Disney’s Treasure Planet (PS1)

In 2002, Disney released the animated film Treasure Planet, a science fiction reimagining of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic pirate novel Treasure Island. The passion project of Ron Clements and John Musker that they were finally able to produce after giving Disney other animated hits like The Little Mermaid and Hercules, this underappreciated film not only recontextualized a pirate story into a space adventure, but it pushed the boundaries of animation as it featured a mix of both hand drawn art and the then nascent medium of computer generated 3D imagery. Around the same time, the gaming industry was moving up in technical prowess as well, so a PlayStation 2 adaptation of the film wasn’t too much of a surprise. However, the transitional period between consoles meant many still might buy a game made for the original PlayStation, so Disney hedged its bets and had an entirely different Treasure Planet game made for the PlayStation 1. Perhaps unsurprisingly though, this game that had its foot in the past didn’t seem to be eager to push the envelope, the game slipping into the bog standard formula of platforming action games of the time.

One impressive detail in Disney’s Treasure Planet for the PlayStation though is its commitment to using actual scenes from the film to tell its story. The game opens with a scene showing the famous alien space pirate Captain Flint accruing a haul of treasure so plentiful he needs an entire uncharted planet to hide it all, the game then cutting to the young Jim Hawkins as he begins his adventure off his humble home planet to explore the stars and find his way to the fabled Treasure Planet. While seeing actual scenes from the movie is a treat, especially during the still visually impressive reveal that the crescent moon in the sky is actually an artificial space port, the game doesn’t do the best job of picking which scenes to use to tell the tale. In levels where Jim rides a solar surfboard or similar object the game introduces the level with a small scene of him doing so in the film, but even when the set up for a stage has robot police appearing to bust Jim in the animated clip, there won’t actually be any enemy opposition in that stage. Perhaps worse is the game just outright forgetting key elements of the story. The robot character B.E.N. is just suddenly present in the game world without introduction, and despite John Silver being the game’s antagonist, the story has been stripped of his gradual shift to such a role and completely removes any hint Jim and John got along well outside just being part of the same crew. On the other hand, some voice actors from the film return for in-game dialogue roles, and David Hyde Pierce playing the role of Jim’s ally Dr. Doppler has a surprising amount of voice lines as he pretty much serves as the tutorial for a considerable part of the opening stages.

Treasure Planet does essentially expect you to be familiar with the film, but it also follows its course well enough with its stages. The home planet of Jim, Montressor, serves as a simple starting area with a small village feel despite the science fiction accoutrements and aliens. One level takes place entirely on the RMS Legacy spaceship which might as well just be a technically advanced sail boat, and Treasure Planet itself has both its wilder natural areas and the treasure hoard. Visually this sets them apart well, but besides the rather free exploration about the RMS Legacy, most stages are rather bland affairs where you move through action and platforming segments that don’t put up much of a fight. Forward progress in a stage isn’t blocked very well, the variance in villains mostly being whether they die quickly to your sword or die quickly to your blaster. Besides a sword slam after jumping your basic move set isn’t really up to much anyway, but you do have, in addition to your basic jump, a secondary jump where Jim’s transforming companion Morph will turn into a glider to let him cross gaps that would be a bit too wide otherwise. However, some ledges can be grabbed and others can’t, so gliding to a seemingly reachable platform isn’t always guaranteed to work out, with the uncooperative ledges usually ones the game wants to put some weak box pushing puzzle next to or other more tedious means of getting to an area you should conceivably be able to reach.

The goal of most of the 10 levels in Disney’s Treasure Planet, beyond just reaching the end, is collecting a series of important objects along the way. Pirate tokens are your main focus, with the player often getting these for completing important goals and a certain amount required to unlock levels, although there’s a good amount spread across the levels so you’ll never truly have to scour a stage to ensure you see the game’s end. Some can be simple rewards for noticing a crack in the wall and blasting it open, others require you to find some well hidden yellow crystals in a level so you can redeem them for the “souvenir” token, and treasure chests that are a little less off the beaten path contain eight pieces of a treasure map that you never need to use since you just get the token for finding the last one. Sometimes the player may see a roadblock to their progress, either needing to find diodes to power up machinery or pay a man blocking the way with the ample amount of doubloons littered around the game world. Furthermore, there are optional items like unlockable gallery items so you can see how characters looked in the film and how poorly their designs translated to PS1 graphics, although John Silver turns out decent perhaps because he’s on the main menu while Morph is a pink polygonal lump.

Listing off the collectibles may make it seem like there’s an overwhelming amount, but the game’s levels are often rather sparse and besides the barely contested forward pushes, these give you something to do along the way. Using the right attack to break open environmental objects is decent busywork that is rewarded with useful items, but the game doesn’t do a good job of placing interesting moments between these stretches of easily acquired goodies. There are some minigames, and a few like the fruit catching games do require some decent reflexes to complete them in a reasonable timeframe, but the intended younger audience for the title likely informs the design of the much easier diversions like protecting fruit from mice or shooting down asteroids with a laser cannon. The stealth sections with their instant failure conditions aren’t too hot either, either swinging from annoying due to how the guards move or hilarious as you can easily run around since the guards’ visualized views are easily avoidable cones. Some gameplay segments have arbitrary limitations like the player needing to stand on a spot for a momentary plasma musket charge to break some nearby environmental objects, and a lot of the time the game doesn’t do a good job inhabiting areas with anything but breakable barrels that are so abundant that the coins within aren’t worth the trouble running to grab if they’re not along your current path.

The RMS Legacy’s open deck at least lets you climb up high and tackle areas on the ship in the order you please, although the constant need to jump down from the different levels of the mast drags out a level that could have been short without the repeated dives. Treasure Planet also throws in some mildly tricking platforming right before things wrap up, and the two boss battles can at least put up a fight as you need to figure out how to counter their attack patterns. It is unfortunate the vulnerable periods of their patterns are so short and the game swings between giving you clues on how to fight them to leaving you in a situation where it’s likely you won’t be able to avoid damage if you want to exploit their small vulnerability period, but Jim can take a hit so it’s not too bothersome.

Besides the bland platforming stages with their underwhelming challenges, a few levels shift the gameplay into the solar sailing you can see Jim performing on the game’s cover. These levels are a race where a different planet appropriate course is set up where you are only competing to outpace the timer. If you run out of time before hitting a checkpoint the race needs to be repeated, but falling down pits or otherwise meeting your end will just reset you to a recent checkpoint, the ease of these sections perhaps shown by how you can die a few times and still conceivably win. However, hitting certain time benchmarks will reward you with more tokens, three being given for the best result. The race course is also littered with items to grab and a lot of the challenge really comes from grabbing the items and trying to get a good time, but the items picked up are saved and never respawn so you can just do a run to grab the goodies and then focus on your turning and grabbing speed boosts for the next run instead. Like the platforming levels, these start of pretty bland and straightforward and really only get to find their footing near the game’s conclusion where tight turns and longer tracks become common, and the levels all at least help diversify their six or so laps by having each lap open or close off areas so its not always the same repetitive circuit that barely puts up a fight.

THE VERDICT: For a game that is based on a film that tried to push the boundaries of animation and explore a creative twist on a familiar classic, Disney’s Treasure Planet on PlayStation is unfortunately unambitious and tries to play it safe by copying the generic action platformer design beats of the time. Its levels have plenty of collectibles, but the tasks tied to them are often incredibly basic, bland minigames, or repeated to the point they lose their appeal. The RMS Legacy at least shakes up the stage design some and later levels begin to add a bit of difficulty to the affair, and the solar sailing stages start adding tighter turns and disruptive elements like a crumbling track to try and refresh that quickly rote play style. None of the better ideas really have the substance or strength in execution to redeem a mostly dull adventure focused on scooping up collectibles though while little of note stands in the way of your forward progress.

And so, I give Disney’s Treasure Planet for PlayStation…

A BAD rating. Treasure Planet’s biggest flaw is that it fails to fill its worlds with anything particularly compelling. A lot of what you see are ideas that have some potential like the solar surfing, but as soon as it touches on some idea with promise it wraps that idea up and continues along. It fails to apply the right amount of pressure with forces like the enemies and minigames often lack the substance needed to make them entertaining. Even when things get a bit more difficult it is either because it’s something like a boss fight where your window to act is small and puts you near danger or the minigame asks for quick reactions if you want it to end sooner rather than later. The game world at least doesn’t ask you to scour too much for its abundant collectibles, but they also don’t feel particularly rewarding when they’re often the prize for mundane tasks like stopping to break something or barely going off the beaten path. Having clips from the feature film and voice talent returning to reprise their roles is always a nice touch in a movie game, but it bungles the story as well and leaves Treasure Planet feeling like it a rushed product without much oversight, and it likely was considering the usual situation with such licensed video games.

The glimmers of hope are fool’s gold in Disney’s Treasure Planet as the gameplay with potential ends up adding little value to the overall experience. It breaks out of the mold only rarely and then proceeds to mess up even interesting ideas like the RMS Legacy level with enforced repetition in navigating it, but while Treasure Planet is constantly making errors, it at least holds together as you play it. Its problems are not found in exploring bad ideas but failing to properly iterate on the formulaic choices it did make. Treasure Planet’s PS1 game is actually a rung below blending into the crowd, and for a game based on a movie that was made with passion and attempted new things with animation, it’s a shame to see the video game adaptation tried to be safe and generic and ended up even missing that mark.