I thought this game looked pretty interesting when it got announced, and I picked it up during the Nintendo holiday sale this year. It’s a metroidvania where you play as Mickey, Minnie, Donald or Goofy, or all four of them. You go around, to different objectives, avoiding obstacles and traversing the level. There’s no fighting in this game, it’s just avoidance. To be honest it’s very much like Rayman Legends. You can even play up to 4 people at the same time, but I never tried that.
The good things first. I liked the animations. They are cartoonish and fun, like something you would see in Cuphead but not as goofy, and in Rayman Legends but not as great. I also liked the color palette they were going for at first, but as they use the same colors for the whole game, it quickly soured on me.
The music is great. It’s the kind of symphonic playful music that you’d expect from an old Disney movie. There is nothing about it that really stands out or gets stuck in your head, like Astro Bot’s soundtrack, but it’s a nice addition in the background.
Saying it’s a metroidvania is an exaggeration. You go around a giant map, pick up bonuses that lets you traverse the map in a different ways, but I would say rather it’s metroidvania lite. The game is very linear in terms of progression, you always go straight to a target and never really go back to unlock new areas with your new abilities. Comparing this metroidvania with another like Blasphemous 2 would be ridiculous, where Blasphemous 2 is incredibly well crafted and Disney Illusion Island feels more gimmicky.
The gameplay isn’t great. The game has a few tricks to throw at you, and then you play the same thing over and over for 6 hours. You jump on walls, avoid enemy bullets and ride lifts. That’s it, and it doesn’t get much more than that.
There is one puzzle the game repeats over and over. You shall fetch keys from different parts of the map to unlock a door in order to progress, very much like Ori and the Blind Forest. It would be fine if there were other puzzles in the game. Here it feels just like a way to make the game longer, which it doesn’t need.
The story is bad and the dialogue is cringe. Thank god it was just a 6 hour game.
I rate the game as OKAY.
Replay 