Wednesday 4 April 2012

Disney's Power of Illusion



For me, Disney's 'illusion' series is one of my favourite 'series' of games, new generations of consoles with updated graphics will come and go and look terrible after a couple of years but the illusion games will always look as great as they did when they were first released.




The illusion series started with Castle of Illusion. It was released in 1990 and starred Mickey Mouse. The aim of the game was to control Mickey through a number of levels to save Minnie Mouse who was kidnapped by the evil witch Mizrabel. 
Mickey has to work his way through the castle defeating enemies with items he picks up and then has to collect all seven gems from the bosses in order to build the rainbow bridge to the castles tower for the final showdown against the evil witch who kidnapped Minnie to steal her youth. 


When you finally face Mizrabel she is in her youthful form and  resembles the evil queen from Snow White - Queen Grimhilde.








Next in the illusion series is Land of Illusion which was released in 1992. This game starts with Mickey Mouse falling asleep with a book of fairy tales in his lap. When he wakes up he finds himself in a strange fairy tale land. He is quickly greeted by Daisy Duck who needs his help to save their once happy village which is now full of sadness after theevil phantom stole the magic crystal. 

The evil phantom who has stolen the the magic crystal turns out to be the Horned King from the Disney film The Black Cauldron. 














The third illusion game to be released was my favourite in the series - World of Illusion. Also released in 1992, this game not only starred Mickey Mouse but also starred Donald Duck. The extra character meant that you could choose a character to play as and it was also possible to now have two players playing co-operatively using each others strengths to move through the levels. 
The game starts with Mickey and Donald practising their magic act when something goes wrong and they are vanished into a magical world where they must survive a vast amount of levels to make it back home.
Mickey and Donald must learn new magic tricks after defeating the level bosses to be able to make it through the next level, such as they learn how to use a magic carpet so they can fly across level 2 which is where they learn how to make magic bubbles to help them breath underwater.





The last illusion game that was released in the 90's was Legend of Illusion which was released in 1995. This game went back to its original format of just starring Mickey Mouse, this time Mickey is working as a janitor who must take the place of cowardly King Pete as only the king can save everyone from the cloud of darkness. There is a curse that is killing the Tree of Life and it is up to Mickey to save it, once King Pete learns that if Mickey saves everyone he will become the king forever King Pete plots to stop Mickey and ends up being the final boss of the game. 












It was recently announced that a new game for the Nintendo 3DS will be arriving late 2012 called Epic Mickey : Power of Illusion. This game is being released alongside Epic Mickey 2 on the Wii. Power of Illusion is said to have been made in tribute to the original illusion games. 


Once again the evil witch Mizrabel and her castle of illusion feature, herself and her castle have been transported to the wasteland by the wizard Yen Sid. Mickey is contacted by Oswald and he says that Minnie has been spotted in the castle. Mickey sets off to save Minnie and the other characters trapped in the castle of illusion. 






The game mixes the game mechanics of the original games and the newer Wii games Epic Mickey / Epic Mickey 2. Players will be able to use the 3DS' touch screen to use Mickeys magic paintbrush, how well you use the brush determines how well the items work in game. For example if you trace a cannon perfectly the cannon will only harm enemies but if you are not careful with your drawing it could possibly harm Mickey aswell as his enemies.



No comments:

Post a Comment