In Japan, QuackShot Starring Donald Duck was closely associated with branding used for Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse, as both games were developed and released by Sega one year apart from each other. Although the title screens for both games in the Japanese versions used their international titles, QuackShot was referred to as アイラブドナルドダック, or I Love Donald Duck, in various Japanese promotional materials, while the Japanese title for Castle of Illusion was アイラブミッキーマウス, or I Love Mickey Mouse. Following this trend, World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck was released in Japan with the title アイラブ ミッキー＆ドナ, or I Love Mickey & Donald.

Both Castle of Illusion and QuackShot would be bundled together and re-released in two different compilations in the 1990s: one for the Genesis released internationally, and another for the Sega Saturn released as part of the Sega Ages series exclusively in Japan, which used the I Love branding.

When creating the sprite animations for Mickey, the game's designers had to design the levels to accommodate for the higher number of frames of animation and subsequent extra distance in Mickey's jump. When asked about the inspiration for the game's high-quality sprite animation, producer Emiko Yamamoto told Game Informer in 2013:


According to Yamamoto, the developers aimed for these higher-quality animations in the first place because they valued making the world and characters feel alive and only realized they were capable of achieving this after creating supplementary animations like Mickey's idle and wavering animations: