Disney trademarks Castle of Illusion

By Robert Purchese Published 4 October, 2011

Another epic outing for Mickey?

Disney has been spotted trademarking Castle of Illusion - the name of an old Mega Drive game starring Mickey Mouse.

The trademark (via Siliconera) specifically mentioned video games.

Disney could, therefore, be planning to re-issue the game on Wii Virtual Console or in HD on PS3 or 360. A far juicier thought, however, is that Castle of Illusion somehow relates to a rumoured Epic Mickey 2 project.

Epic Mickey, a project helmed by Deus Ex creator Warren Spector, fell a little flat. "Fundamentally, Epic Mickey misunderstands what people love about Mickey Mouse," wrote Dan Whitehead in Eurogamer's Epic Mickey review. "He simply doesn't fit in this grim, post-modern dystopia, dripping with bitter-sweet nods to forgotten corners of Disney lore, nor does he need to confront his dark commercial heart to stay relevant in 2010.

"He just needs to be Mickey, with blue skies, wholesome adventures and bright primary colours. A game with the breezy aesthetic and technical polish of Super Mario Galaxy, starring Mickey, Donald, Goofy and friends would do more to rekindle our affection for the mouse than this admirable but flawed attempt at forced reinvention."

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 8 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Stuz359 #1 8 months ago

    An HD remake would be awesome, even now it's one the most gorgeous games ever made.

    An all new game would be good too though.

  • Gearskin #2 8 months ago

    Damn, I still have that game on the MASTER SYSTEM! And I can still remember the music.

  • arcam #3 8 months ago

    Heh, cool. Along with Rolling Thunder 2 (remakeplz?) Castle Illusion might be the most-played game of my life. Beautiful artwork, amazing soundtrack and a tough final level. Amazing game.

  • sonicyoda #4 8 months ago

    Holy crap! That tree's face is trying to attack me with acorns!

    Love Castle of Illusion. The more people that experience it the better :D

  • TheTingler #5 8 months ago

    I still totally disagree with that quote in Dan's Eurogamer review. I agree with the sentiment, but not that it was unnecessary - I thought the idea in Epic Mickey was really cool.

  • electrolite #6 8 months ago

    I'm all for the original game, but HD remakes of the MS and MD games would be grand (with a bit of modernisation in the MS games case)

  • abigsmurf #7 8 months ago

    I thought the problem with Epic Mickey was that it didn't go far enough with the forgotten/corrupted Disney stuff. The trash mountain level was great but outside of that, it could've done with more envoironmental detail and references. The levels felt a bit too bland and featureless (although a lot of that is down to the Wii's limitations)

  • tajd #8 8 months ago

    i would buy epic mickey port ot ps3 and i will the camera on the wii is awful ive heard

  • StolenGlory #9 8 months ago

    Castle Of Illusion? NOW you have my piqued my interest sir!

  • Mister-Wario #10 8 months ago

    To tell you the truth I'm glad that they went down the whole dark dystopia route. It's a far more interesting and unusual route than the whimsical Mickey we're used to. Maybe a game that captured the feel of the original cartoons would be good too, but I'll never turn down a decision like this.

    The problem that I have with it is that the original concept art presented the world of Epic Mickey as a broken-down Disney theme park with scary mechanical versions of the familiar characters, and it just didn't really seem to communicate that to me in the finished product. And, from what I saw of the gameplay footage it looked like a fairly unremarkable platformer with a Disney coat of paint. And that's fine, I suppose, but from all the hype surrounding it I expected much more.

  • Anjaneya #11 8 months ago

    I'd love to play Castle of Illusion again.

  • Machetazo #12 8 months ago

    This is interesting. Castle of Illusion! What could they be planning? :o

  • Psiloc #13 8 months ago

    Interesting tidbit: Castle of Illusion, World of Illusion and Quackshot (and probably other Disney games) were actually developed by SEGA. It's why Disney had a hard-to-imagine-now period of releasing very decent games, they were actually SEGA games with a comprehensive Disney license.

    Don't know what that does to this rumour, but a rerelease on iOS/PSN/Live etc. would only happen as a partnership between Disney and Sega and/or whatever other obscure and possibly dead companies own/ed the old code. A whole new game based on the same concept would probably be easier to release than the old games.

  • sega #14 8 months ago

    Like Sonic The Hedgehog, Castle of Illusion was a different game on both the Megadrive and the Master System where both versions are equally brilliant. I'd love to see both versions get a re-release like they did with Sonic. Both Castle Of Illusions, Quackshot and World Of Illusion whilst they're at it.

  • Slipstream #15 8 months ago

    Nice, Castle of Illusion was amazing, I used to have so much fun with that game. They ought to trademark World of Illusion next, I'd be so up for that.

  • abigsmurf #16 8 months ago

    @Psiloc

    World of illusion was actually a pretty innovative platformer, can't remember any game before that having such smart co-op elements.

    I went back to play castle of illusion and was suprised at how well it holds up. Each level has some sort of smart twist and it's creative right up to the end.

  • ShovelyJoe #17 8 months ago

    I spent hours playing this on my Game Gear whilst going on family trips. I remember even now how much the music of the game added to the atmosphere of this one. Then one night, in a foolish attempt to navigate the various toys 'neatly' arranged on my bedroom floor, going for a pee in the dark I stood on the screen and broke it. Still saddens me to think of that dark dark day : (

    @sonicyoda - lmao at tree comment. Christ that brought back some memories.

  • Ace-Reject #18 8 months ago

    The one on the Master System was my favourite game as a kid

  • Huxamalay #19 8 months ago

    YES

  • Shinetop #20 8 months ago

    A Castle of Illusion re-release? I want this to happen, because I really really want a Quackshot re-release to happen.

  • retr0gamer #21 8 months ago

    Would only like a rerelease if they redraw everything and do it properly. The problem with HD releases of old games is the 2D art looks like some bad flash game instead of the wonderfully detailed sprites of old. Just look at SF2HD

  • Toplinkar #22 8 months ago

    HOLY MOLY! Castle ofIllusion is the game that hooked me as a gamer when I was just 8 years old. If this game gets an HD remake, Disney can charge a US$1000,00. There is no way they can actually make me pass this one.

  • Toplinkar #23 8 months ago

    HOLY MOLY! Castle ofIllusion is the game that hooked me as a gamer when I was just 8 years old. If this game gets an HD remake, Disney can charge a US$1000,00. There is no way they can actually make me pass this one.

  • Eraysor #24 8 months ago

    If they ever decide to remake World of Illusion (with its epic co-op) I would probably die of happiness. One of my favourite games of all time.

  • higgins78 #25 8 months ago

    @abigsmurf

    Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish! You say "The levels felt a bit too bland and featureless (although a lot of that is down to the Wii's limitations)". While I agree Epic Mickey was a massive opportunity not properly taken how can you cite the Wii's "limitations" as an obstacle!? Did you ever play Super Mario Galaxy 1 or 2, Donkey Kong Country Returns or Epic Yarn? Some "limitation"...

    Also, I hope this latest trademark of Castle of Illusion is NOT another remake resold at a profit but rather an opportunity to put right what Epic Mickey got wrong...

  • Rens11 #26 8 months ago

    Thought it was only on the master system loved both castle and land of illusion happy memories :D