Land of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (1993)

This is a good game but I could only enjoy it so much for its age. ITs indeed a good looking and sounding MS game. there is a variety of music within the levels and sprites and backgrounds are colorful and fairly expressive. The game has fairly responsive controls and doesnt feel terribly slippy. It's not punishingly hard.

An overworld are where you select your next stage. Sometimes you have to pay attention to what you are told to know what to do next.

I found this game only so much fun. There arent really power ups. There are collectible 'stars' which I'm not sure what the purpose of them is (well they do refill all your life) food is pretty easy to come by to heal. LoI is a bland playing, but great looking and sounding game. a whole lot of the art and background style is directly pulled/inspired from SMB 3. It's also a fairly short game (provided you dont get lost) I'd like to give it a higher score for it's merits but its just not that much fun, or interesting. It feels like a wasted opportunity to make something more fun (or at least inspired) when such a nice looking and sounding title is as generic as it gets.

Platform:

Master System version.

Graphics/Sound:

The graphics are the best I have seen on the Master System. The 8-Bit quality has a really classic feel to it, and of course tilesets are much more noticable than in World of Illusion for example. I still like this one best.

The first 8-Bit Illusion game starring Mickey already had the nice pick up and throw mechanics, which were kept in this. In addition there are now some permanent items Mickey can find on the journey. Most of them enable a new ability, like becoming smaller or climbing walls. While these sound pretty powerful, none of this is overpowered thanks to the flawless level design. This game also features a top down world map, which I always liked in platformers since I have first seen it in games like Super Mario Bros 3 and Commander Keen. This map also enables you to replay levels you have already beaten to find more stuff you might have missed. There is also some instances where you have to return to a previous level and go a newly unlocked route, and there is minimal backtracking involved.

Difficulty:

It's a very fair game, where you have between 3 and 5 hp. So it's doable for anyone. There is a time limit in levels, but it became noticable only in 2 levels for me, so it didn't really pose a problem. The controls are as tight as in the previous game, and something that puzzles me is that the controls in those Master System games are so much better than in the Genesis counterparts.

Conclusion:

So just as I thought I found the best Mickey Mouse game with "The Great Circus Mystery" I played this. This is one of the rare games I would rate five stars, because I can't find anything I would have done differently, and I was just a delightful experience from start to finish. And it's definitely one of the best if not the best Master System game of all time.