Diala Studios and Disney Electronic Content have made it possible for us to explore the mysterious island of Monoth as some of our favorite Disney characters, including Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy. Disney Illusion Island lets you feel the Disney magic, and it’s one you won’t want to miss.

Mickey and the team are graced with the presence of Toku, the leader of the Hokuns who live on the island of Monoth. Toku is stressed out because the three Tomes of Knowledge are missing, and these are needed by the Hokuns. You meet some other great characters along the way, but I’m going to leave that bit up to you to find out who they are. I’ll give you a little hint; one is a really nice pink crocodile that’s not trying to kill you.

Monoth is broken up into three locations, which are further broken up into three environments, so there are plenty of places to explore. The first area is Pavonia, my favourite location, and a beautiful mixture of colours and floral designs that keep you gobsmacked whilst running around. Astrono focuses on astronomy and is much darker, but it uses vibrant colours to represent an obvious space theme. Personally, I didn’t like this one as much as Pavonia, but it was still absolutely stunning. The last area is Gizmopolis, an engineering area that features a strong cyberpunk feel and is packed full of neon lights.

I managed to talk my partner into playing with me as she is not a fan of gaming, and to my surprise, she actually enjoyed the game and what it had to offer. This title enables you to play up to four people locally, which could be mayhem, and each player can take control of one of their favourite characters, and it feels like a completely different game when you are playing with someone else. Some special abilities in co-op make the game a little more fun, with the first one being Hug. You can hug each other to both gain a love heart of health back, and I thought was an awesome little thing for the developers to add.

Leap Frog enables you to jump even further than you can in single-player, and there was a cool little animation to coincide with it. The third special ability is Rope Drop, which feels a little more useless than anything. It was more of a thing to help the people you’re playing with to get to higher ground, but you need to get there first. The final special ability is Teleport, allowing you to summon your friends when you are swimming underwater, and again, the characters we played can all swim fine, so the ability seemed almost pointless.

Like most side-scrolling games, the controls are simple, but this goes a step further and prompts you on what to press when you first start playing. They’re also nice and responsive to your inputs, with next to no delay, and the characters perform actions the moment you press the button. Like all Nintendo Switch games, it takes me a little while to get used to the button configuration because I don’t touch it near as much as I should, but for those who prefer the Switch, this won’t present a challenge, but Disney Illusion Island is making me want to use it more often.

The voice acting in this took me back to watching Disney Channel as a kid, listening to Donald getting angry, Minnie and Mickey giggling between themselves, and Goofy being a goofball. I loved every minute of it, and taking control of the characters we grew up listening to was an amazing experience. Unfortunately, this magic came to an abrupt end while you were in control of the characters. Instead of the magically familiar voices, they just let out “Hmm,” or “Mmm,” which got a little annoying after a while. To try and cover this, the whole time you’re running around the biomes and jumping from platform to platform, there was this magical music that you would expect from Disney, and sometimes it almost sounded like the start of a Disney movie, specifically the opening where you see Tinker Bell and the castle.

I absolutely loved the art style in this, and it used what looked like hand-drawn character models and backgrounds, bringing another level to the Disney magic on offer. Even with them looking hand-drawn, they looked so crisp and everything felt alive. Everything from the character models to the environments, and right down to the UI, this game’s graphics were done to perfection, and the art team should pat themselves on the back.

If you like side-scrolling platformers that are a magical experience, then this game is designed for you. The mix between the art style and the beautiful soundtrack made the game so immersive, and you will drop hours into finishing it with the rich storyline.

Written by: Hayden Nelson