For people of a certain age, these past few weeks will have been like reliving their childhood. First, we get news that 80s NES platformer Ducktales (woo-ooh!) will be getting an HD remake, and a digital re-release - and now SEGA have announced they'll be doing the same to another much loved classed. Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse is the next oldie but goodie to be given a new lease of life, with an HD remake and a bundle of new features helping bring the game into the present day.
Released on Mega Drive way back in 1990, the original 'Castle of Illusion' was a fairly typical platform game which saw everyone's favourite cartoon mouse running, jumping and bouncing his way through the titular castle on a quest to rescue Minnie Mouse from the clutches of the wicked witch Mizrabel. All very Super Mario, but then most platformers followed this same template back in the glory days of the Super Nintendo. Mickey's quest stood out at the time however, thanks to tight controls, great music and not surprisingly, excellent animation. Setting Mickey up to be a gaming star, the famous mouse went on to star in a number of sequels (although he had to share the limelight with Donald Duck in 1992's 'World of Illusion'), although perhaps none had a name as amazing as the Japanese title for Castle of Illusion - "I Love Mickey Mouse: Great Mysterious Castle Adventure"
If you ask us, those spiders look pretty shifty...
Turning the formerly cartoony graphics into a '2.5D' platformer, in that the action takes place on a two dimensional plane, but characters and objects will be rendered in 3D, developer Sega Studios Australia will no doubt be looking to succeed where Mickey's most recent platforming escapade (the somewhat disappointing Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion for 3DS) failed. Sticking to what made the original so successful, they've even been consulting with the producer of the first game, and are apparently implementing ideas which were intended for the original, but had to be scrapped due to limitations of the tech. No word on what these may be as yet, but it's an exciting prospect.
Needless to say, we're excited for this one - and luckily, we won't have to wait too long to venture inside the castle once more, as Sega plans to release the download only game this Summer for PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade and PC - although sadly, there's no Wii U version announced so far. In the mean time, why not check out the first trailer below:
