounds like you've stepped outside in Siberia or something. [00:27:14] Speaker C: I like that you touched on that because it is just one of those games. There's just so much intentionality in every little detail. I think that's part of so. I mean, the golden age of cartoons, you know, they're just so lavishly animated. God love those anime hands and all that. And I feel like they're kind of going on that with this where just every little Thing for how little data they could have on that cartridge. They just use all of it so well. There's just so much like. I don't think I even consciously ever thought about the sparkles that you mentioned, but I just definitely, on some level, it was part of the game just being so interesting to look at and to play. It's just like, oh, yeah, that's right. Markles are specifically placed in a very. They didn't have to do that. But it's one of those things that adds to the texture of it, isn't there? [00:28:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it's really good attention to detail. It's really charming game, to put it bluntly. [00:28:06] Speaker A: Well, charming is the word if you. If you're not two years old when you first encounter it. Yeah, for sure. But, like, you. You've landed on this enemy. You've caused that genuinely quite startling, deep sound to come out of it. And also, it's got this very, very stark, like, rapid white flash, which, on top of a demonic face, makes it even more terrifying. It's just all those little things that just make this game genuinely scary. And then there's other things, like the clown on the unicycle that hits you with his juggling balls in the Toy Town level, because you. You don't just defeat that enemy in general. You. You hit him once, whether it's with an object or, you know, using Mickey's bum bum attack, for want of a better word. And then the unicycle just shoots off, like, at double the speed, and you get this sort of jump scare musical jingle. [00:29:06] Speaker C: Yeah, Yeah, yeah. [00:29:13] Speaker A: And then you have to catch the. The unicycle, because that's gonna sort of bounce off the walls of either side and come back and potentially get you by surprise. And then if you die, there's almost. No, not even like a millisecond of warning. It's. It's almost accidental in the way the game is programmed, that just the slightest touch and it's a jump scare in the way that you die because you get this musical jingle and Mickey sort of tumbles off into the upper left corner. But because it's so sensitive and so absolutely immediate in the way that it's been programmed to make Mickey die on contact when you've only got one piece of power left. It is a jump scare. [00:29:58] Speaker C: They at least suffer there because he, like, he has kind of got, oh, well, here I go. Kind of look on his face. Well, exactly. [00:30:05] Speaker A: And that's kind of why I don't feel particularly drawn to playing the remake Even though actually I do have it in my Steam library. I've just never opened it. But because I just feel like it's been made to modern standards. They don't want to traumatize their target audience because this is the 21st century. And I mean back then it was the 90s, it wasn't the 20s and 30s. There's a huge difference in culture across that time span as well. But it was based on those ancient Disney cartoons of the, of the 20s and 30s. And yeah, I just feel like the remake would soften the edges too much. It wouldn't be scary enough to feel like Cast of illusion anymore. [00:30:51] Speaker B: The 360 version is strange in that it is castle Illusion, but it's very different. Like there's 3D elements to the game in that like some of the boss fights are in 3D arenas, things like that. The designs of like the, for example the tree boss is quite different to the boss in the Mega Drive version. I, I think the, the 360 version or the modern version that is, is okay from where I played it. I did only do like say three stages, like three different doors then and it seems all right. But it isn't as good as the Mega Drive version or the Master System version in my opinion. I think it is worth a go. If you don't, if you don't take it too much of oh, it's a remake of the game and more of like a reimagining of it I guess then I think you could separate it out maybe. [00:31:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:54] Speaker C: I'm actually quite fond of the remake because it is, it's not a replacement for the original. Absolutely. No. But it did seem like more of a project of passion than I kind of expected even. It's a bit of a shame really because there was a SEGA of Australia team who seemed quite promising with stuff like this and the Golden Axe game they were working on. But yeah, it does use a lot because there's behind the scenes stuff out there as well where they're like, oh, we want to be true to the original. But it's not a one to one. And they do. There's a lot of iconography from the original, but as Pence says, they use the two 5D aspects quite cleverly. As far as Xbox Live Arcade era kind of games go, it is like that. I'd say it's probably one of the better looking ones in that style. There is actually some surprisingly quite nice, lighter than it, but it is still, you know, it's still 360 era 3D like the Mega Drive. Pixel art is going to be my preference on that. But looking back over footage of it to remind myself it does get still pretty creepy. And. One nice touch I think I only just realized is, you know you mentioned the first tree boss beds. Yes. I think it's intended as a combination of the Mega Driver Mars system games because it is like the thing where the chunk comes out of the tree and goes back and forth, but the chunk has like legs and arms and it looks a bit closer to the. That boss you fight in the Master System game. [00:33:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:37] Speaker C: And it kind of has a little bit of that movement that was making me laugh playing the Master System game again. Because, you know, we were saying it's like Mega Man. I was like, oh, this is Airman. Basically same patterns. And even enter the boss room the same way as in Mega Man. You could like do a jumping pose as the screen moves. Yeah, I'd say the remake's definitely worth a go. I think you might be quite pleasantly surprised. Again, not a replacement and probably hasn't held up as well visually. It's also a more chatty version, which mileage may vary on that. You hear Mickey a bit. [00:34:11] Speaker B: You do hear. [00:34:13] Speaker C: You hear the Sully from Uncharted, I believe. Same voice. And he's like just a very kind of old timey sound of narrator. Yeah, it's cool. It's surprisingly cool. [00:34:27] Speaker B: Once upon a time there was Mickey and Minnie having a dance and then Miserable came along and ruined it. That's where it's like, probably not as bad as what I was just doing. [00:34:39] Speaker A: You don't need a complicated plot though, do you? [00:34:42] Speaker B: No, it's exactly the same plot. It's just instead of it just being a. It's more. More animated, I think. And you have instead of obviously text you read, it's basically just set. Read out loud and like between doors, like, oh, Mickey's feeling really brave now, but he still needs to get more gems or whatever they're called. Rainbow Gems [00:35:09] Speaker A: Revolution. At least on the Mega Drive version. But I mean, it goes a little bit harder than, harder, deeper than, than what you suggested. Because what Miserable actually wants is Minnie's beauty. [00:35:21] Speaker B: Yes. [00:35:22] Speaker A: And so she, she kidnaps Minnie to use the power of the Rainbow Gems to extract Minnie's beauty and make herself into what we know as the Evil Queen from Disney, who is a much more beautiful version of Miserable the Witch. But then it's supposed to make Minnie in turn look ugly and evil like the original Miserable. Luckily, that is not a site we ever get to see. But I'm sure there's some a fan of it on DeviantArt out there somewhere. [00:35:54] Speaker C: I guess it's a classic fairy tale plot, but it's like between this and Banjo Kazooie, I was like, oh, I guess every. There's just gonna be always games with this plot line. [00:36:02] Speaker A: It is basically the same plot as Banjo Kazooie, isn't it? [00:36:06] Speaker C: It is, yeah. Because you actually see monstrous little Tutti her name was. Wasn't that his sister like you see like the ogre version? [00:36:16] Speaker A: Grunty. [00:36:17] Speaker C: Well, no, I mean you know like it was Banjo's sister she wanted to see. [00:36:20] Speaker A: Oh, Banjo's sister. Sorry. Yeah. I can't remember actually what Banjo sister's name was. But yeah, the witch was Grunty or Gruntilda. I think it was Grunty for sure, wasn't it? [00:36:32] Speaker C: Yeah. And you see like a kind of green monstrous version of Banjo's sister in the. Speaking of traumatizing content from seemingly cherry games in Banjo Zuri as well. Yeah. Because the Game over screening Cast of Illusion Mega Drive is just like. They soften it a bit because the music's not too. It's not victorious sounded. It has the tone of like well, you didn't quite do it, but maybe you can try again. And like Mickey's just got stars over his head. Just looks a bit dazed. Right. [00:37:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I gotta say I did really enjoy playing like the three versions. I probably gonna be in the major minority of everyone, but I think I preferred the Master System version to the Mega Drive version slightly. [00:37:25] Speaker A: I just paid the Master System version. [00:37:30] Speaker B: I think I like the more simplistic. Even though it's not exactly a complex game. There's something about the Master System version that I enjoyed more. Maybe that's because I think I played that first when I was a kid. I played here over my friend, my friend's house. His name I think was Michael and I played over his house on his Master system. Well, that was my first experience of Cats of Illusion. So it may be to do with that. But I, I just like the, the. I just think I prefer that the Mega drive is like literally say if you give him a score of 10 and we give them say we give him like.01 difference or something. You know, that close. And then the 360 version is like eh, it's all right. [00:38:14] Speaker A: Well, because it's. I, I mean I've not played it but I imagine it's just a lot softer, isn't it? [00:38:23] Speaker C: I don't know. [00:38:24] Speaker B: It's just. It just. It just doesn't play the same. [00:38:28] Speaker A: It might not play the same, but I suppose I'm talking from my own personal experience, like comparing how much capacity the, the Xbox 360 version has to traumatize a small child. [00:38:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Probably wouldn't traumatize a child. [00:38:45] Speaker A: Traumatize this one. The original one did. It's my favorite little Hollow movie. [00:38:51] Speaker B: That's brilliant. [00:38:52] Speaker C: Yeah. The Master system game probably isn't super. Like one thing that stuck out to me is like the intro. It's some really nice kind of just art stills rather than doing it in sprites like the Mega Drive game intro does. They say Mickey and Minnie happily live in Vera City, they call it. [00:39:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:11] Speaker C: Like is. Is that a fin in. Because that says Spanish Municipality. Right. Like that. The other Disney. I. I don't know where they got that from. [00:39:25] Speaker A: No. I, I haven't heard Vero City mentioned in any other Disney productions, if you like. Normally, I suppose it just is like this, this lovely little utopian place. Then they just put the name out of a hat, I guess. [00:39:39] Speaker C: I promise I'm not trying to get my Mickey Cannon straight. I don't know that that's worth the most. I'm just. I just wanted what that was. [00:39:47] Speaker A: But yeah, there's no point getting Mickey Cannon straight because you know, Disney is Disney and then you put them in Kingdom Hearts and Son. Now it's like somehow that makes sense. [00:40:01] Speaker C: Well, that's like Mickey's so kind of hardcore. In Kingdom Hearts he went through Cast of Illusion and all the rest of it. That was harder than anyone, you know. [00:40:10] Speaker B: Isn't the newest Mickey game an illusion game? The Metroidvania style one is now like something of a Island of Illusion or something. [00:40:19] Speaker C: They did call it of Illusion, didn't they? Yeah, yeah, it's. They had to have been using that as a. I mean that's kind of a word they probably used for Mickey stuff before anyway. But that had to have been intentional, right? But it is more of a kind of Rayman Legends Origins kind of hand drawn kind of zany platform. [00:40:38] Speaker B: It is. [00:40:40] Speaker C: I. I'd like to try it. I got the impression it was pretty good. Like not amazing. [00:40:44] Speaker B: I think it was recently on sale on Amazon for like 10 pound. But I didn't pick it up and [00:40:48] Speaker C: now I regret it because it was on Switch originally. I think it's on everything now. Yeah, yeah, they did remember when. So Epic Mickey was obviously one of the other big kind of Mickey pushes for games. [00:41:03] Speaker B: I don't think it was the Greatest name for a game. But. [00:41:07] Speaker C: Well, that was like the. Not. What would you call it? The beta prototype name or whatever. Like the. A working title. [00:41:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:41:19] Speaker C: I guess it was that Epic was [00:41:21] Speaker A: just like this trendy buzzword at the time that came out, wasn't it? It was like how people say go today or something. [00:41:29] Speaker C: Well, the quite relevant actually, because Warren Spector, Mr. Deus ex himself just retired, but I remember quotes from him at the time. Him being frustrated with basically Mickey being a mascot character, right? Not really able to emote much or do much. And him kind of getting quite shouty at Disney execs or whatever about it in meetings about him possibly doing a game for them. But they wanted that game to be very kind of. He wanted Mickey to be a bit more mischievous. He wanted it to be more kind of sinister. So there you go. Maybe a bit of that cast of illusion trauma. Maybe that's where they've ended up in Epic Mickey, I guess. [00:42:10] Speaker B: I think originally the artwork for Epic really steampunk and very kind of more gritty. I guess the game ended up being. And I think people really excited for it. And then when it came out, they're like. [00:42:26] Speaker A: I mean, personally, I'm honestly a little bit surprised Mickey Mouse never made it to Smash Brothers. [00:42:33] Speaker C: Well, they never went past games that they. I mean, they got the Mickey head silhouette on Sora's keychain, I guess you'd call it on the keyplate. But like, yeah, they never did because, I mean, Goku was the classic one people would jokingly or seriously. [00:42:48] Speaker A: Everyone wanted Goku in Smash Brothers, didn't they? But I think Mickey would have fitted in quite well in Smash Brothers. Like, I suppose Disney was just getting like really fresh. I mean, I don't even know if those discussions ever actually happened between Disney and Nintendo, but obviously Nintendo are known for being really precious about their characters and their copyright. And yet they're quite happy to have their characters duke out in this rather violent brawl. So, you know, if I was Disney in that situation, I would have been quite happy to be told, just get over yourself. It's just a really popular battle game. And Mickey, you know, has enough video game heritage clearly dating way back to late 80s, early 90s. And then of his animation history before that. There's. There's Mickey Mouse absolutely would have been a legitimate and welcome addition to Smash Brothers, in my view. [00:43:44] Speaker C: I mean, was it Illusion Island? That's what it's called. The one pads mentioned that is based on the recent kind of somewhat more deranged Mickey cartoons like the ones from like, 20, maybe like late 2000s to 2000s, like a bit more this kind of hardline art style. And again, Mickey being a bit more mischievous. Some kind of grotesque Ren and Stimpy humor in there. Kind of bizarre. I think the characters could kind of wallop each other in that game as well. So maybe there's a bit of that energy there. Because probably should say, as well, of Epic Mickey, they did do a 3DS game called Epic Mickey Power of Illusion. Again, the Illusion name used very with intent there. And that's actually a little Kingdom Heart Sea, because looking up screenshots of it, it's like, oh, there's an Agrabah level, there's Beast, there's Maleficent, there's like, oh, yeah, Screech McDuck there as well. It's some really nice pixel art in. Seemed like a game with good intentions. It wasn't amazingly reviewed. And I think part of the thing with that is, you know how we were saying how good Cast of Illusion's pacing was? Imagine that. But, like, a lot of stopping for dialogue and a lot of stopping to trace fins on the touchscreen. It sounds like that was kind of the main issue with this, where it was just very kind of as short as Cast of Illusion is. And as much as you would probably want to beat an expensive game on the first day, I think the pace is perfect for a game like that, isn't it? The length is perfect. [00:45:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:26] Speaker C: Especially for how reliable it is, and it's very good. And how varied its difficulty settings are. Like, none of us are beating it on the hard still, like we should. We've still got that to do if we want. [00:45:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. To be honest with you, I was. I mean, look, it's a really old game. I. I have it still on my Mega Drive cartridge in a Ziploc bag somewhere in my room. I. I was. I was playing, you know, a ROM last night. I mean, who isn't playing roms? Don't sue me. I do own the game legally. But look, this is. This is an old game. There's no shame in, quote, cheating anymore. So I was actually looking up game Genie codes to. For. For Castle Evolution on Mega Drive. And, yeah, there are sites out there that claim to have game GENIE codes for things like infinite energy, infinite lives, not. Not worrying to fall so much. But I tried a few different sites and a few different codes, and none of them worked. At least not on the Fusion emulator. [00:46:31] Speaker B: Oh, that's a shame. Been cool. To see. Speaking of Cast of Illusion specifically, I just wanted to mention this. In Castle of Illusion on the Mega Drive, it appears that the castle of illusion is castles with the. You go behind a door, it's an illusionary like wood or library or have you. And then the door disappears. And then at the end. Spoilers for this 30 year old game. When you get the rainbow Gems, it leads a bridge to another tower and that's where you fight Mizrabel. [00:47:07] Speaker A: Yes. [00:47:08] Speaker B: Whereas in the Master System version it's different. There's five doors. When you get the seven gems, you find one in a. I think you find two in. In. In the levels themselves. Kind of like Chaos Emeralds in Sonic for the Master system, where you find them on the stage. Well, right, you do those five doors. The castle then disappears and another castle is there. So it's like castle illusion on the masses. And the castle itself is an illusion. And then you go into the proper castle, fight a dragon, then fight miserable. [00:47:39] Speaker A: Good grief. [00:47:40] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned Chaos Emeralds there because when you were saying like, I need to get the seven gems, I was like, wait a minute. Yeah, it's a SEGA game with seven gems. Like they look like the emerald design as well. I mean. I mean that's a Dragon Balls fit, isn't it? Again, all the Dragon balls, but seven dragon Balls. [00:47:59] Speaker A: I think the. I think the main difference, at least compared to the Chaos Emeralds, is that Mickey's gems are supposed to be the. The seven colors of the rainbow. I'm not sure that's quite the case with Sonic's Chaos Emeralds. Because one of the Chaos Emeralds is white. [00:48:13] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. No Roy G. Biv going on there. It's. Yeah. [00:48:20] Speaker A: Is there a turquoise Chaos Emerald as well? I don't think there's turquoise in the rainbow. [00:48:27] Speaker C: Sonic got any milk bottles or cups of tea lately? I don't know. [00:48:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, Sonic can't swim anyway, so, you know, never mind. If he goes falling into some bottomless cup of tea. [00:48:40] Speaker C: Has he got into a like a clock tower level? Great Mouse Detective or Cast Off Cagliostro style? Which reminded me of Castlevania a bit. That was what was interesting revisiting this, having played other classic games, being like, oh, this. There's like knight enemies that are like the Castlevania ones where they throw an axe or similar out and it's like a boomerang. As I say the Master System one playing that. It was like. The first level is so eerily similar to the Amazon level from Capcom's NES DuckTales game. Like, it's like a foresty, jungly kind of area with an underground cave section and you're bouncing on boxes or making boxes appear. Very similar to NES DuckTales. And it also has Capcom's Chippendale Rescue ranges of, like, picking up boxes, holding them over your head and throwing them. Right. And obviously you could get Mario 2 out of that as well, because I was reminded of Mario 3 as well with Mega Drive Cast of Illusion. Like, you know that awesome storm stage where you go into, like, the below the bridge area? You go into, like, the water, and then you have to figure out the correct routes. [00:49:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:52] Speaker C: What would you call that, like, in water when there's, like a kind of turret, like a torrent of water that can, like, draw you down a current? Yeah, I guess so. Like, you know the bit, I mean, where it makes the kind of goofy little xylophone kind of sound, I guess, and, like, Mickey goes zoom. [00:50:09] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I know the one you mean in the third level. So that. I don't know if that third level has, like, a clear theme, to be honest. It was sort of like. Like a desert canyon thing, wasn't it? Yeah. [00:50:22] Speaker C: Well, it's funny because it reminded me. Reminds me like the Mario 3 Super Mario Bros. 3 Fortress level, specifically, where there's one where you're, like, going through various doors and then you end up in, like, kind of a waterway kind of area, and you just need to find the right one. And it's the similar thing here where you need to find the right tunnel, like, in this kind of lower water area to get to the end. But, yeah, that world is definitely one of my favorite. It's one of the ones that was kind of quite frightening to me, but in a way that I found quite engrossing as a kid because you go into, like. I had to describe the level after that. It's like the. A Pirate Lagoon cave or similar. Would you. It's. [00:51:01] Speaker A: I don't remember, because I thought you go into. So you've got. You've got the Enchanted Forest. You've got what I call Toy Town. The third stage is this stormy, cavy place. It sort of drops off in its clarity, but then you go into. Isn't the Library next after that? And then you've got the sort of milk and sweets land within. And then finally, it's the Medieval Dungeon. [00:51:32] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. [00:51:34] Speaker A: Oh, but there is that Clockwork Gears level as the very last one, isn't it? Yeah, it's coming back to me now. Yeah. But you know what I found quite interesting is that on the practice mode, you've only got three short acts from the Enchanted Forest, from Toy Town and then from the Stormy Cave Canyon. I mean, it doesn't really have a clear theme. Does even reuses quite a lot of assets from the Enchanted Forest, which is disappointing now that you look back on it objectively as an adult [00:52:08] Speaker C: spot. Is the clouds in Mario. Sorry. [00:52:10] Speaker A: I know, I know it's your favorite, but it might be one of the worst designed ones, to be honest. [00:52:16] Speaker B: But I think it's good that they reuse the assets because it. The juxtaposition of the storminess that you had against the nice brightness of the wooded area. Yeah, I'm just talking crap, but yeah, [00:52:31] Speaker A: it was quite eerie and weird, wasn't it? Because you had those tree. You had those tree enemies. The. The little walking shacks. Shaqs. Want to talk about the trunks. The little trunks. [00:52:43] Speaker B: Trunks. Yeah. Yeah. [00:52:44] Speaker A: And they would jump and they've got that sort of derpy, miserable face on them, haven't they? [00:52:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:52:52] Speaker A: So, no, I wouldn't call it like a bright, lovely. In a bright, lovely, wholesome forest. [00:52:56] Speaker B: I wouldn't say it's a bright, lovely, wholesome. It's bright in color and. Know what I mean? Whereas obviously the other one. The other one is like really dark and gloomy and. [00:53:07] Speaker A: Yeah. But then also later on in the forest, you've got those ghosts that you bounce on the heads, haven't you? And they. I mean, they. They're probably. Ironically, for being ghosts, they're probably the least scary thing in all of the game. They don't. They don't make any sound and their only expression is like. They look. They're blowing up birthday candles or something, just going. [00:53:31] Speaker C: They're like treading water. Right. Like, their kind of arms are like going out and they're like. As you say, it's like they're breathing in and out. It's. [00:53:39] Speaker A: Yeah. They're the least scary enemy in the whole game and yet they're meant to be ghosts. [00:53:45] Speaker C: I think it's a classic ghost design as well, isn't it? Like, it does look familiar. [00:53:48] Speaker A: It is, yeah. It kind of looks like. They kind of look like what they call stretch facto and stinky from Casper. [00:53:58] Speaker C: Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Totally. It's. I'll tell you what that looks like. That is pure childhood to me. Even with the sinister aspects. It's such a lovely, happy, cozy. We're going on an adventure song, isn't it? [00:54:14] Speaker A: I really Want to see Casper the Friendly Ghost get revived as a franchise in general. But the, the next point I was going to make was, you know, those first three levels, they're all kind of distinct and they've got quite lively soundtracks and, and very clear themes. Well, less so. The Stormy Cave. But then you go into the Medieval Dungeon and it kind of feels like a lot of the steam comes out of the game because the, the soundtrack to that particular level, at least the first part of it, where you have the, the suits of armor that chop their axes down at you as you walk past them. That soundtrack is not particularly scary for such a sinister level because there's, there's no, like, percussion in that tune. It's just like a lot of grumbling bass and, and a little bit of fiddling on the keyboard with some synths, isn't it? And yeah, there's, there's not a lot in that level that really startles you in the way that the first three do. So it did feel a bit underwhelming, that level to me. But then you go into the library and that's, you know, I think a return to form. And then this, this random milk and honey sweets. Candyland in the middle of the library is just so whimsical and utterly bizarre. And yeah, I just, I, I do feel like the, the Medieval dungeon level was undercooked, should we say? [00:55:42] Speaker C: I think it's quite cool. The statues in the background, they're like slash at you. That's a bit of kind of. Oh, girls. Kind of. [00:55:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I, I like castle stage, but I'm easily pleased, I guess. [00:55:55] Speaker A: You're, you're trying to navigate a stage like the, the Medieval Dungeon slowly so that you don't accidentally just get startled and run into some random obstacle and you think you're safe, but you're not because there's a suit of armor right behind you that's just chopping its axe down. There's, there's not a lot of time, is there? [00:56:16] Speaker B: There isn't. So the cave level, the, the thundery cave level, isn't it? After that stage, like the second and third parts, you, like, go through your cave and stuff, and then you end up in, like, Aztec ruins. [00:56:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:56:28] Speaker B: Kind of thing. So you kind of like dungeoneering. [00:56:31] Speaker C: Yeah, [00:56:34] Speaker B: that was, that was a bit of a pain with the flowing water and especially falls, jumping on the small platforms and stuff. I think that was one of the trickier stages in the game. [00:56:45] Speaker A: It was. I'd forgotten all about that level before you mentioned it. [00:56:48] Speaker C: Just now it feels like that's some of the most satisfying platforming to me. It feels so good too. And it's a good testament to the game's controls that I feel pretty confident doing those bits because some of those platforms are. They're like a block, basically. Like a very small block, literally one block wide. It's a real confidence in the design to do that. And yeah, the weird little green mer people you fight that are quite monstrous, but they're quite cute. And to be sort of a bit of a pain to land on. [00:57:18] Speaker B: Worst enemy in the game, bats, Specifically on the clockwork level, because whenever I'd be jumping around, they'd just be flying around hitting me. [00:57:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:57:27] Speaker A: Oh, that must be so hard. As in the. In the hard mode as well, because the bats get in the way as soon as the Enchanted Forest on the hard mode. But. But also when you get to the end of this, what you now call the Aztec Ruins, the Totem Pole level, the boss is just one of those little reptilian ogre things that just jumps out of this stack of. Of what do you call them? Heads, almost. And then all you got to do is bounce on their heads once and then they. They just run sort of crying home to their mom and they just. [00:58:00] Speaker B: Definitely the worst boss in the game. [00:58:01] Speaker A: The tower away. Yeah, absolutely. One of the worst bosses of the game. I think the best boss boss of the game, apart from the demonic tree trunk, is the. The clown with the boxing gloves. [00:58:16] Speaker C: So like the. It's like a jack in the block box clown. [00:58:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:21] Speaker C: Because, you know, key arms, would you say, like they kind of stretch out and. [00:58:27] Speaker A: Yeah, they kind of go out on chains. Don't they extend both boxing gloves? But like that. That particular enemy is so unpredictable until you get into the flow of its rhythm. But also the sound design with that sound effect that I mentioned before, the sort of kind of sound effect as you hit the. Hit the enemies on the bosses on the head. That goes particularly well with the clown because of its goofy face and also that extra touch that. It's just like the game keeps finding new ways to creep you out because as you get closer and closer to beating that clown, its face starts to turn red with anger. [00:59:12] Speaker C: Hay fever stricken. [00:59:15] Speaker B: I think that happens with the. I was gonna. The Huntsman guy, but he also kind of reminds me of the giants, but chunk shrunken down. [00:59:23] Speaker A: Yeah, isn't he? [00:59:26] Speaker B: Yeah, he. He gets redder and redder the more you hit them. [00:59:29] Speaker C: Yeah. Beds. Did you like the Candyland boss being the Welsh dragon? Did you enjoy that? [00:59:42] Speaker A: I think it was more of a Chinese dragon, that one, wasn't it? But I also love that as you hit that dragon, he also makes a bizarre face, doesn't he? It's like he starts gurning. [00:59:52] Speaker C: Yeah. A weird choice for the Candyland level as well, but again, that's one of them. I mean, there's so many memorable parts of this game, really. As you say, that Dungeon one maybe slightly less memorable, but still call it groovy. [01:00:07] Speaker A: Well, it's tricky. I mean, it's one of the less memorable levels when it's difficult. [01:00:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the thing. I think most of the game has, like, a nice difficulty curve. We, like, really teaches you how to get used to the way the game plays through the first three levels. And then you have, like, little bits which are tricky. And I also like that you had different sections of the game where, like, it wasn't just straightforward platforming. You had the one where it was platform. It is straightforward platforming. I guess we had like the waterfalls. Then you had the one where the water's flowing against you on the Aztec level. And you had to avoid that by jumping out of the. Wait. The path of the water at the right time. [01:00:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:00:52] Speaker B: And things like that. It's just really fun. And I also really liked it in the Toyland, or whatever it's called on the first stage where you climb all the way to the top and then when you get the key to open the door, you just sprint all the way back down. [01:01:06] Speaker A: Yeah, that was another moment in the. In the game that kind of just shocks you, doesn't it? Because it's so immediate and so unexpected that you've made all that effort. You almost feel the vertigo of having gotten to the top of that level. And then you grab that key and suddenly it's like, holy crap, what's going on here now? [01:01:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it takes you like 10 minutes to climb in, 2 seconds to go down. [01:01:31] Speaker C: Yeah, it's such a fun arc, that level. Like, I love the feel of ascending it. Like bouncing on the. Just timing the bounces right on the jack in the box. Enemies the planes that come by to try and get, like, health items. It's. [01:01:45] Speaker A: And also that sticky jelly in the middle of Toy Town level. The sticky. Do you remember the sticky jelly? [01:01:51] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that. [01:01:53] Speaker A: And you have to hammer the jump button to get out of it. [01:01:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:57] Speaker C: These sprint yard zone block patterns, right? Like three blocks where two go up, one go down, and there's like three of them together and it's just like oh, that's. They use that in Spin Yard zone in Sonic 1. That exact kind of trying to go between the blocks, not get crushed kind of. [01:02:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:17] Speaker C: I also. [01:02:17] Speaker B: I was. Was surprised because like I. I played this game years and years ago, but I didn't remember a lot about it. I remembered. I remembered like the toy level and the forest, but I didn't remember like the whole walking along in the toy town and you hit a block and then all of a sudden you're walking on the ceiling. [01:02:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:02:38] Speaker B: Like, hey, this is cool. I think it done a lot. A lot of cool little interesting things. And the good thing is, is because they were used fairly minimally. The various different things is none of this outstays is welcome because it's not an especially long game anyway. It just feels kind of refreshing going to different levels. That's my take anyway. [01:03:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:03] Speaker C: The gravity flipping is cool because there's a strategic element to that because if there's any enemies on screen they'll like fall with you and die. And that's one way. [01:03:13] Speaker A: My God. Another excellent example of the sound design. Like you just. You touch that icon and then immediately it's just the most startling noise. It's just like. It's like we could all sit here and do our own impression. I mean it sounds like some 80s game show just threw up on the keyboard. [01:03:36] Speaker C: Well, it's great. Like you can time it with the enemies. Like, you know, you mentioned like the nightmarish cloud on Unicycle. [01:03:43] Speaker A: Yeah. They all get destroyed at once because they fall to the. What is now the ceiling and they all just sort of go twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle. And it's quite satisfying actually. [01:03:55] Speaker C: I like all these like little strategic things you can do. Like the unicycle going flying. You can. On the one hand that can mess you up, but on the other hand, well, it's basically a Koopa shell in the Mario game. So you can kind of just have that attack on loads of enemies. For you, it's because there's so many good things about this game. [01:04:11] Speaker A: The unicycle can do that, but you need to make sure it doesn't hit you in the process. [01:04:16] Speaker C: Correct. Easier said than done. [01:04:18] Speaker A: Yeah. You can throw an item at it though. That's one way of doing it. What I actually. I actually quite like that. You can throw an item and it will still hit the enemy even if the enemy is off screen. It's got a bit of object permanence that way. The game, which is quite appreciated, certainly it's. [01:04:37] Speaker C: It Is especially for a game of its time, it is manageable. I mean playing games with my 5 year old nephew, I've. I've really kind of had a lot of thoughts about game difficulty and you know, it's a gentler game for its time overall. But it's still like the second level which we haven't mentioned. Sorry the second part of the first level which I love, which is like the really serene music again I think a classical music a lot with this game. That's like that famous ball in piece of music. Right. Just very lovely. [01:05:08] Speaker A: Are you talking about the. The bit in the waterfall where he's jumping across the floating leaves? [01:05:13] Speaker C: Yeah, the spider webs. Like it's a lovely level, very memorable [01:05:17] Speaker A: but it's also a nice bit of the soundtrack. I agree with you there. [01:05:21] Speaker C: Yeah. But like it does a difficulty. It's like. Well it's bottomless pit central really, isn't it? [01:05:30] Speaker A: It's especially hard on the hard difficulty. [01:05:33] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't completely trust the collision detection when leaves overlap on that. [01:05:38] Speaker A: Oh there's. So there's so many of those leaf moths, aren't there? [01:05:42] Speaker C: Yes, that as well. [01:05:44] Speaker A: Butterflies, whatever they're meant to be called, [01:05:46] Speaker C: they like to spam those on hard. Yeah. But like I was imagining my nephew, I think he would like. Like he started to play stuff like Bubble Bobble with me. But like it is the kind of. I've kind of come to realize I've seen very young players. You kind of ideally want guardrails to some extent. Right. You know you want to. It's nice to challenge them within reason but like if basic movement is difficult for them in coordination. [01:06:12] Speaker A: I mean we turned out all right. [01:06:16] Speaker B: I think as soon as a child is born you should put a. Put. Put them on a console and make them play. Oh, let's have a think. What's a really hard nez game? [01:06:31] Speaker C: Silver Surfer, I guess the Lion King game. Right. Like famously tough. [01:06:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's tough. [01:06:37] Speaker C: It's. But like again though, as we were saying, like I like that this game is very variable in its difficulties. Like I say, unusually so for the era because a lot of games were just like more or less lives or similar per difficulty level. But it's surprisingly dynamic. And again that practice. [01:06:55] Speaker A: Absolutely. The practice mode is really straightforward and easy. You beat it in like 15 minutes. The normal mode is just the normal game and it's reasonably challenging. And then the hard mode just completely ramps it up. Like you've got fewer lives, you've got less energy. But also different level Layouts and really frustrating enemy placement. Yeah, it's very, very difficult. [01:07:18] Speaker C: I'm really looking forward to finally probably doing that because for a game I know. Well, it's fun to be surprised like that. It was hilariously embarrassing because I was. When we were streaming the other day, I was just doing that in between the online races we were doing on Sonic Racing Crossworlds, and I was like, oh, I know this game well. And then I like, game over very quickly on hard mode. So I was just like, oh, this is a bit humbling. Um, but. But that's fun now because then it's like, well, okay, I'm gonna get straight back in. It won't take any time at all probably to get to where you were and then try and learn the enemy layouts and yeah, it's just such an inherently satisfying, fun, appealing game to play. Look at here that. Yeah, I'll go through the annoying hard mode for it even. Yeah. Quite happily. [01:08:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I'm gonna. I'm gonna keep trying to beat it because it is. I mean, the normal mode and the later levels especially is really hard enough. But the hard mode, even just on the Enchanted Forest, is a really decent challenge. And it catches you out because you feel like you know the game so well that you end up trying to speed run it. So you've got to relearn to have actually some patience in trying to navigate that level. But one of the things that comes to me mind for me now is whether a young child who plays Castle of Illusion on the Mega Drive, being surrounded by, you know, these. The games that we have today, all of the 3D games, and then the games that are made for their age group are generally a bit softer around the edges. I wonder if Castle of Illusion would still freak out a young child or even scare a young child today. And maybe even more so because sprites are not the norm anymore. [01:09:08] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. I, I feel like sometimes kind of retro. I. I feel bad saying primitive because I adore pixel art, but you can probably understand what I mean with that. It's like how low. [01:09:19] Speaker A: I call it working. Well within limitations. [01:09:22] Speaker C: Yeah. But like, you know, like low fidelity 3D can be weirdly eerie as well. Like, I guess it's a similar. It's doing a lot of a little, isn't it? Like just those. I mean, they certainly. They do a lot of a little to try and do the mini sprite at the end because it's like, oh, this is a Ms. Pac man film where it's the Mickey Sprites, but with like a red dot on the mouth. [01:09:44] Speaker A: Just a red bow in the hair. [01:09:45] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that as well. It's quite. [01:09:50] Speaker A: I mean, it's like. It's like designing the. The male and female symbols on toilet doors, isn't it? Because that's just. A skirt's the only thing you have to differentiate a man from a woman. [01:10:00] Speaker C: Yeah, well, you've got basic geometry outlines to rely on there. And in a game like this, you've just got precious few pixels that. Yeah, consistently they do so well within this game. Speaking of someone playing this now, I don't know if you want to get to this, but it's not a massively available. I mean. So the Mega Drive game was re released in Japan along with Quackshaw on the Saturn and then. Oh, nice. I think never. The PS3 version of the 2.5D remake came with an emulated version of the original Cast of Illusion. That's cool. And then surprisingly, this and I believe World of Illusion were on the Mega Drive Mini. [01:10:55] Speaker B: I have Mega Drive Mini. [01:10:56] Speaker C: But I didn't realize that. Yeah, there you go. There you go. [01:11:00] Speaker B: I've only. I've only played it once. I played it once. I was like, yes, this is really cool. It's been in the box. [01:11:06] Speaker C: Yeah. Like no re release since the Master System game. Basically it got a Game Gear port, which weirdly I believe is more or less just a Master System game. It's not like, like it is just trying to run the Master System game on Game Gear, which in some ways makes sense because they're so similar hardware wise. But I don't. I've never understood what that means in terms of the resolution because Game Gear has a. [01:11:30] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I don't know because like for example, Sonic the Hedgehog on the Master System versus Game Gear is like the first Robotnik fight you can hit. [01:11:42] Speaker C: Oh yeah, Dr. Robotnik. [01:11:44] Speaker B: And yes, I'm using Robotnik because that's what it was at the time. Over here. So you can hit Robotnik on the Game Gear, which you can't reach him on the Master System version. And in Sonic 2, the first boss is a lot more difficult than the Master System version because the, again, the resolution of the screen, the, the bounces are a lot more of the bombs that have to hit the boss, they're a lot more difficult to dodge. [01:12:17] Speaker C: Yeah, it's because those are ports specifically. I'm sure they were easy to do because again, incredibly similar architecture. But as I understand it, like, I think there is only like a Master System rom For Castle of Illusion, that's what the Game Gear cartridge had. I don't know if you get like a weird kind of like the pixels like looking a little bit off because of that. [01:12:42] Speaker B: It's literally just a port. Not a port at all. It is literally just that game. Specifically on the Game Gear. No alterations at all. That would be. Wouldn't it? [01:12:51] Speaker C: That's what I understand. I think there might be one or two other games like that because they did release an adapter for the Game Gear to play Master System games and I think it's maybe a similar thing there. So maybe like RPGs, the text gets weird. But that's very cool for the time. But in any case, yeah, those are like the only RE releases they've ever done. The eight bit one. And then the remake is. I'm actually not sure if it's. I mean on PS3 it's going to be delisted anyway, if it hasn't already. But on Steam it was delisted and then surprisingly relisted. So you can still at least play the remake. It is a bit touchy. If you try and go above like the Xbox 360 720p kind of resolution. The game can start to have one or two texture issues or crash and there's a text file in the game's folder where you can like unlock the frame rate. So it's like, oh, here we go. And then the game just got mad choppy when I did that. So I assume that broke something. But probably. I mean that Steam version, you might be able to get something with it because it would look really nice at higher res, honestly. But if you keep it within the 360 Live Arcade like 720p, you can at least play at 60 because the 360 PS3 versions refer to. Really good game for Steam deck as well. I noticed actually out of the box. Really nice on that. But yeah, hopefully they. Hopefully Disney because Disney seemed quite game for re release and stuff like Aladdin, Lion King, Toy Story stuff upcoming. Yeah, quite a few others. Hopefully they can work something out with Sega because there is quite a legacy here as we say. Like there's easily enough illusion games for it to be its own collection. That would be. [01:14:40] Speaker B: Yeah, they could do a passive illusion collection and it could literally just be the three different versions. [01:14:47] Speaker C: Yeah. Get quack shot as well. Make me happy. [01:14:50] Speaker A: They could call it, you know, Mickey Mouse's collection of illusions. Couldn't they get a compilation game. [01:14:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:14:56] Speaker A: If they were to make another like Mickey Mouse illusion game of any kind. Just hear me, hear me out, Disney. Just go back to the rubber hose style animation. Make it genuinely scary, because that's what's given Castle evolution on the Mega Drive such longevity. For me, it's like, you know, it's. It's got that horror movie that you love to watch again and again sort of quality to it. And I know it's probably unintentional, a lot of it, because a lot of it was coincidentally a marriage of, you know, the sprite work and the sound design and even some slightly dodgy programming that made getting hit and dying overly sensitive and very sudden and startling. But just all of those things is why I love Castle of Illusion so much, because it genuinely scared the hell out of me as a kid. And it's not the only game to have done that. But that's why I love it. [01:15:52] Speaker C: We want children to be traumatized. [01:15:54] Speaker B: Yes. That's why every. Every Christmas, I pour on Watership down and play dogs [01:16:04] Speaker C: where there's like a brain transplant and a really monstrous Jacqueline Hyde kind of Mickey [01:16:11] Speaker A: and then It's a Wonderful Life for New Year's. [01:16:13] Speaker B: Yep. I think that is gonna be the end for this episode. We've been going a while. I would like to thank you both for taking part. [01:16:29] Speaker A: Thank you. Thanks for having me. [01:16:30] Speaker C: Thank you. [01:16:31] Speaker B: No worries at all. Is there anything you would like to plug your twitch channel, your YouTube channels? Anything at all? [01:16:42] Speaker A: Jasm. [01:16:44] Speaker C: Yeah. So I'm Jasm on Twitch, Jasm on Bluesky. I stream fairly often. Usually like Tuesday, Thursday, sometimes. I'll just name every day of the week. Really. It'll vary week by week. But yeah, I just do a lot of fun old evening streams on there. And yeah, I definitely want to hear Ben's plugs. There's some really cool stuff there. So go ahead, Ben. [01:17:07] Speaker A: Thank you. Well, mean, outside of being generally a Sonic the Hedgehog fan and a part of that community and a bit of a retro gamer, I am a travel blogger and I have a website called Afterlight Travel, which is my new business that I have recently launched. So you can find me@afterlight travel.com or if it's easier, it's. Or dhd travel.com because it is a travel blog website aimed at adults with autism and adhd. [01:17:38] Speaker C: So. Good. [01:17:40] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a really cool, really cool thing to be doing it. Like, we've spoken briefly before this episode and it's something that we. You, You. You've said that is, like, very rare to find or, you know, it is. [01:17:57] Speaker A: Thank you. Well, I haven't started in earnest yet because I've got a lot of personal affairs to sort out first. But the idea has come because, you know, if you look up autism travel online, all of the advice out there is aimed at parents and guardians of autistic children. And it's just neurotypicals talking amongst themselves, really. So it's aimed to be, you know, travel advice that's by all the HD folks for Audi. HD folks, at least from this one, because I have 10 years of solo travel experience before this. And, you know, aside from this website, I have a YouTube channel where you can find me at Ben CG Travel. So that's simply YouTube.com bencg really easy way to find me rather than searching up my name just to put the URL straight. And it will take you to me. But yeah, afterlighttravel.com and my YouTube channel is where you can find my travel blogs. And yeah, come and check me out and say hi. [01:18:58] Speaker B: Thank you very much. That is going to be us. Hopefully we'll be back soon with another episode. Bye. Bye. [01:19:07] Speaker A: Take care. Bye. [01:19:08] Speaker C: Cheers.