So what can gamers expected from Disney Castle of Illusion
when it finally hits store shelves later this year?
Photo by Shelly Valladolid
Omar Woodley from SEGA took time yesterday to show us the
remastered, re-imagined version of this classic Genesis title. According to
Omar, the collaboration between Sega and Disney started about two years ago.
"It's a re-imagined version." Omar explains. "There's quite a bit of the old game
there, but also new stuff."
SEGA's Omar Woodhouse. Photo by Shelly Valladolid
"We wanted to re-introduce this to the next generation,
listening to the fan base and bringing back something that was a classic of our
time. (We also wanted to) collaborate with Disney on a new project, and
actually looked back at our back catalog, on various titles and Castle of
Illusion was an immediate top pick, because it's so well-known. It's a beloved
title," Woodley continued. "So we contacted the original creator,
Yamamoto-san (Emiko Yamamoto, the designer of the original game), and she
actually helped us; she's with Disney in Japan
now."
Copyright Disney SEGA. All rights reserved
"Disney was very supportive. Our studio went personally
to prototype and show them the various levels. They loved it. Disney's very
happy. We wanted to re-imagine her title, but with modern technology,
hi-fidelity visuals, and modern special effects, to innovate the gameplay to a
contemporary style of game, to really challenge retro gamers. Our target
audience is US, the core gamers who played this back in the day, who still play
it today, we really want to challenge the gamer. So what we did was re-imagined
a 3-D world with a 3D engine," Omar stated. "One key thing we focused
on was – we played hundreds of hours of the classic, which was brutal by
today's standards. You only got three lives and two continues, and then you
have to start the whole game over. There are no checkpoints. We actually have
checkpoints in the game. That saves your progress, so you don't have to worry about that."
Omar Woodhouse points out special features of the Disney Castle of Illusion
game to an E3 2013 attendee. Photo by Shelly Valladolid
"We identified some key factors from the original that we
really wanted to represent in this game and stay true to it, so one is the
challenge, the challenge is there, also the classic game – was one of the first
games to have an idle animation factor,
so we really wanted to personalize Mickey, in this game, so the animations that
Mickey does, like a looking-around, scared animation, and a cute little
crouching animation, a strut, and the classic on-the-edge animation like he's
going to fall off," Woodley said.
Copyright Disney SEGA. All rights reserved
"Working with Disney, we had quite a bit of creative
liberty, so when we re-designed the levels, we (looked at) all aspects of
Disney, the theme parks, the cartoons, the movies, so you actually see a lot of
nods to various parts of Disney, for example, The Haunted Mansion," Omar
laughed. (He actually showed us what he was talking about, but I won't spoil it
for you!)
Photo by Shell Valladolid
"The other thing we wanted to stay true to was the 'feel' of
Mickey in the classic, so we have this very floaty high jump that you can
maintain, so we actually built the environments out of that aspect,"
Woodley continued. "We wanted to keep the challenge of the platforming
aspect, but make it dynamic, so we added several areas to enhance the
platforming feel of the game. There are pockets of hidden areas, like in the
classic. There are quite a bit of goodies in the game."
Copyright Disney SEGA. All rights reserved
"We used the Official Mickey Mouse voice. Disney's Voice
Department handled all the voices," Omar enthused.
Copyright Disney SEGA. All rights reserved
"We wanted to re-introduce this to the next generation,
listening to the fan base and bringing back something that was a classic of our
time. The creator was here about an hour ago, (and) she let us know that she
was very, very happy," Woodley concluded.
Noe tries out the new Disney Castle Illusion game for himself.
Photo by Shelly Valladolid
Noe played Disney Castle of Illusion, and was very, very
happy as well. He said that the gameplay was really smooth and great, and that
it had a nice "feel" to it. Definitely something for our Christmas List – the
game will come out on an as-yet-unspecified date later this year.