In a year packed with excellent video games, Disney Illusion Island was one title I wasn’t fully on board with. While not a must-buy like Tears of the Kingdom, it’s a game I’m bound to pick up in a few months when I have the time and money. Although, with how stacked the rest of the year is, that might be a while yet.
Unfortunately for my wallet, now Illusion Island is here, I want it. Every time I've seen a trailer or heard new details, that want has increased. You put some IP on a screen and hand me a controller, I'm probably going to like it. Even more than “Ooo Disney, I like!” is the game's co-op, a feature I've been waiting for a game like this to do ever since Rayman Legends.
My son is three and very interested in video games. We've already played through a few together in co-op, including Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Sackboy: A Big Adventure. Both great games I loved sharing with him, but they also highlighted different problems a lot of games have when it comes to co-op.
The one that bothered me most is Kirby's. In The Forgotten Land, a second player can hop in and join you on your adventure, but they have to be Bandana Waddle Dee. The Waddle Dee doesn't have Kirby's powers and is simply given a spear with very limited range. Incredibly frustrating no matter who you're playing with, but especially when that aforementioned three-year-old insists on being Kirby so you're relying on him to do the bulk of the work. Which I will stress right now, is not always a good time.
Forgotten Land's co-op could have included Kirbys in different colors instead. Characters with the same powers that would have made for a true co-op experience. It taints an otherwise terrific game so much that if Nintendo wasn't going to bother crafting a better co-op experience, then it probably shouldn't have bothered at all.
Kirby isn't the only game guilty of this, although most of the examples I've stumbled across recently have been on Switch. Even more reason why I'm hopeful that Switch-exclusive Illusion Island bucks that trend. In Pikmin 4, the second player does little more than point to where they want the Pikmin to go. In Super Mario Odyssey, they're just Cappy. I've even fired up Super Mario Galaxy 2 and taken it for a spin, but much like Pikmin, the game becomes little more than a point-and-click adventure for the co-op companion.
Other games I've tried have a real issue with screen real estate too. Sackboy, in particular, is incredibly frustrating to play if both players don't maintain the same pace. Even worse is Little Big Planet 3 which we're giving a go after finishing off its PS5 sibling. The player off-screen has five seconds to get back in view before they lose a life, and there's no indication of which of you the camera will follow.
Illusion Island doesn't appear to have either of those problems. Mickey Mouse might be Disney's flagship mascot, but all four characters have been flaunted as key to the game since its reveal. No underpowered sidekicks or NPCs, just multiple players all having fun. Leaving the screen might be an issue, but from what I've seen, it appears to handle that problem as well as it possibly can without split-screen support.
Our review for Illusion Island has also filled me with hope, possibly for the very same reasons some of you will decide to give it a miss. The biggest complaint about Disney's new platformer is that it's too simplistic. My biggest fear was that it would be the exact opposite since I plan on playing through it with a preschooler. That its difficulty gradient is gradual and abilities are unlocked over time are big ticks in the win column for what I have planned. Having tried to play New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe with the little one, anything that gets too difficult too fast ends up being left behind in favor of something else.
The simplicity combined with what its co-op appears to be offering is enough to have officially pushed me off of the fence and into the pool of people who will be buying Illusion Island. If nothing else, it will be good practice for my son before the real co-op acid test arrives in Sonic Superstars. This is very much a Sonic household and with Super Mario Wonder coming this year, I'm going to need a big performance from the Blue Blur to make sure the coming generations of my family aren't Mario people.