While I’m not a huge Disney fan, I do love Mickey Mouse. He’s a true icon, a cheeky chap that’s starred in some of the most beautiful pieces of animation ever created, and so I’ll jump at any chance I get to play a game with him in it. Disney Illusion Island is no different, and while I wasn’t immediately enamoured with the premise, I quickly found that there’s a lovely little game in there.
Mickey, Minnie, Goof,y and the hilariously grouchy Donald are all lured to Monoth under false pretences where they’re given the task of collecting three MacGuffins to save the creatures that live there. While it’s a fairly standard premise, the fantastic writing and fully animated and voiced cutscenes elevate it to another level. They’re a little long but genuinely feel like an episode of “The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse”; they’re that compelling.
The remainder of the game consists of relatively simple platforming within a MetroidVania framework. There’s no combat whatsoever, so the game purely relies on your platforming prowess to progress, and it doles out new upgrades periodically such as a double jump, a glide, a ground pound, and other standard platforming moves. None of these new abilities are particularly surprising, but I found it a lot of fun seeing what each character gets as they’re handed out.
Mickey, as the star of the show, tends to get all the cool gadgets, such as a jetpack for double jumping. Minnie, the prim and proper princess, gets the “right” tools for the job, including actual climbing gear to allow her to wall jump. Hungry Goofy’s gear is entirely made up of food items and a single fork, while poor Donald just seems to get whatever’s left which usually leads to some funny dialogue. His ability to double jump is powered by a rickety old rocket, which he rightly points out is going to explode at some point but nobody else seems to care.
You’ll be taking one of these four heroes out into Monoth, zig-zagging across the map to find the missing items and hunting down collectibles along the way. Platforming feels impressively tight, with excellent precise control over your movement allowing you to set up some clean and crisp runs through the world.
The platforming extends to the game’s boss battles, which typically take the abilities you’ve learnt in the preceding section and asks you to use them creatively to indirectly deal damage to the bosses. These sections almost feel like basic puzzles at times, and they’re surprisingly fun. That said they can drag on a bit, with some having one or two phases more than you expect, which leaves you wondering when it’ll end.
The game has some handy accessibility features too, letting you tweak jumping, visual effects and more. You can give yourself more hearts at the start of the game, or make yourself invincible entirely so you can play the game in a way which you find most fun. Co-op allows for up to 4 players, and it can get chaotic so giving yourselves a little extra support is probably a good idea.
Visually the game is gorgeous. It really captures the look and feel of the newer Mickey Mouse cartoons, with a style that feels like a modernised take on the original 1930s aesthetic. The game is packed with detail too, especially when using abilities. Watching Mickey strapping on goggles as he uses his jetpack never got old in the 6 hours it took me to finish the main story. The audio is also top tier, with the background music sounding like classic Disney at its best, complemented by excellent voice acting for all four of the heroes and the supporting cast too. It’s just a shame that voice acting is mostly limited to cutscenes.
Disney Illusion Island isn’t a particularly difficult or unusual video game, but it more than makes up for that with its charm and humour. If you’re into Disney and Mickey Mouse then you’ll definitely want to pick this up and join the gang on a fun romp through Monoth.