Castle of Illusion PC is a Terrible Port, Community Fixes (Almost) Everything

The PC version of Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse, SEGA’s re-release of the classic Disney-inspired Genesis/Megadrive platformer, is locked at 30FPS. Visually, this should put it on par with the console version, although tests seem to indicate the 360/PS3 versions are the superior ones.

This, apparently, is all tied into an odd frame limiter which is not only struggling to keep a constant 30FPS, but which is messing up with controller latency and general animation as well. 

It looks like it’s possible to fix some of these problems by editing certain registry values, running Castle of Illusion in windowed mode and using something like Afterburner to control the frame rate. This fixes almost everything, including that it runs at an upscaled 720p instead of an actual 1080p. For information on all of this and guides on how to fix the everything, click across to here.

The story behind Castle of Illusion PC is a pretty odd one. When looking at the SteamDB info, it almost seems like releasing it was an afterthought, with no updates until days before it was due to go up. The company behind it, SEGA Australia, had pitched remakes of Golden Axe and Streets of Rage before being allowed to work on Castle of Illusion, and both had been turned down. The company has now been closed, so people holding onto the idea of patch will probably be disappointed.

Despite no sign of official support, the community have rushed in to fix all but the most deeply present problems, and might even manage to get the frame rate up in the future. For the time being though, just be happy that someone is getting Castle of Illusion to the quality it should have been at release.