Ahh, Milon. I tried it, hated this game, and someone asked me to try it again years later. They said "It gets a lot of flack, and while it does have flaws, there is a lot to like here". This is a game about patience. And wanting to solve puzzles that you don't really know are there. I still dislike this game, but I do see kind of what it was going for, the game just makes most of it unfun.

Milon lives in a land of music, but oh no, he can't play anything so he can't talk to anyone, and double oh no, the royal family of Musicals has been taken prisoner by demons in their castle! I guess when your guards just wave tambourines its not scary to demons. Milon's game is adventuring in this castle, there are many doors each leading to a room that you get locked into. And there is no exit! Great game design! But wait, there are dozens of things hidden in each level, except they are invisible. Blocks you can stand on could also be hidden items, or a blank wall could be the exit door (you also need a hidden key). Even the barrier framing the stage itself could lead to a hidden shop! You have to shoot everything to find out if its real or not, with Milon's only weapon... a bubble blower.... I don't know why. He doesn't shoot them straight on, they either go thirty degrees upwards or downwards, so if you are trying to hit a space near your feet, good luck, the curvature sucks and you'll have to fiddle around with the range.

The real challenge is all the gatekeeping. You need X item to pass, most likely. The issue is either be able to buy it or being able to know where to use it. Take the first challenge, you can go to two rooms. But in order to pass on, you can see the second room has these wooden platforms, like a dock, and standing on them does nothing, but you can see a walkway above. You are supposed to buy shoes. Somehow buying shoes makes you able to use the springs on the wooden planks. I thought maybe the shoes themselves have springs - but you only use them on select locations. Like later on in stage 3, its just a random block on the upper right level, but surprise, you can bounce your springs on it for some reason. Its part of the 'adventure' part of the game that some ppl make very well like, but I don't, because there's nothing that suggests these things will do that. I don't know the rules of this game and they break them constantly. Eventually you unlock the boss door, and fight a big scary guy (all the bosses follow this same pattern of a giant hopping thing that shoots sparks at you), and you ascend up to the 2nd floor of the castle. This is the cool part, because now theres even more doors to explore, and you can even fall off the castle and into a well! Its crazy. Oh, but if you did, I hope you bought the lantern from the secret shop in the wall on the ground floor!

The hints in the game are not very great either. 'Jump to make block appear'. Great, where is that? In the shop? I bought a fire-proof vest. Immediately after buying it the hint said 'vest not 100% fireproof' LOL. Great. Money is a big problem in this game, because you can't just kill foes for it, and can only be found from hitting specific blocks and revealing they are actually money. And they don't respawn. You have to continue exploring upwards, you can't backtrack for money if you clean a level out.

Graphics: 6
The main character looks rather silly, and the enemies are odd but quite noticable, a gloopy blob with one eye, a weird little guy flying around. The game shows you it can make things stand out, but it loves to hide everything from you.

Sound: 4
For a game in a musical kingdom, the music stinks. All the sounds are tinny and not very good.

Addictive: 4
You don't know what you're supposed to do, just that you're stuck and need to get to areas you can't reach, so just randomly hop around and shoot everything. That's how you play this game. Its kind of defeating.

Story: 5
The game says the royals hid everything for their rescuers to find (even the shops?)... but the game is still just a save the princess kind of story.

Depth: 8
Make no mistake, this is a game you have to think things through. The game just doesn't give you very many GOOD hints. Just try anything. Most of the time its something so random, but occasionally, a blank ledge with nothing there actually hides a hidden doorway, or the visible door surrounded by blocks, you know one of them must be fake.

Difficulty: 7
In a way this game is frustratingly hard because the enemies always keep coming, and you will puddle around not knowing where to go, so you're taking even more hits. The design choices are your enemy sometimes. But the random foes are often quite content to leave you alone, and once you get some life extenders and figure out some of the odd controls like the running extends your jump, or the stupid bubble gun angles, its not a bad game. All the overly hidden items was giving me Super Pitfall flashbacks, and that is a trash game, I wish it hadn't made everything hidden. Its a little annoying for money, at least. The shop items, also, once you buy it, its gone from the store and just says SOLD OUT - and there is no inventory screen. Hope you remember what you bought and what it does.

Milon's Secret Castle is full of secrets, all right. If you are the type you likes figuring out a game's unique design, and thinking over things, this may be a game for you. This was not my cup of tea.