Castle of Illusion was a simple side scrolling platformer, but was also a game released before Sonic The Hedgehog. With the dud that was Alex Kidd In The Enchanted Castle being released at launch, Mickey Mouse's quality title made him the "mascot" of the system for a short time.

A game under the same name was also released for the Sega Master System. While first impressions of the game make it look like a ported down version with a more 1930's Mickey look to it, it had completely different level layouts and gives Mickey the ability to pick up blocks and hurl them at his enemies. It's a whole different experience, some say they like it even more than the Genesis version.

1992 saw the release of two entirely different releases, World Of Illusion and Land of Illusion., each on a separate console. Land Of Illusion was released for the Master System, and was a direct sequel to the Master System Castle game, expanding on the formula and adding a few new tricks to the table.

World Of Illusion however was a large departure, now focusing on both Mickey and Donald Duck in a cooperative game where both players must help each other through every level. Early levels have see-saws where you must bounce another character to a higher area, or one character might get stuck in a log and need the other character to pull him out.

World changed Mickey's attack from jumping on people to a magical cape that they would swipe from the front of them. Actual cooperative play in a standard platformer was not really seen outside of Capcom's Chip & Dale on the NES, and actually be meaningful - two years before Sonic 3's cooperative play.

There was a fourth title, Legend of Illusion, released only for the Game Gear. Usually forgotten when discussing the Illusion series, it once again followed the Master System games design, but instead of jumping on enemies Mickey was now able to pelt rocks at them. Being Game Gear only its screen size is far more limiting. It would be nice to add to a collection such as this, but I don't think many people would miss it.

All four games were simple, but they were all quality titles using a good license. At the same time Donald had three of his own games by Sega, and followed their own path. Each of them existed within the Ducktales universe, but were careful not to mention the show by name.

Quackshot was released back in 1991, and used some very interesting mechanics not really seen in platformers for the time. Quackshot had backtracking, where you could go to several different levels at one time, but would not be able to get further without a object from another level. Go to Mexico to to told you need to key in Duckberg. Go to Duckberg and get the key. Return to Mexico and go into the ruins. Get the red plunger to climb the wall in Duckberg. Climb the wall and survive a ride across electric lines to get the Bubble Gun. Go to Transylvania and blow out the blocks to get into the castle, and so on.

It's not a concept that was really around back then, and it's certainly not as difficult as I'm making it out to believe - Donald would leave markers in the level where you would return to at a later time. The game itself however, was quite difficult. Those jumping fires in the Tomb were very hard to get past as a kid, and Transylvania was actually quite frightening too.

Donalds two other games weren't nearly as groundbreaking, but were still exceptional platformers. The Lucky Dime Caper and Deep Duck Trouble were both released for the Master System, and for the most part they were expansions of Land Of Illusion's simple platforming design, and were released each other year that an Illusion game was not available.

Lucky Dime Caper had Donald wield a large mallet that takes over Mickey's butt-stomp, but also works as a short range weapon that works better than anything Alex Kidd could ever muster.

Deep Duck Trouble went back to the Castle of Illusion style with a twist - Donald can jump on enemies with ease but instead of throwing blocks he can now kick them around.

As previously mentioned, all these games were developed by Sega in the early nineties. To get to them to work though, it would require Sega and Disney to work together to bring them out. With the Ultimate Genesis Collection now emulating their games near perfectly via Backbone Entertainment there is no better time.

Now Disney seem to be completely up for the idea - they have partnered previously with Midway and Backbone to release Tron and Discs of Tron to Xbox Live Arcade. Sega also appears willing to work with other companies to bring back classics.MERCS for the Sega Genesis has been rated by the ESRB for Virtual Console, a game originally created and owned by Capcom for arcades, reprogrammed and published by Sega for the Genesis.

Now the easiest route would be the virtual console - which should be a very easy task. Sega seem pretty keen on releasing Master System titles at the moment too. Disney has yet to pursue anything on the Virtual Console, but were quite happy to re-release Capcom's Magical Quest games for GBA a few years ago.

For Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network, it appears that Microsoft have sullied on console and arcade classics, or at least those from the 16-bit generation or before it. There were no Sega Vintage games released last year, and the last few titles like Samurai Shodown II and Warlords were approved of an awfully long time ago, and R-Type Dimensions being two major titles together along with an excellent 3D graphical remake would have been an easier task to get through Microsoft's vetting process. 32-Bit generation and beyond appear to be fine, as we've seen with Banjo-Kazooie and SoulCalibur. They prefer new titles, even if it is Frogger 2.

Sony seem to have abandoned this idea as well with arcade classics stopping after the very first batch of Midway games, which only seemed to get through via SOE's ability to publish them. This is all despite the fact that Mortal Kombat II continues to sell ridiculous amounts on the service, but I'm guessing they want to concentrate on the PSOne classics. Still, we're expecting Sega's Vintage games making their way to the PlayStation Network if the ESRB is to be believed, unless those had to be rerated for their inclusion in the Ultimate collection.

So for such a thing to happen digitally, Sega and Disney would have to sweeten the deal, throw in some sweeteners. For that I would suggest creating two different packs - a Mickey's Classics Collection and a Donald's Classics Collection - Mickey with Castle (both versions), Land and World of Illusions, possibly Legend, and Donald with Quackshot, Dime Caper and Deep Duck Trouble, and sell them for 800MSP / $9.99USD each.

Now admittedly the Donald side looks a little lacking in comparison - with two Master System games and only a single Genesis title compared to Mickey. If at all possible they could also include Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow, a very late Genesis and SNES release featuring Donald and his alter ego. The easy part of this being that it was published by Disney Interactive at the time, but was not developed by Sega.

The pie-in-the-sky solution would be to do something akin to Hasbro's Family Game Night on Xbox Live Arcade - a Disney Hub that could encompass all kinds of Disney classics - not just the titles mentioned, but the NES Capcom titles and more. A variation of the ToonTown Online model, but suited for classic games instead.

Will it ever happen? Eventually in some form - it's a waste to let these games die off, but the ship may have already sailed for this generation. Microsoft and Sony aren't all that interested in 16-bit games and Nintendo seem to have slowed Virtual Console titles down to a trickle.

However there have been numerous rumors claiming that a new "epic" Mickey title from Warren Spector's Junction Point Studio is in the works. Assuming it's true and probably coming out by the end of the year, it would be the perfect opportunity to bring these classics back in tandem with it, like SoulCalibur coming out with the fourth title coming to retail.