Mickey Mousecapade

So I have decided to do something a little different with some of these posts.  After my son was born a few weeks ago, I decided to pull out a bunch of games I had based on “kid friendly” IPs.  I am still going to review these games, but I will also add some commentary on whether the youngins could actually play or enjoy them.

And we will get started with one my very first games, Mickey Mouscapade.  This game came with my NES, a hand me down from my cousin, way back in the early 90’s.  I don’t have too many of those games anymore, for better or for worse, but this one has sat in my collection since day 1.  It seemed like a good place to start with kid friendly stuff.  

 

Full disclosure, I loved Disney when I was like, four, but I’m not one of those people that is Disney obsessed as an adult.  Now that I have kids, I may one day make a trip to the overcrowded, overpriced hellscape happiest place on earth that is Disney World, but thats about it. I enjoy some of their movies and recognize their quality, but I will never rush to a theater to see the latest offering from the evil empire respected studio that is the House of Mouse.  

So anyway, back to Mickey Mousecapade.  It’s a pretty basic NES platformer by Capcom. You play as Mickey Mouse who is on a quest to rescue Alice (the one from Wonderland) who has been kidnapped by the evil Malificent.  I’m not a stickler for Disney cannon or anything, but doesn’t that not make sense?  Isn’t Malificent from Snow White?  Whatever.  It’s a nice simple NES game, a jumps and b shoots stars.  There are five 2D platforming levels, each with a different theme and enemies.  They aren’t quite linear, but close enough.  Enemies are stage appropriate, with animated brooms and chairs in the wizard’s funhouse, bears throwing honey in the woods and pirates patrolling the pirate ship.  

The hit detection is solid, but the controls are loose and floaty.  Mickey feels like he is sliding on ice when he is walking and floating in zero G when he is jumping.  A lot of the enemies just sit in place and jump and these are difficult to clear either by jumping over them or running under them.  The controls are at least responsive and the hit boxes for the stars are pretty forgiving.  They do fire slowly though and a lot of the enemies take quite a few hits before they go down.  

Graphically the game looks okay.  The colors are nice and bright and really fit the old school Disney vibe.  Unfortunately, the backgrounds get less and less interesting as the game goes on and the final stage is boring and bland.  It’s a stark contrast to the bright colored rooms from the first stage.  The sound is of good quality, but its repetitive and the loops are short.  At least you get different music for each of the levels, which wasn’t a given when this game came out in 1987.  

Unfortunately, I can’t recommend this game for either gamers or kids, as it has very little substance and crippling flaws that prevent it from even being passably enjoyable.  First and foremost, the game completely lacks balance and goes a long way to make itself feel artificially longer than it is.  The first stage is a long, yet simple maze you need to navigate to find a key.  All good, except once you find it, you need to backtrack alllllllll the way back to the first screen of the game to fight the boss.  Why?  To create artificial length, that’s why?

After leaving the funhouse, you get a quick platforming stage before you reach the woods.  It seems like a pretty straightforward stage until you realize its cycling over and over again.  You will quickly realize that the doors in the stage lead you to different areas, once again, pretty standard stuff.  Eventually though you will find you can’t progress any farther.  You try everything, repeating the stage multiple times, trying the doors in a different order, jumping down holes, whatever.  None of it works.  The solution?  There’s a secret door hidden in one of the trees you need to shoot multiple times to open.  There are no indications as to where this door is, you have to get lucky enough to hit it with a star, hear or see that it registered and keep shooting it.  That’s obnoxious for anyone, but a young kid is definitely not going to be able to figure that out.  And what does the game follow this all with?  A stage that is literally three screens.  That sort of imbalance always makes for a frustrating experience.

But the worst part of this game comes from the most unassuming of sources: Minnie Mouse.  You see, Minnie follows Mickey everywhere, kind of like how Tails follows Sonic.  She mimics Mickey’s actions move for move, delayed by about a second.  But unlike Tails, who you can leave in the dust or simply let die, you need to take Minnie everywhere with you.  You can’t leave the screen without her.  This is a huge, huge problem as she is constantly getting stuck.  She gets stuck on stairs.  She will get stuck on a platform next to you and force you to make an impossible jump.  Worst case scenario, she will get stuck in one of the openings in the final stage, bouncing uncontrollably until you go back and get her.

There is a way to get rid of Minnie.  You can summon a monster that will grab her and take her away, allowing you to move about the level unencumbered.  The problem is that once she’s gone, you can’t finish the level.  The only way to get her back is to locate a hidden room,  pick one of five statues that she could be trapped in and hope its the correct one.  If it’s not, you have to find the room again.  Unfortunately, leaving the room restarts you at the bottom of the screen and in some cases, that means you may have to walk all the way back to where you were.  It’s unbelievably frustrating.  

So, that brings us to the million dollar questions:

Could your kids play this game?:  Yes, in theory.  Controls are simple enough and there isn’t anything too violent or over the top.  I couldn’t imagine children younger than four gaming with a controller, but it could be played by kids four and up.

Would your kids enjoy playing this game?: No.  It’s too confusing, too frustrating and too reliant on hidden object gimmicks to be enjoyable for really young children and too cutesy for older kids.  

Would gamers enjoy playing it?:  No.  What it all boils down to is Mickey Mousecapade just isn’t very good.  Of course, there are games that are worse, but there really just isn’t anything here.  Maybe if you are a hardcore Disney fan you could find something to enjoy.  Non-Disney fans need not apply. 

3/10

Play this game if:

You are an absolute diehard Disney fan

You are looking for a side scroller in the classic Capcom style but don’t have any better options

Avoid if:

You have one of the many better options.