It takes a brave developer to tackle nostalgia head-on, even moreso when the original game was created by a completely different company and is considered one of the high points of an entire generation. For the first portable entry in the Disney Epic Mickey series, Dreamrift has peered back to the well-loved Mickey Mouse games of the 16-bit era, specifically Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse.
Just like its 16-bit forebears, Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion is a 2D platformer. In a strange mash-up of Castle of Illusion's and Disney Epic Mickey's respective lores, the evil witch Mizrabel has returned, only this time she's parked up in the abandoned world of Wasteland – she's a forgotten character now, see. Desperate to escape, Mizrabel imprisons several Disney characters, old and new, in her evil castle to steal their cartoon energy. After receiving a distress call from Oswald, Mickey promptly hops back to Wasteland to save the day and his beloved Minnie Mouse.
Power of Illusion takes the painting concept of the console Disney Epic Mickey titles and converts it into a touch screen-based drawing mechanic. As you stomp about a few well-known Disney worlds, you have to solve basic puzzles by scribbling in new objects or rubbing out any that are getting in the way while seeking out as many of the captives as you can.
Find one of Mizrabel's hostages and they'll zoom off to the Fortress, a safe place manned by Oswald. You can visit each rescued character to receive quests, which usually involve you visiting another character to negotiate a trade or digging back through a previously completed stage to find one of their missing friends. Certain characters, such as Duckburg's own Scrooge McDuck, set up shops that sell upgrades. Many of the side missions are shallow – often you read some text, go to another room, read some more text, quest complete – but it's quite nice to see the contrasting characters interact.
It looks great. Cute, detailed sprites populate the world; Mickey and enemies alike are animated well, while the backgrounds clearly represent the appropriate Disney films. Unfortunately the 3D effect is basically non-existent, however, the backgrounds simply further back without any clever layering. Recognisable takes on famous music stream out as you play, though they're punctuated by Mickey's high-pitched yelps a little too much. Small voice clips played whenever Mickey engages in a text conversation are of good quality but don't always fit fully; there seems to be a limited bucket of samples that has been dipped into for every situation.
Unfortunately, Power of Illusion doesn't play as nicely as it looks. It's a pretty basic platformer with balance problems, hugely easy in some areas, infuriatingly unfair in others. The flow is also broken fairly regularly by the drawing mechanic, which pauses the action whenever you're doodling to uncover hidden characters or to build a series of platforms to navigate around a hazard.
The platforming comes to a complete standstill whenever you do this; the main play takes place on the upper screen, and when you enter painting mode the top display freezes while the bottom screen's usual map is replaced by a gigantic outline of the object you need to draw. Given the relative lack of stereoscopic 3D, it might have made more sense to put the platforming on the touch screen so that players could draw into the levels directly without stopping and starting.
The drawing input is accurate, but there's no need for it to crop up quite so often, and there's only a small number of objects to actually scrawl — saving the mechanic and using it more sporadically would have made it feel more special. The difference between adding or removing something from the environment is a little obtuse too: to draw an object, you only trace the outline; to erase, you have to rub over the whole thing. You can call on friends or special items by tapping an icon and carefully splodging some paint in the right places, too. This is never necessary, though we did like that we could summon Tinkerbell and her pixie dust to give us better jumping – er, “flying” – abilities at any time.
Much like Castle of Illusion, the walking speed is on the slow side, while jumping is floaty; the 16-bit game's movement is emulated well. It takes some getting used to, but controls decently once you've mastered it. Unfortunately it's ruined by a horrendous difficulty jump in the frustrating final third of the game. Here the level design punishes movements that were perfectly acceptable in earlier areas. Water streams push you towards spiked walls at a rate only marginally slower than Mickey's strides, ceilings are set so low that you end up bumping them even with the shortest of jumps; you're needlessly shoved into danger at every turn in these sections.
It's not helped by a punishing health system. Again, it's not too noticeable an issue until later stages, as the level design is at least fair earlier on. Certain enemies can snatch away up to three hearts per attack, while a brush with spikes will set you back a heart and a half. You can collect extra health by shooting bad guys with paint or finding them dotted about, but each pick up only gives you half a heart back; fall below a certain level and you face a constant uphill struggle to recoup enough energy to continue.
Enemies can be killed in multiple ways, from traditional mid-air bottom bounces and spin attacks to paint projectiles. The problem is the amount of hits they can take: before you upgrade your powers, it takes an astonishing – and completely unnecessary – six hits to knock out some of the standard bad guys. Improve your butt stomping prowess and you'll find that they can take a few less hits, but the number of enemies also increases to scale with your new abilities, which undermines the point of upgrading somewhat.
All of this is presumably an effort to add longevity to proceedings, as it's more than possible to clear Power of Illusion in less than eight hours – and that's if you take your time and do some backtracking, replaying through levels to find more lost friends tucked away in nooks and crannies. Multiple paths through stages do add some replay value, so it's not too bad to revisit some of the levels another time or two; the earlier ones, at least.
One of the most disappointing things is how few Disney films are actually represented as worlds. There's a decent range of characters from several eras – we enjoyed looking out for who was going to show up next, and there's a good mix of those that youngsters will recognise versus slightly more obscure heroes and villains – but when it comes to the levels, only Peter Pan, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid are given a spotlight. With a grand total of three worlds, each of which only features three or four stages, it falls well short of the promised scope.
Conclusion
Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion dripped with potential upon announcement, but the final result is a more smudged affair. A fun, if basic, platformer lies at its heart, yet it's coated with unbalanced difficulty and drawing mechanics that interrupt its flow regularly, while the number of worlds is very disheartening. Disney fans will get a kick out of seeing which characters turn up, but if you're expecting another Castle of Illusion, you're going to be disappointed.
Comments 92
A 4/10? I was thinking about getting this game, but now I'm not so sure...
The color combination used in the graphics looks very nice, sad to hear the 3D effect isn't any good.
@Phle
Well download the demo from the Eshop and see for yourself. Try before you buy!
Ouch! Wasn't expecting this... The demo was sort of ok, I guess it only goes down from there.
A 4? I say it deserves a 6 at best. It's not the best game, but its not that bad!
I thought the graphics were sharp and colourful (based on the demo), and the 3D was pretty good and added depth, but I found that having to draw with the stylus constantly was annoying and ruined the game for me.
4/10? Ouch!
I know the game isn't brilliant,but it isn't that bad,I'd give it a solid 70%
The short length,stylus painting,and meh side quests.Were the let downs.
Really? I find this game a lot of fun. The difficulty curve feel like the games of old which is fine by me. Every time I screw up on a jump its a timing issue on my part. I agree that more films and shows should have been represented, but its ruins the game.
The one thing I will agree with is the drawing does pull you out of the game. It just gets annoying when you have to do multiple times for one jump. Having to quickly color stuff in to make it appear in-game would have been a better mechanic IMO. Buying upgrades to the size of the brush so you can fill in and erase faster would have fit well with the upgrade system in the game.
I enjoyed it a lot more than this, I'd give it a 6 or a generous 7. Yeah, it's got flaws you can't ignore, but it's still a charmer.
Ouch indeed. And I thought the bad reviews I previously read were unfair despite never playing the game before. I was thinking about getting this for my nephew for his 8th birthday or for Christmas but now I won't.
I brought him Pokedex 3D Pro two weeks ago and he was very happy with that.
I always thought this looked like crap, good to see it's not just me.
10$ bargain bin for me. It's still looks to hold my attention for a while.
This game is the biggest disappointment of the year for me. It looks good, but that's about it. I would give it a 2/10. It's so incredibly boring. Why do the easiest enemies take so many hits? You constantly have to stop. And why am I drawing or erasing the letters A and B every other minute? The drawing mechanic is so tedious and it adds NOTHING to the game. I guess kids might find it fun...
I had high hopes for this game.
Its nice if you want a quickplay. Other than that, its not too rewarding.
god it's not supposed to be another castle of illusions. it's supposed to be an Epic Mickey game for the handheld which drawing and erasing is a big part of the Epic Mickey series. you guys really need to see the game for what it is, a fun short game to play. why people have to complain about something that is part of the Epic Mickey series is beyond me. if you don't like the game fine but stop comparing it to Castle of Illusions.
I'm not comparing it to Castle of Illusion. The problem is it's just not fun. Here are some more reason: What's the point of putting all those Disney characters in the game when they do absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. They just stand there, then you talk to them in a dialogue that's way too long and always explains why the characters are there. Then they stand in the Fortress where you can talk to them leading to another boring dialogue. Some of them give you fetch quests which means you just have to go to a different character and then back to the other one. What's the point of this? There's absolutely no skill involved, it's just boring.
When I played the demo I thought it was ok (it was annoying not being able to skip the cutscene at the start) but I thought it would get a better score.
I have to say I can see why. The completely annoying Paining mechanic probably get annoying really fast, and the game overall seemed slow and uneventful.
NOOOOO!! I had huge hopes for this game based on my love of Henry Hatsworth and the Nintendo Power coverage... gosh dang.
@manu0 that's quite a lot of bashing on this game from someone who just joined this site a half hour ago.
Mike Mason, all I can say is thanks for your sincerity. Superb review by the way, clear and detailed.
woah shorter than i thought it would be, bit at the same time not suprised. also not sure i would mind the lack of health i mean it is a platformer, a genre where you tradionally dont have very many hits, i mean mario could only be hit twice before dying
Oh gosh...what a review and the comments too... After reading all this I'm not sure if I should get it now... I never played Castle of Illusions.... The main reason I wanted to get this game because it's the closest thing to the SNES game "Mickey Mania" for me and I LOVE Mickey Mania for the SNES [not Genesis]. Since Mickey Mania was NEVER released for the Wii's VC, Power of illusions seem to be the way to go.... -_- I'll try the demo I guess... Thanks for the review Mike.
I'm definitely getting this game, I like the demo.
Wow. I guess this game is just not some people's cup of tea. While I do agree that the drawing mechanics do disrupt the game flow, I dont think that that warrants a 4.
Great review though.
It just annoys me that the 3DS is capable of some lovely graphics and this game could have easily looked like the Wii version. But instead they make it 2D and poor 2D at that, it looked like a normal DS game. The demo bored me so much, the wii original I loved it had charm this score is about right. I didn't even finish the demo
Oh and to the haters, I love 2D the snes is my favorite console but this game should have been the same as the console versions
@WindWakerLink I wish those wonderful SNES and MegaDrive/Genesis games were released for the Virtual Console. I miss the old good Mickey, Aladdin, The Lion King... Those were great games, not like this one for 3DS.
This game could have been so Much. Although I would have given this game a 6. Still not good! I felt the gameplay was good but the presentation felt half ass'd and the backgrounds although they look nice Seem like a bad Saturday morning cartoon. Same with the cutscenes. I'm sorry but the ball was dropped on this game and is not near the Joy of playing Castle of Illusion.
I played this at Comic con and it seemed good, didn't play it that long but it looked alright, I was gonna get this for Christmas, but after playing the demo, I agree, the drawing mechanics just slow it down to much and it's not that long, it's a real shame since I was more interested in this version than the power of two, also this game is at Toys''R''Us for a lower price of $19.99, but even at that price, it's not worth it.
@Sun: "Yea. Me too!"
@SheldonRandoms: "I, too, was more interested in this version than the power of two. But $19.99 @ ToysRus?? Are you sure? That's crazy for it to be that price already. Know that messes with my decision even more. (Chuckles) Thanks."
@WindWakerLink - Just get a Retron 3 and you can play all the SNES and Genesis Mickey Mouse games, it also plays NES but there aren't really any good Mickey Mouse games there...
3 min into the demo I knew I'd never play it again.
Both handheld and console versions have taken a beating in the reviews...don't think we'll see more sequels anytime soon
Sorry Mick, looks like your developers dropped the ball on both of the games you star in this time around. They should just let you chill for a little bit instead of ruining your good name!
For not more than 15 Euro's, this cute, fun game is mine!
On top of the irritating pencil mechanic, the characters won't shut up, even if they don't say anything worth reading and the levels are not fun.
What a letdown of a game.
@SteveW: "Oh! That's good to know. Thanks."
Yup, another bargain bin wait. If the game was at least 10-12 hours long I could ignore all the other problems.
What a shame, I loved the Demo.
I like the demo too.
Yeah, I wasn't impressed with the demo.
If you played say the first hour of this game u may well love it, but the flaws start to really gripe after that. A lot. I think the review is very harsh in saying its 4/10 level though. More of a 6/10. I've pretty much played through it now and traded it in. Both the wii game and this have been big disappointments, coming from a fan of the originals.
Haters gonna hate. I am loving this game!
i got this game at launch and i spent less then an hour on the game and completly lost my interest on it! i myself would give it 5/10 because the game is not bad but it's very mediocre! pick up a copy if you find it for 12€ or less
If you haven't noticed, side-scrolling video games have sucked ever since the end of the GBA. There ain't a single quality side-scrolling action platformer or brawler in the entire DS/3DS lifespan. There have been attempts, a lot of them by WayForward, but those always had major flaws to keep them from being great, like too easy (Batman the Brave and the Bold) or too repetitive (Thor). Griptonite had a few games that approached greatness like Shinobi 3D or Spider-Man Web of Shadows. But not quite in the same ballpark as those myriad of old elite Genesis titles. Overall, 99% of side-scrollers in the DS family suck.
What's the cause? Society. Parents whine when a kid can't beat the 1st level, so games become easier, even though for 20+ years every game was tough as nails and kids still loved the heck out of em. And then there's the message board crowd like all you people. You see a nice side-scroller like Epic Mickey 2 and you say, I don't know if I'd pay $40 for this. So the devs have to add cheap gimmicks to make these people feel like it's worth their money.
So don't whine when games don't meet the old standard of Genesis titles. That's just another area where society has been downgraded. It'll never get back to the glory days, except for short experiences like Mutant Mudds via the eShop. If you want a LEGIT retro sidescroller fix, check out "At Games Ultimate Portable Game Player". The screen ain't too big (about the size of the GBA), but it's very well made according to all the reviews. The big selling point here is that it has FORTY Genesis games on it, and I'm talking heavy hitters like Super Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition, Mega Man: The Wily Wars, and the Streets of Rage trilogy. Imagine gettin that baby in your stocking!
I tried the demo a couple of days ago and the game let me down in a great number of ways.
One of the foremost issues was that they just wouldn't, stop, talking. The game was entirely too dialogue heavy which broke up a gameplay a lot when you rescued a character, or took on a quest etc.
Mickey's arsenal of moves wasn't particularly impressive. They actually, like a great deal of things in the game, greatly embody the same sort of ranged and melee attacks, map screen, dialogues, shop and upgrades as such as Henry Hatsworth. Unfortunately it all goes sour there somehow.
A fair review. This game doesn't do justice to Castle of Illusion OR Epic Mickey and I wish I hadn't bought it.
In my opinion, this score is spot-on. A score of 5 is average and a 4 is one grade below average. And that's what this game is, one grade below average. That being said, some people will enjoy this game so if you have any thought at all that you might want to get it definitely try out the demo first before writing it off.
I've been looking into this since they were going for the SNES look. Definitely looking away now...
A 4 was a little hard on the game .... both me and my partner thought it was very nice and nostalgic ... little short, yes, and drawing could be a pain ... its worth more than to be left behind shadows ... Maybe it's me who's too nostalgic ...
@itsanandito The graphics and visuals are absolutely lush, but that's where the compliments end to be honest.
Honestly when I played the demo there was no energy coming off it.
The game is repetitive and boring. A 4/10 seems about right.
When I heard about the drawing mechanic, a red flag went up. Sad to see I was right to be concerned.
The demo was lackluster. Doesn't surprise me the full game is more of the same.
It was low on my list to buy anyways, still never saw this score coming.
I'm hearing different opinions. IGN gave it a pretty good score. Definitely give it a shot before you make a decision.
I liked the demo, and Dreamrift's previous output also amps up the difficulty near the end, but I certainly wasn't nearly as impressed by how the bottom screen was used, sadly.
The most disappointing game of the year. I had high hopes for it but some stupid design decisions ruined the entire experience. Having to constantly draw on the bottom screen alone ruins the momentum of some awesome platform ign moments. I'm gutted but this review is accurate.
I felt the demo was kinda boring, so this isn't too unexpected. Oh well, I wasn't going to get it anyways (too many games, not enough money), so I'm personally not affected.
I loved the demo and thought the drawing segments were fun. They just talked WAY too much. I didn't think it was even a playable demo since the intro was so long! lol
I finished this game 100% yesterday.
I personally disagree about the difficulty. I waltzed through this, but then I did play it directly after finishing Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure; so I suppose anything's going to feel easy by comparison.
Despite the horrendous amount of backtracking required to see and do everything, I did have fun with this game. It is a typically beautiful looking and sounding game, as you would expect from DreamRift. Eleven unique levels and three boss battles is a bit disappointing, though. It would've been great to have seen their take on Simba's Pride Lands, or Alice's Wonderland and so on.
Power of Illusion is far from perfect (it is not the next Monster Tale), but if you enjoyed the demo and keep your expectations down, you'll probably have fun simply soaking up all the sprite-based Disney characters and locations.
@SanderEvers
What the hell are you talking about? I didn't say a single word about those games (which I actually quite enjoy by the way)
Disney Epic Mickey Power of Illusion, at least the demo I played, failed to satisfy on a lot of fronts as gameplay goes.
I'm currently playing through it now(on the second World). So far, I disagree with this score. I usually agree with NL's reviews. This one's a bit harsh imo.
Worst part about the game is the rapid drawing...
well, this sucks.
I'm DEFINETLY getting this game! LOVED the demo
I was actually waiting for this game but there hasn't been one good review yet. Disappointing because I need something new on my 3ds.
I still think this is a decent game, and it took me just under 13 hours to do everything in it. I'm no slouch at at gaming either because I've had Nintendo systems since the original NES and I did everything on New Super Mario Bros 2. in little more than 10 hours (yes, it actually took me longer to do all the side quests in Epic Mickey!), though I really can't be bothered with the 1 million coin collecting thing. Certain aspects of the review are fair (the painting mechanic DOES get repetitive and disrupts the flow of gameplay) but to say it's not another Castle Of Illusion is unfair....Castle Of Illusion is one of the most grossly overrated platformers ever and has no challenge (you can breeze through it even on Hard difficulty) or replayability whatsoever...at least the developer tried to add some meat to the bones here.
my expectations were low when i first heard it of it, same with the power of 2.
This doesn't suprise me. The demo was too big, and I knew it would be way too short.
I could tell this was going to be bad; just the demo was incredibly boring. The quests that involved going from room to room talking to various characters were the most boring, and posed no challenge whatsoever.
That sucks. Even though this game seemed to have so much potential, I always had a feeling it wouldn't deliver.
Though will try the demo out before deciding whether to purchase.
I think a 6 would be a better score. Not great, but not awful..
Thats an ouch, well it might turn out to be lovable. Hey if you want it get it, even at full price. You might like it.
Ouch! A 4?! On other sites the game doesn't score that high either (though I guess this is one of the lowest scores), so I guess I'll pass!
I thought the demo was fine apart from having to stop every 5 seconds to trace round a picture with my stylus. It interrupted the flow of the game, and how the game designers couldn't see that is a mystery to me.
I'm loving it so far, it's games like this one that keep us from ageing, haha!
Lovely music, graphics (some cool lighting effects and parallax scrolling too), plenty of humour, laid-back style of gameplay and interactive fun with the touchscreen.
Oh, and, no time limit so you can enjoy all those qualities without any rush.
9/10 from me.
When I first watched the Nintendo Show in the 3DS featuring the developers of this game, some time in mid-2012, the developers said you have to draw on the bottom screen, and that will have an effect on the top screen. I thought this was like Scribblenauts, where you can create anything, except this time you draw whatever's in your imagination and not just merely type it, which was pretty cool for me, so I decided that once this game comes out, I'll be the first one to play it. Fortunately, the demo came out which changed my opinion about this game. Thank you Disney for releasing that demo. Without that, I would have wasted cash.
I had somewhat high hopes for this game just a few months ago, but between the lukewarm impressions in most of the final reviews and my own lackluster experience with the demo (gorgeous visuals aside), I'm going to pass on it.
Maybe I'll scoop it up if it's ever in a $10 bargain bin, but until then, I'll look to Adventure Time: HIKWYSOG for my sprite-based, side-scrolling, licensed property kicks on the 3DS.
Expected it.Mickey moves way too slow and this just isn't the Epic Mickey I've come to love.
I just finished the game.
4/10 is kind of harsh.
If this game was at least double the length and the drawing mechanic was used a quarter of what it is now, I would easily give this game 9/10.
As is, the game, imo, deserves 6/10.
i tried the demo. really bad graphics and the difficulty is too easy
I'm glad I read some reviews of this. I'm a sucker for colorful platformers but I haven't read a single good thing about Power of Illusion.
Every reviewer has his/her own tastes. No 2 are completely alike. Likewise for every gamer.
I d/led the demo late Friday night, & just today started playing it. I feel it's simply playing to the merging of (the) sidescrolling/platformers genre of the golden age of gaming(8-16 bit era) w/ the "paint/erase" mechanic of the series this game is (main-)named after. You're dealing w/, effectively, a modern gameplay mechanic(touchscreen use), combined w/ a retro game genre. Of course there's going to be issues. It's sorta like how (some) people didn't like SM3DL's meshing of linear levels, w/ the 3d (open-world) level design of SM64. While there are always others, Nintendo is primarily the one who puts their own hardware to the best use.
I still am going to play the demo more to decide on a purchase, but from what I played of it, it started me down that path of a possible purchase, for now. From what I played, the stopping to draw often was a little platforming-gameplay pausing, but not "disruptive", at least to me. Esp. considering one of the captain-obvious functions/features of the DS/3DS system family is using a stylus, on a touchscreen. It's just the dev playing to the hardware of the handheld system, & at the same time, incorporating a gameplay mechanic from the series. Not everyone thinks it's execution was decent. I think the score was a little harsh. I think the actual review itself, was a little bit leaning towards more negatives than positives, but for the most part, was fair.
Edit: The mostly lacking 3d is a similar situation to what went on w/ some games on the Wii: It may be a prominent system feature, but doesn't need to be used all the time. It should have been in, I think however. The main game screen being the touchscreen would have been better also, unless the 3d effects were going to be more prominently used. Backtracking does add some forms of replay value, but it depends on execution.
I personally enjoyed what I have played thus far, & will try to play to the end of the demo. Maybe the article aforementioned-issues come in after what the demo covers.
Does my somewhat disagreement w/ this review score turn me off from reading NLife reviews, & taking them as a credible source for making a possible purchase? Absolutely not. Again, every gamer is not 100% cookie-cutter alike.
The demo was great. The game must really taper off afterwards.
I only paid £24.99 for it,which was a pretty solid price,when considering ever other shop that sold it had it for £39.99.So I don't think I've wasted my money,I'm happy with my purchase,unlike Heroes of Ruin.
If you like Mickey Mouse, side-scrolling platformers reminiscent of the old Sega Genesis, or the original Castle of Illusion, and you don't buy this game because of a bad critic review or two, you really need to rethink your priorities
"If you're expecting another Castle of Illusion, you're going to be disappointed." - I sure hope it's not like Castle of Illusion where once you lose your lives you have to start the whole game over... and with no save feature, yikes!
I ordered it but have not received it yet.
Just got the game today. From what I've played it's neither spectacular nor poor. I haven't finished it yet but I'm probably about halfway through, I'd say a 4/10 is harsh but I probably wouldn't go higher than a 6 if I were reviewing it. There's certainly some redeemable qualities it just unfortunately isn't as good as some of Capcom's old Mickey games.
I've played it and it's pretty disappointing. I probably won't end up selling it because I won't get any money.
This is one of the very rare cases when I agree more with IGN's review than Nintendo Life's. They gave it a 7.0, and GameStop gave it an 8.0! The only other time I can think of, that I disagreed with a Nintendo Life review this much, was when Wario World was scored 5.0...
@Degwyn demo was boring
@Degwyn
I played the demo, the game was awful. I would give it a 2. A 2 as in 2D, it doesn't even use the 3D. The only time I could tell the 3D switch was on was when I saw a little clearing/window then you saw depth. The sprites and platforms should have at least stood out from the background. They didn't, your character and the background were the same depth. Go play Super Mario 2 to see a "2D" style side scroller done right in 3D. You can tell this was a lazy shovelware release. It was also incredibly short. Then there was that awful paint/thinning thing. Pure rubbish.
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