Seemingly, Disney games are a bit like buses - you wait for ages, and then two come along at once. First, we have a remake of a couple of old Kingdom Hearts games, a role-playing game series that'll be making their way to the PS3, and now the 3DS has a rather funky looking Disney title of its own on the way.
A 3DS exclusive, Disney Magic Castle: My Happy Life sees your Mii chilling out with all your favourite characters and seems to marry the social aspect of Animal Crossing, the fashionable dressing up of Style Boutique and the battles of the aforementioned Kingdom Hearts to great effect, meaning much like the parks themselves, there'll be something for everyone.
Disney Magic Castle: My Happy Life begins with an invitation for your Mii from none other than Mickey Mouse himself, who begs the player to take over a struggling cafe in what we imagine is the titular Magic Castle - a cafe which is yours to decorate and customise with over a thousand Disney-themed items. But the Disney magic doesn't end there, as you'll also get to meet more than 80 famous characters, from staples like Mickey and Donald to the likes of Cinderella, the Mad Hatter and the Genie from Aladdin, although whether they'll be visiting your cafe for a mocha remains to be seen. With dozens of other activities to try your hand at, there'll be no getting bored when you've got some downtime either, with minigames ranging from fishing and gardening to even some sort of battle system that'll see you fighting monsters too - with oodles of outfits waiting to be unlocked for your Mii:
Currently, the game is a collaboration between Namco Bandai and Disney Japan, which could be bad news for the rest of the world, as it means a release anywhere outside the land of the rising sun is somewhat in question. While the game hits Japanese stores on the 11th of July, we'll be keeping our fingers crossed for news of a Western release - perhaps if we're really lucky, we might even get the limited edition 3DS XL bundle, which comes with a copy of the game and a special white console covered in gold and white Mickey silhouettes:
Fancy.
Seeing as the trailer is all in Japanese, and we only know the symbol for cat, we can't really garner much else from it - save that we're a little bit disappointed that there's no sign of a virtual Disneyland to wonder round in the style of Kinect Disneyland, but nevertheless, it certainly looks like a game we'll find ourselves sinking an awful lot of time into, should it ever reach these shores. Given the world-wide appeal of Disney and it's characters, though, we'd be very surprised if the title didn't make it out of Japan - here's hoping it's a question of "when" rather than "if".
