Disney Illusion Island review — Mickey Metroidvania? TEEBEEDEE!

My 80 year old mom loves Mickey Mouse. Other people like Mickey, but my mom has spent a metric ton of time in the parks, collects the mouse like it’s going out of style, and has more memorabilia and clothing than most Disney stores you’ll find on Main Street. When I showed her Disney Illusion Island, she almost cried with glee, exclaiming “It’s sooo cute!”. She’s just starting to learn how to play games on a controller, but she was excited and determined to learn how to play this game so we could enjoy it together as a family.

So, the story goes like this: the people of Monoth have lost the books from their bookshelves, and unless they’re returned there will be “untold misery”. Thieves from the three biomes have stolen them, and it’s up to us to recover them. Up to four people can team up for local co-op fun, platforming and exploring in a Metroidvania, Disney-style, with four of the most beloved characters of all time – Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Goofy, and Donald Duck.

The cutscenes in Disney Illusion Island are absolutely magical, with humor that’ll hit with kids as well as some subtle humor that’ll be fun for adults. The “you were too weak, and too small?” line is hilarious, and that’s just the start of an absolutely magical adventure. Goofy is the loveable idiot, Donald is the self-centered anger-ridden little ball of fury, and Mickey and Minnie are the loveable duo we’ve all come to love. The animations are straight out of Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway ride from the theme parks, and frankly it’s like watching a cartoon come to life. Every time we hit a cutscene my whole family is smiling like we were all back at the park, enjoying a performance of Fantasmic.

During gameplay, I’m immediately reminded of a modernized Fantasia, with anthropomorphized potted plant people, terrifying tomatoes, and particularly pokey cacti.

Mazzy, a ping and purple dragon..uh..thing, always manages to appear and set you up with just the right things for the right time. These are always a highlight as poor Donald keeps getting what can only be described as leftover junk. It put a smile on my face every time we got a new power, and in more than a few instances we all laughed out loud.

My mom has never played a platformer. I knew she’d have a tough time ahead jumping into a pure platformer, complete with bosses and puzzles. Well, the Dlala Team behind the game wants to make the game accessible to everyone and they’ve done everything in their power to do exactly that. It warms my heart that they’ve succeeded in every conceivable way, and all without making it too easy for those who are long-time platforming pros, at least in the beginning.

Each character has a set of common abilities to help while adventuring with their friends, which is truly the best way to experience Disney Illusion Island. Hitting Y on your controller will hug your friend, giving you both an extra heart for health. Holding down on the left stick will have your character kneel down, so another character (holding right or left and then hitting B at the right time) can leapfrog over you for more distance. Holding the left stick down and then hitting Y will drop a rope for players struggling to make a difficult jump.

Beyond the direct assistance, you can also enable boost jump assist, boost jump assist, wall cling assist, rope climb assist, adjust starting health on the fly, and other tweaks to help players that might be struggling to find the fun.

Hitting the + button on the controller provides a Metroidvania, albeit very Disney themed, map of the area, complete with little automatic markers so you can backtrack for specific areas that otherwise required a special power to pass. There are a total of 7 abilities and items that you’ll need to be able to jump further, jump higher, cling to walls, and other things I won’t spoil here. Additionally, there are 7 more items to collect throughout the story, but only one is active – the camera. With the camera you’ll be able to photograph the innumerable hidden Mickeys, just like in the parks. These powers are introduced slowly, letting the player integrate the new mechanic over time so as to not inundate newcomers with a ton of things all at once.

You’ll notice that nowhere in this review have I talked about the combat in Disney Illusion Island. That’s because…there isn’t any! None of the crew have an attack button, instead relying on puzzle elements to take down bosses. They aren’t “Boss fights” but instead are more “Boss Encounters”. You’ll jump, bounce around, and otherwise avoid direct confrontation with your foes. As such, this game is about as family friendly as you can get, but without losing any of the challenge you’d expect from a Metroidvania title.

One of the very subtle things I really liked was the way that buttons are conveyed to the player. Rather than telling a player to press A or B, the button layout is presented without button names, with the indicated button being white and larger. So, when they want you to hit “Confirm” they don’t tell you to hit A, instead just showing the 4 face buttons with that direction’s button being a little bigger. No longer do you have to learn the button names, especially if you are a newcomer.

There are 23 Mickey Memorabilia to collect, alongside 91 Tokum cards (Gotta catch ‘em all!), six picture reveals per area with each picture fragment giving you a bit of backstory, 38 achievements, and more hidden Mickeys than you can shake your ears at! You unlock most of these things with Glimts, the MacGuffins you’ll find in the environment that look like little blue flames. Collect enough of these and you’ll gain additional hearts, or unlock things like the aforementioned picture fragments from the Reward menu. It’s all entirely optional, but it does add a lot to the game’s magic.

My only real complaint with Disney Illusion Island is somewhat on my mom’s behalf (though the very last area is an exercise in frustration with enemy choice and spike placement). The difficulty curve makes a sharp upward incline during the last chapter of the game. Some of the platforming sections were practically NES Ninja Gaiden level of challenging. Too often my wife and mother were saying “Just keep going and drag us along”, knowing that if I pulled far enough ahead they’d be transformed into envelopes and whisked to where I stopped, avoiding that section altogether. It’s an elegant system, but I could see the frustration set in during some moments. By the end, I’m not sure mom was having as much fun – thankfully she had unlimited health so she wasn’t dying, but when you feel like you are dragging down the team that’s a bummer.

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