Ok Lets Begin
Okdoky lets start by giving it it’s full title “World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck” or World of Illusion (WOL) as I will refer to it because I ain’t typing WOLSMMADD as an abbreviation, although it would have been perfect if there’d been a T between the L and S. Emirin was the Director and Game designer of WOL as well as a number of other Disney games based off the "Castle of Illusion" series of Megadrive games along with another game designer called Yagami which could be a in joke if I take one translation of it to mean “Night God” or they are in fact a real person but they seem to have thus so far only ever been credited as a game designer for this game and have seemingly done nothing else in the gaming world under this name.
Plot
I’ll summarise the plot of WOL as although there are differences between the manual and what the game presents the only real difference is that the game shows you a condensed yet faithful retelling of what the manual tells. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are magicians rehearsing for the big magic show that they have coming up. During rehearsal Mickey startles Donald with a flashy magic trick. Donald falls backward into some scenery and reveals a prop that neither of them has seen before, a wooden cabinet with the depiction of a grotesque face on it, mouth agape with a velvet curtain hanging closed within the maw. Donald see’s it as an interesting magicians box and says it’d be perfect for the show. Mickey on the other hand doesn’t like the look of it as an ominous glow is emitting from behind the curtain. Donald, quick to ignore Mickey's apprehension, jumps inside and closes the curtain and with a poof he’s gone. Mickey quickly follows after in search of him with a poof of his own. As the two fall through a void of darkness they are mocked and challenged by what is described as an “evil voice”. It essentially laughs at them and then challenges them to learn more magic and travel his “World of Magic!” to defeat him in a magic duel. The manual suggests there's a time frame but the game does not, so basically travel through the “World of Magic!” on the fly and defeat a possibly evil wizard and hey presto your home.
Pros
WOL has really good sprite graphics and a variety in the colours and themes for it's levels, mostly a sort of slight perversion of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. This theme follows through to many of the enemies you’ll come across such as the Mad Hatter's face attached to saw in three magicians box shuffling towards you. Now that I describe it sounds horrifying but really it's a Disney game so we’ll gloss over the darker implications of that. There are of course a good number of inanimate objects personified and given life in Disney fashion as well. Obviously there are a couple of cameos either front and centre such as bosses or some are relegated more to backgrounds and cutscenes. Ultimately you feel like you are traversing a Disney world and that’s about as good of a Pro as you can get for an early 90’s game built on a brand like Disney. In fact I probably wouldn’t mind a classically animated Disney movie or series loosely based on the magical exploits of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
WOL is a very good co-op player game for the most part with very simple and easy to get to grip controls, although you might need to check the manual to figure out some of the cooperative control sections. I seem to remember having to do that when I first played the game in co-op as dropping a rope down to your partner requires you to press the run button next to the ledge there trying to get up, yeah that's right the “RUN” button. After that though I don’t remember checking the manual for anything else and considering I played this mostly at the age of seven I’d argue the controls are pretty simple for the time. Co-op as I say is great fun and is but one path through the game. Yes this game does have some replay value for those who don’t have a player 2 can play the game solo with Mickey or Donald who both have divergent paths through the game each having unique level sections.
Great music for this era of gaming though unlike the bopping tunes Sonic 2, Mortal Kombat or Streets of Rage 2 WOL’s music is a much more relaxed affair for the most part. but feels very thematic for its levels. I was never bored of its music or found it overstaying its welcome. In fact I’d say the only music that could be considered slightly grating is the boss theme but I personally didn’t find it all that annoying as it’s infrequent and usually rather short lived.
Cons
Occasionally getting stuck in co-op is a thing. Yes, who'd have thought an early 90’s game doing on screen co-op wouldn’t have a few bugs. Put simply there are moments in the cooperative play where you or your partner can get stuck. This is usually when said person has fallen off somewhere and they can’t die resulting in the other player not been able to scroll the screen or reach them to assist them it happens infrequently and is avoidable but when it happens it's essentially a soft lock of the game and the only thing to do is to reset usually. The game does feature a password system to level select if you do get stuck in this fashion although you only get to choose to see these passwords in the game over screen of the game so probably just look them up on the internet if you get stuck.
The door room is a pain in the ass as it’s just like a clip show section of the levels you’ve played before. You go through a door, play the small section of the level then your back choosing another door rinse and repeat until you get to the last boss. This level section is very annoying as it makes you think your not really progressing and unfortunately it’s in the co-op playthrough right after a section where you need to jump on the correct dice to pass through a gate if you don’t hit the correct one you’ll either be sent to a previous section of the level you just played or a small bonus stage either way you’ll end up back at the dice making this section with the doors even more frustrating and tedious.
Nerd O metre
High 3 out 5
Final thoughts
WOL's atmosphere and cooperative play I think elevates this game above the standard platformer and this is a proper co-op more akin to Golden Axe and Altered Beast then Sonic 2 which I’ll cover the cons and merits of in the future when I get around to that review. So the Question is WOL good for you reader and to that I do have a little caveat. WOL is not a difficult game and to be honest I don't think it was ever intended to be a difficult game based on it's intended audience at the time. Therefore if your the kind of person who plays games more for there challenge factor then anything else I would say probably skip this one. However if you're the kind of person who likes classic Disney stuff and likes playing a chill game with friends then I'd say this is more for you. It's a high quality game of the times and it's just challenging enough to be fun to play for a few hours.
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