Fantasia (video game)

Fantasia is a side-scrolling video game developed by Infogrames and produced by Sega for its own Mega Drive/Genesis system on November 21, 1991. The game was loosely based on the film of the same name.

Fantasia (video game)

How can Mickey get a game this terrible?

Protagonist(s):	Mickey Mouse
Genre(s):	Platform
Platform(s):	Sega Genesis
Release Date:	November 21, 1991
Developer(s):	Infogrames
Publisher(s):	Sega
Country:	France

Plot

While the Apprentice Sorcerer slept, his master's music was stolen away. Now his dreams must restore the notes so the music again can play.

Development

Following the massive success of Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse, Sega decided to make another game starring Disney mascot Mickey Mouse. They saw that Disney was celebrating the 50th anniversary of Fantasia by rereleasing in theaters that year and they wanted to make a game to capitalize on that event. They saw that the movie was going to be released on home video in November 1991 so they made the deadline to release the game then. Scott Berfield and Stephan L. Butler of Sega of America decided that instead of developing the game in house at Sega, they decided to hire French-based company Infogrames to develop the game for them. The team was pressured by the November 1991 deadline and the summer release of the original Sonic the Hedgehog to develop the game, and the game was rushed to meet the VHS release of the film.

Gameplay

Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer's Apprentice must go through various side-scrolling levels in an attempt to collect musical notes that somehow went missing while he was asleep.

Why It's Not a Musical Masterpiece

The controls are absolutely abysmal, being extremely sluggish and unresponsive; they're also extremely stiff, and Mickey stops himself each time he lands on something. Not only do they ruin the entire game, but they also just aren't made for the level design.
- Sometimes they can even be awkward. For example, you have to press down on the D-pad to kill enemies while jumping on them. If you don't, you take damage. It's also another reason why this game is so ruined, as the controls are already terrible.
The level design is unbelievably terrible to the point that it makes Mega Man X6 or even Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels' level designs masterpieces, with horrible platform placements and some terrible enemy placement for most of the game. It's also not made for the extremely terrible controls of this game. Due to this reason, this game can be considered one of, if not the worst, Mickey Mouse games ever made, and the problems of the game are not even finished with the other pointers. Many times, it is impossible to evade obstacles: the enemies change patterns at random, and at other times it's insanely hard not to enter secret zones by touching fairies; the level design gets worse as you progress.
The difficulty of the game is so unbalanced that it's made the Doraemon games on PC-Engine and some other Disney games such as The Lion King or even Mickey Mania look easy in comparison; it's downright appalling. The reason why the difficulty is unbalanced is because of the awful enemy placements and even the awful controls themselves. It's possibly the most unbalanced Disney game on Sega Genesis due to how abysmal the difficulty of the game is.
Sometimes Mickey looks forward, but when you try to use the spell, he turns around and shoots backward.
Many times, bonus areas throw you to the starting point of the stage, which makes the game even more awful and tedious.
Speaking of the bonus stages, they are extremely awful and are as hard as the already horrible level design of the main game; it's had a lot of enemies, and it feels like it's here just to padding the length of the game. The level design of these is also so terrible that it's made the level design of Blaster Master 2 look like it's first game.
- In fact, there aren't even any indications that Mickey has successfully stomped the enemy, not even a different animation like what Castle of Illusion did.
Many of the notes are found by accident, and at worst you never know how many there are in every stage. While in DuckTales on NES you found some money by accident, it's actually not that bad and you don't really need points to complete a stage. The money in that game is mostly for the high score and the best ending, yet in Fantasia, it's just frustrating to make scoring; it's so bad that even if the game were much more finished, it's likely to be average.
The controls for the underwater levels are absolutely abysmal and frustrating to use, and unlike in Castle of Illusion, where you had to tap a button to quickly assent, this game makes you hold down the C button so Mickey can slowly ascent or descend, and to rub salt into the wound, every time Mickey turns around, he lowers his altitude automatically, making avoiding enemies a nightmare.
There are only four main levels with just 2 or 3 bonus stages in each stage, which makes the game extremely short, and you can beat it in only 30 minutes if you're very good at the game; even Castle of Illusion was a bit longer than this game.
The game requires a very precise platforming for playing perfectly, just like The Wizard of Oz on SNES; this is mostly due to the terrible jump controls.
For the most part, the necessary items and platforms to progress are invisible until you collect another item, jump to a specific platform, kill an enemy, or, at worst, take damage to get them.
Unholy graphical layouts: all because of the fact that they get in the way of players, not allowing them to see enemies or obstacles. At times they don't allow you to see part of the stage, and sometimes hazards like moving sand are impossible to differentiate from normal terrain, or in the worst cases, you don't realize what a platform is or what isn't; even Batman Forever hasn't had this problem this bad.
- In fact, this ruins the game even more since the platforming requires a very precise jump in order to jump, and you can easily not see it.
- At worst, some of these even hide items that you need.
Every area is packed with a lot of enemies that want to kill you; even worse, their placement seems to be random; it's so bad that it's giving most Bubsy games a run for their money since these games also have this problem sometimes.
Your main weapon is a shooting spell, but the problem is that you have only three and you run out of them quickly, and the game is very stingy about giving more. It is also similar to The Wizard of Oz for SNES, but worse yet, most enemies take two shots or more to kill, making the small spell useless.
The hit detection is absolutely terrible. Mickey doesn't take damage from enemies sometimes, even if he makes contact with them, or even worse, you will try to jump on enemies and take damage even if you're clearly jumping on them along with pressing the down D-pad.
You have to collect at least an exact number of musical notes for each level. If you fail, you have to start the level all over again.
- This is just blatant padding designed to extend the length of the game to make up for its short length. The game should only take about a half hour to complete, but forgetting to collect musical notes pads out the game in the most annoying and worst way possible.
- In fairness, there's some games that are built around this, like Super Mario 64 or A Hat in Time, but in those games, it's actually fun and challenging to collect the collectibles in Super Mario 64 and in A Hat in Time, in Fantasia, it's just tedious.
Terrible renditions of the classical pieces of music that were chosen for the film, which is unacceptable considering that the film had one of the greatest soundtracks in cinema history, and not to mention that there are plenty of Sega Genesis games that had better renditions of classical music.
- Toccata and fugue in D minor sound like 8-bit music trying to be 16-bit. Even Dark Castle on Sega Genesis has a better rendition of that classical piece.
- The Nutcracker sounds slower and is high-pitched ear rape.
- The Sorcerer's Apprentice sounds lower-pitched, and it sounds like electronic farts.
- The Rite of Spring sounds like a bassoon being submerged in a bucket of water.
- The Pastoral Symphony sounds like a bunch of darts being thrown on an electric keyboard.
- The Dance of the Hours sounds like a plastic pipe being banged on a guitar string.
- Night on Bald Mountain sounds like someone who has explosive diarrhea, not to mention that Earthworm Jim (which was released in 1994) has a much better rendition of that music, even if it's not the entire song.
- Not to mention each of them have bad looping and when you pause the music doesn't loop until you unpause
There are no boss fights in the entire game, although that could be a good thing due to how terrible the controls are.
The ending is horrible and very underwhelming; it's just Mickey that evaluates someone and that's it, nothing else. Even The Blues Brothers on SNES has a better ending. Not to mention that it can cause a seizure for some people.
The final level has dark sections where you cannot see the platforms, which makes everything worse since the level design is extremely bad and there are a lot of enemies trying to kill you.
The enemy's behavior is inconsistent at times, and at worst, it seems that sometimes standing in certain spots can cause them to change their pattern.
To finish the final level, you basically must do an enemy rush, and it's extremely tedious and almost impossible.
The game was rushed for the Christmas market and VHS release of the film; due to that, the game was left in a pretty unfinished state.

Qualities That Make This Game a Musical Masterpiece

The graphics look very good, almost like the movie it's based on.
It's got a nice animation, even if the very detailed animation can ruin the game a bit.
There are at least no boss fights in the game due to the terrible controls.

Reception

The game received overwhelmingly negative reviews, with MegaTech magazine saying the game was "a massive disappointment. Poorly designed, bland, and frustrating, with very little appeal." Mega placed the game at #6 in their list of the 10 Worst Mega Drive Games of All Time.

The game is also believed to have been a commercial failure, as it sold roughly 5,000 copies.

Joueur du Grenier reviewed the game in an episode and panned its terribly-rendered music, clumsy gameplay, awkward platforming, and difficulty. He criticized how Mickey's jumping is unnecessarily delayed just to show off the anticipation movement in the animation: "Ils ont niqué le gameplay, mais c'est pas grave, l'important c'est que la souris magicienne qui parle, là, elle saute de manière réaliste! " He also complained about foreground objects that hide the screen and can make Mickey take damage, comparing it to inserting the heads of audience members in front of a movie screen.

He considers it to be one of the worst games he's ever tried, having even ranked it in the highest category of divine purge on his tier list of rotten games.

In fact, the game is so badly received to the point of being in a high place in most videos of the tops of the worst Sega Genesis games This tops the 50 worst Sega Genesis games, for example, placing Fantasia in the 8th position out of 50 games.

Controversy

After the game was released, Infogrames, who developed the game, figured out that Sega actually didn't own the rights to the Fantasia name because they were put off by licensing costs. They attempted to recall all copies, but not before Disney figured it out and sued them. This led to all copies being recalled, and Sega was never allowed to produce more than the initial shipment of 1,000 copies. This is often believed to be the reason why Disney Interactive was founded.

Trivia

This game was released one day before Beauty and the Beast was released.

Videos

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