Disney’s Fantasia: The Game

As we all know – and have had solidly reinforced by regular TR contributor Jason Iannone – you can make a tie-in video game for anything, provided you don’t care too much about it (a) resembling the source material, or (b) making sense for your brand. Fantasia, with its barely narrative structure, drunken satyrs and finale that evokes Satan was probably quite the challenge for Disney, a company that actually does like its products to make sense for the brand, at least when it comes to eliminating things that could conceivably upset parents (see Splash Mountain, a ride that awkwardly shoehorns in the unrelated-to-splashing movie Song of the South without ever mentioning it or its controversial lead character, Uncle Remus).

But the heart of Fantasia was always about appreciation for classical music, and the newly announced Kinect and Xbox One game…well, it’s about music, at least. Queen and Bruno Mars aren’t exactly what Walt would have called classical, but at least the Sorceror they brought back to host the game is the correct Yen Sid and not Nicolas Cage calling himself Balthazar (that’d be its own, different game, preferably one in which you must avoid swallowing bees).

It’s not clear from the press release exactly HOW gameplay works, but it’s movement based and involves you creating animations and remixing the tunes in real time.

I know it’s a different Fantasia, but I must confess disappointment that this isn’t one of the announced tracks…