5 Great Genesis Games that Time Forgot

2. World of Illusion

While Mickey’s Castle of Illusion seemed to be one of the more popular Genesis games, the sequel World of Illusion received some rather lukewarm reviews. Unlike many other Genesis games, one of the main complaints was that it was too easy, however I felt it brought an interesting twist to many Games of the Genesis genre.

You play as either Mickey or Donald or you can play both in co-op, you make your way through a magical world acquiring magic spells, with only a cape as your weapon. So far so ordinary. But what World of Illusion offered that I have rarely seen before or since is a completely co-operative game. That is, if you choose to play in co-op you are completely reliant on your partner. In games such as Sonic 3 which offered co-op for the first time in the Sonic series, the second player is little more than an invincible, disposable punching bag who destroys enemies, flies sonic around and mostly gets left in the dirt. In World of Illusion you can’t even move without your Player  2 there to follow you. Many parts of each level require both players to work balance beams or to pull the other one up, and Donald can’t even crawl through small spaces without Mickey to pull him through the other side.

World of Illusion is a true test of friendship and something that should have got more respect at the time.