The Lucky Dime Caper Starring Donald Duck (Sega Master System & Sega Game Gear Review)

September 14, 2023 by 1 Comment

The Lucky Dime Caper Starring Donald Duck
Platform: Sega Game Gear & Sega Master System
Developed by Sega
First Released October, 1991 (Game Gear)
First Released December, 1991 (Master System)
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

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In case you didn’t know, in Europe (and later in Brazil), the Sega Master System got hundreds of new releases after it was discontinued in favor of the Genesis in America. While almost all of these titles were adapted from the Game Gear, which uses very similar hardware, it’s a misnomer that the games are simply ports of Game Gear games. They often have several changes somewhere, be it level design or mechanics or health meters or play control or enemy behavior or whole boss battles. It’s all of the above for The Lucky Dime Caper. Although these titles share the same name, the Game Gear version of Donald Duck’s first big solo video game that wasn’t co-opted by Snoopy is significantly stripped-down from the Master System release. Also this is probably the first “big” Master System release that didn’t come out in the United States.

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I should note that I played the Game Gear version first, and that I’ve previously played the Lucky Dime Caper. After one level of the Game Gear build, I thought to myself “I distinctly remember liking this more.” Which I did.. on the Sega Master System. On the Game Gear, Lucky Dime feels slower and eliminates a lot of the elements that break-up the platforming monotony. Swinging off vines? That’s not in the Game Gear version. A trippy auto-scrolling “run down a hill that becomes increasingly steeper” segment? That’s gone on the handheld version. Even the boss fights are cut-up. On the Sega Master System, at one point you fight two gigantic statues that are possessed by a spirit. On the Game Gear, it’s just one statue, with nothing really added to make up for it except for the fact that the whole game is nerfed.

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In addition to stereotypical “jump on enemies” combat, Lucky Dime has two weapons. In both games, you start with a hammer, and you can also pick up a frisbee. On the Game Gear, from the moment you get the frisbee, Lucky Dime Caper might as well start playing the end credits over the action because you just beat the game. You can throw it the length of the screen and take out most enemies and especially the bosses (who don’t damage you when they blink) without having to time when to attack them or wait for them to position themselves to be vulnerable. And, only on the Game Gear, even if you die you’ll still have the frisbee when you respawn. On the Master System, it’s totally different. There, when you take damage, you lose your weapon. The changes they went with are so bizarre that it makes the Game Gear title feel like an unfinished prototype. Also, I have to go ahead and say the last boss, be it Game Gear or Sega Master System, is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever seen.

Just hit the crystal ball six times. It doesn’t move and Elvira Duck or whatever her name is doesn’t exactly have the most difficult to dodge attacks.

I assume some elements from the Master System build were cut because of the smaller screen dimensions, while others were cut to avoid motion blur/ghosting problems. HOWEVER, many changes are just baffling. The Master System had the right idea about losing your weapon when taking damage. It adds incentive to not just run up to every obstacle, guns blazing. Especially at the risk of losing the frisbee, which I went long stretches of the SMS version without. However, that’s not why I disliked this. The nail in the coffin for me was the sluggish jumping physics and overly bland level design. The game just plays much cleaner on the Master System and it takes the level design in much more surprising directions. Sorry Game Gear version. Ya basic.
Verdict: NO! to the Game Gear port, but keep reading..

The SMS version has time limits to the levels. They frequently reset when you change rooms, so I never came close to timing-out. Also this thing basically drip feeds you extra lives. I’d have to be trying to play badly to game over.

Now then, the superior Sega Master System version is also too easy for different reasons. I would have never guessed the working title of this game was “DuckTales.” This was the Sega version of one of the biggest cake walks on the NES? Nope. Never a million years would I have imagined that. To this version of Lucky Dime’s credit, the item system here gives the game SOME stakes. The problem is that enemies drop items in crazy intervals, so you won’t really have to go without. The hammer isn’t that fun to use, but if you kill enough baddies, you’ll eventually get the overpowered frisbee and enough extra lives to assure Donald Duck will survive the heat death of the universe, rendering the whole experience a cinch. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration. There’s some potentially cruel jumps near the end, and there’s one really annoying mechanic to movement/jumping. Take a look at Donald right here:

This is the typical Disney “teetering on the edge of a ledge, I’m so afraid” animation. Only, in this game, it’s got what I’ve termed a “movement tax” attached to it. If you’re not doing the “oh crap” animation, you can just press the opposite direction and start moving. But if you’re teeter-tottering on the edge, there’s a noticeable delay to turning around and starting to move. Just a half a second or so. Why does that matter? Oh, because of level design like this, where you have to shimmy left and right in the air to make sure you stick the landing.

And there’s level design like this, where you have to heel-toe your way through platforms.

You can’t see it but I was teetering on the edge before this.

And it’s not just turning around. It saps your ability to jump forward in the direction you’re already facing as well. The whole game is full of platforms and sometimes you might want to.. you know.. turn around or quickly leap from platform to platform. But quick reflexes are taken from you if you’re barely on a ledge and have to pay a movement tax. Which you’ll almost certainly have to pay if it’s a single character-length platform. Seriously, who was the brain trust who decided to add this to a platform game? I’d say that this is game breaking, but you get so many extra lives that it doesn’t really even matter all that much.

The enemies behave differently too. The top hat skeletons have to be “tempted” to expose themselves on the SMS. They’re generic baddies that are just there and easy to get rid of on the Game Gear.

What matters a lot more is that, despite this completely weird decision to have the lookie-ledge dance factor into movement, Lucky Dime is just better on the Master System. It has much more memorable set pieces, better boss fights, and even the movement.. yes, that thing I just complained so much about.. is significantly improved. Oh, another difference: the Game Gear version scatters items around, but on the SMS, everything is dropped by the enemies. And the stars aren’t your “life” like they are in the Game Gear version. Instead, if you get five of them, you become invincible. WHAT THE HELL? What, did they not want the sprites for the tiny little red diamonds that represented your hit points on Game Gear to go to waste when they did away with hit points on the Master System?

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Is it fun? Yea. Problematic as it is, and toothless as it is (seriously, I’m not exaggerating when I say enemies drop so many extra lives it’s almost patronizing), it’s one of those generic platform games that leans on the positive side. It’s nowhere near the same level as Castle of Illusion. This feels like a B tier Disney platformer. But, like, somewhere near the top of the top of the B tier. Not quite as good as Disney legends DuckTales or Rescue Rangers, but worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as them. You know when you do a run on sentence and you barely have any air in your lungs but you keep trying to talk anyway? Yea, that’s when you utter Lucky Dime.

What? I’ve done almost 20 Disney games in a row, folks. I’m running out of words over here.
Verdict: YES! to the Sega Master System port.

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TaleSpin (TurboGrafx-16 Review)

September 13, 2023 by 2 Comments

TaleSpin
Platform: TurboGrafx-16
Developed by Radiance Software
Published by NEC
First Released July, 1991
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Always check to see if there’s cheat codes first, Cathy. I could have probably cut the forty-five minutes of agony I spent with TaleSpin down to a more palatable thirty. Hell, maybe even twenty.

I can say exactly three good things about TaleSpin, which is sadly the very first TurboGrafx-16 game to ever get the full Indie Gamer Chick review treatment. (1) You can throw projectiles diagonally. I hate it when games don’t let you do that. This one, you can. Kudos. (2) When you game over, it doesn’t make you restart a stage from the start. You go back to the last checkpoint. It’s basically just a point reset. Double kudos. (3) It didn’t gain sentience and murder me through my monitor. Otherwise, this is easily the worst game I’ve played during this Disney marathon yet. It’s one of the most boring and poorly made platformers I’ve ever played.

For about four minutes, it’s also one of the worst shmups I’ve ever played. It might be THE worst, in fact. All the collision box and cheap hits from the platforming sections, only this time in a shmup. Oh, and there’s no variety to it and no boss fight.

TaleSpin consists of four non-linear levels, a shmup, a level where you play as Kit (I’d never seen the show and assumed his name was “Li’l Britches”) and a final platforming stage. I played the jungle level first, and it was easily the best stage in the game. By “best” I mean it barely rose to the level of “competent but bland.” A fairly basic side-scrolling type of affair notably only for the rate some enemies fire projectiles at you. There’s also a branching path for no reason. Before the start of every level, you’re told to find X amount of some random item. In that stage, it’s feathers. In another stage, it’s pearls, and so forth. I had been under the impression that was the object of the game, but it’s not. It’s just for bonus points. I didn’t discover this until the second stage. For me, that was an underwater level where your weapon seems to be a squirt gun. Yes, really.

Too bad nobody bought this. The sequel would have seen Baloo take a flamethrower to do battle with the sun.

To the game’s credit, it paid-off the absurdity of bringing a squirt gun to an underwater level by having it be the worst weapon in the history of video games. Not only is it unresponsive, (along with movement in general in this specific stage) but it doesn’t do a whole lot of damage. This was such a bad level that I nearly had a panic attack when I realized I was barely two stages into a game so awful that it feels historic. To TaleSpin’s very limited credit, this was as bad as the game got, but it’s pretty damn bad AND I had to go back and replay it because my first session had a logistic problem: I spent a lot of time trying to avoid ALL the fishes when some of them are benign. Of the normal looking ones, only the brown ones damage you because they’re really blowfish who swell up when they approach your massive collision box. As if they weren’t bad enough, the game has these massively spongy crabs that nibble at your collision box. I suffered my first of multiple GAME OVERs here.

There’s electric eels too that you can usually duck under. The crabs? I’d be impressed if someone could avoid taking damage from them.

You’ll note that I’ve been saying that enemies attacked my collision box instead of Baloo himself. Well, that’s because TaleSpin’s collision detection is some of the worst I’ve ever seen. Your box is absolutely massive, and the boxes for enemies and their projectiles are too, which combine to make avoiding damage a living hell. Seemingly the only thing that doesn’t have huge boxes are YOUR projectiles. I was often stunned by how lazily done the collision is and how they seem to have understood this and placed enemies to target THE BOX, and not the sprite. I made a couple examples. Take a look at this.

It gets even worse when you get to Kit’s stage. Even though he’s physically smaller, he seems to have retained a collision box that matches Baloo’s. Also, in that stage, there’s no attack. TaleSpin TG-16 becomes an avoider-game for that level. Thankfully, it’s just a lazy series of ramps that seems tailor-made to avoid enemies comfortably. That is, until it climaxes with an enemy that I honestly don’t believe there’s any way to avoid taking damage from. You just can’t leap high enough, even with Kit’s ability to use a parachute, to avoid this guy. In this screenshot, I’m being hit.

Allegedly there’s health refills in the game in the form of gold bars. I finished the whole game and, to the best of my knowledge, I never found one single health refill. I scored several free lives and, in the (terrible) bonus stages I even scored a couple extra continues, but I never saw a health refill. In every stage BUT this one, I defeated literally every enemy I came across, and they never really dropped anything besides the bonus times that are only worth points. Your health doesn’t refill between stages, and if not for the fact that the game offered continues, there’s no way I’d have finished TaleSpin. This isn’t merely old-school janky. This is a mechanically broken game. There’s also no personal touch to it. When you enter a section where boxes are thrown at you by enemies, the arrangement of where the enemies are placed is repeated several times for the full hallway. No charm. No tact. This is not a game made with love. It’s a game made because Radiance was probably the lowest bidder.

Shere Khan isn’t the last boss. What the hell?

If you were to pretend that this didn’t have overly-heavy jumping, feathery combat, and some of the worst collision detection I’ve seen in a platformer, TaleSpin would just be boring anyway. This offers NOTHING besides very rudimentary platforming high jinks. I feel sorry for those TurboGrafx-16 owners who didn’t get to play the Disney offerings on Sega or Nintendo. The shoddy play mechanics, unresponsive and sluggish controls, and the way damage is handled makes TaleSpin stink of a game that was rushed through development without a hint of polish. It’s an ugly game, too. One of the worst looking TG-16 titles I’ve seen so far, and I played through the TurboGrafx-16 Mini. Burn this one in the red flower.
Verdict: NO!
Oh god.. they did the Darkwing Duck game on the TurboGrafx-16 too.

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Mickey’s Dangerous Chase (Game Boy Review)

September 13, 2023 by 2 Comments

Mickey’s Dangerous Chase
aka Mickey’s Chase which is LITERALLY THE TITLE SCREEN!
Platform: Game Boy
Developed by Now Production
First Released May 15, 1991
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Mickey ‘n Minnie: Rescue Rangers

Although I couldn’t find any official documentation on this, I think there’s compelling evidence that Mickey’s Dangerous Chase began development as the Game Boy port of Rescue Rangers. It’s not just the fact that DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, Talespin, and even Little Mermaid all got Game Boy versions while only Rescue Rangers got left out in the cold. The core gameplay of picking up and throwing boxes that are littered all over the screen is identical to Rescue Rangers, minus the “ducking in the box” mechanic that baffled me so much. Otherwise, from the way you pick up boxes to the “full length of the screen” throws to the fact that enemies fly off the screen upon dying is nearly identical to Chip ‘n Dale. So are multiple enemy sprites, and you can also select whether you want to play as Mickey or Minnie.

I have no clue what happened, but this is clearly THE Rescue Rangers Game Boy game. And, when Mickey’s Dangerous Chase sticks to Rescue Rangers-style gameplay, it’s pretty dang decent. The box-throwing combat is fun. The problem is, it does different things. There’s only a single boss fight in the entire game, and it’s a horrible fight. There’s fifteen levels spread over five worlds. Every third level is some kind of “event” type stage that’s horrible. And there’s lots of last-pixel jumps and blind chance jumps that are.. well, horrible. Are you catching onto the theme here?

The event stages all offer some form of auto-scrolling mayhem and have more cheap shots than your average Danny Ainge highlight reel.

I can’t help but wonder if they realized this wasn’t going to be the close approximation to Rescue Rangers that DuckTales had sort of pulled-off and aborted the Rescue Rangers theme. Yea, I hated DuckTales on the Game Boy, but it was a no-question-about-it adaption that I could see players and critics in 1990 comparing favorably to the NES original. Meanwhile, the game that became Dangerous Chase would have probably not gotten the same “faithful adaptation” buzz. I suspect that there were other issues as well, perhaps recreating the iconic Rescue Rangers bosses and the rubber ball weapon mechanic that’s part of their battles. Or maybe it was a speed issue. Game Boy titles play slower, and Rescue Rangers is a game that cuts a blistering pace. Whatever happened, Chip & Dale were out, and Mickey & Minnie were in to star in a game that teeters between action decency and straight-up unfair gotcha bullcrap.

The “?” blocks aren’t of the Mario “bonk’em” variety. Instead, they work like the crates. They disappear upon being picked up and the item flips upwards before falling off the screen. They even incorporated this “disappearing” thing into the platforming design, which is the only clever thing Dangerous Chase does.

While the action is fine, the level design relies too heavily on blind jumps or last-pixel jumping. The deeper you get into the game, the more heavily Dangerous Chase leans into this. Consequently, it’s just not very fun. Even less fun is throwing enemies into the mix in ways where I’m nearly certain there’s no way to avoid taking damage. In fifteen levels, exactly one of them was better than average. Level 5-1 to be exact. It’s essentially a maze of crates where you have to suss out which ones to grab mid-air in order to create a viable pathway to avoid falling into the spikes below. It was actually really well done, which shocked the hell out of me. The levels had been so bland up to this point.

I hate it when mediocre games don’t get good until the very end. “Where was this cleverness all along?”

The rest of the game isn’t as miserable as many bad games I’ve played, largely based on satisfying combat. But, why end each world on the auto-scrolling stuff? One of them involves a climb up a building, and that would be fine if not for the fact that the platforms deviate into pairs of single-character-length ledges. Typically one is the right way, and one is going to lead to you dying and starting over. It’s absolute garbage design and was the final straw for me. I’d preferred a boss fight over any of these sections.

Maybe you can make the jumps regardless of which way you go. I don’t know. I’m almost certain this is a “right way/wrong way, flip a coin” situation.

What’s most frustrating of all about Mickey’s Dangerous Chase is that it does a lot right. The first couple stages made me think I might have found one of the most underrated hidden gems on the Game Boy. “Why does nobody talk about this? It’s not bad!” Then, the first auto-scrolling section happened: a speedboat chase with spotty collision, GOTCHA! enemy placement, and nothing fun or clever to make up for the jankiness. And then I understood. Then the blind jumps started. Then the last pixel jumps started. And the cheap enemy placement. Then more auto-scrolling. And an annoyingly designed final boss. And now I’m totally cool with this having not ended up being a Rescue Rangers game. It didn’t deserve it.
Verdict: NO!

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Mickey Mouse II/The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2/Hugo (Game Boy Review)

September 12, 2023 by 1 Comment

Mickey Mouse II
aka The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2
aka Hugo
Platform: Game Boy
Developed by Kemco
First Released April 26, 1991

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I expected this to be little more than 1991 equivalent of an expansion pack to the original Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle. Well, the Game Boy one, at least. Nope. This is a whole new beast. It’s also one of the best selling Game Boy releases, which proves that sales figures are not indicative of quality. This time around, the level design is so boring. The puzzles are too.. unpuzzle-like. There’s very little room for improvisation, and the close calls that I dug so much in the first pair of Crazy Castle games are replaced here by hoping the game actually responds to your requests to activate your weapon. Yea, the input lag is much worse this go around. It’s probably more noticeable because Crazy Castle 2 utilizes having enemies camp right by doors. There’s doors this time. Get used to screens that look like this:

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It just absolutely kills the flow of the game. Later in the game, Crazy Castle II relies very heavily on doors with nothing in them. Mind you, there’s zero consequences for this. In theory, they’re red herrings that send you on a wild goose chase that adds an element of planning and strategy. In execution you’re going to pass by every door through natural gameplay progression. And it fails logically too, doesn’t it? It’s blind chance that the doors will either contain something or be empty. There’s no way to deduce it by design or by logic. That’s not a puzzle. It’s a coin flip.

There’s hammers, pick-axes, etc that you pick up in the rooms. Once you have them, you get unlimited usage of them for the rest of the stage. But, again, it doesn’t really add to the “puzzle” because the levels aren’t designed to require a whole lot of thought process. You just go to the next thing. It’s so bad.

And, since enemies remain in place inside the rooms, wherever an enemy is when you enter a door, they’re still there when you exit. So, that the whole “enter the rooms” gameplay mechanic is functionally useless and serves only to pad things out. How padded? The first NES Crazy Castle was 60 levels. The first Game Boy Crazy Castle was 80 levels. I beat both in roughly the same amount of time. This one, at 28 levels? It took me about double the time, even though this has only just-over a quarter of the amount of levels. Granted, my total playtime was broken-up because this was so boring that basically anything else would be a suitable substitute for my attention. I even went swimming at one point, and I hate swimming.

Oh god, make it stop. This game can have pipes that feel like they take FOREVER to get from point A to point B. I suppose that’s why there’s no timer.

Also keep in mind that (1) The levels are much longer. (2) I died a lot more than I did in the previous two games. Though I wouldn’t say it’s because the game is harder. It’s just jankier. Things like taking pipes that transport you several stories down into an enemy you couldn’t have known was there, or especially when you have to just walk off a ledge and fall down several stories.

Oh god, there’s a last boss. And it’s a Jank Supreme with pickles and mayo. Oh, and you know the empty rooms? There’s one of those in the boss chamber that then becomes the passage to Minnie after you beat the boss (three shots does the trick. Easy peasy). Is that supposed to pay off the empty rooms? Because it doesn’t.

So what else can I say about Mickey Mouse II, Bugs Bunny II, Hugo, or whatever else this wants to be called? It’s boring. It’s a slog. This review was a disaster for me to write. I don’t think there was a whole lot left they could do with the formula from the first game. I understand that keeping the series going meant tweaking the rules and adding more enemy sprites. Hell, it could have worked, but having the doors be glorified closets, always the same shape, that often don’t contain anything? Well, that was a stupid design choice that hurt quite a lot. But what hurts even worse is that the stages often feel too linear. There’s really no “puzzle” and instead levels feel like you’re being queued, with the only challenge being the occasional leap-of-faith. Then again, I suppose “Bugs Bunny Slow Grindy Castle of Agony” wouldn’t sell over two million copies.
Verdict: NO!

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Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (Sega Master System/Sega Game Gear Review)

September 11, 2023 by 16 Comments

Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
Platform: Sega Master System & Sega Game Gear
Developed by Sega
First Released February, 1991
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

I figured it was just going to be a journey through 8-bit versions of the Genesis game’s set pieces. Hah. Yea, some of the themes repeat, but this is a whole different mouse, folks.

Take a look at pretty much any “best of the Sega Master System” list and Castle of Illusion is bound to show up. I’m always a bit of a skeptic when it comes to such lists, and..

Wait, hold on.. I’m having a case of déjà vu over here.

Okay, it’s gone now, because thankfully, Castle of Illusion’s 8-Bit version is actually a completely different game. I don’t mean just in the level design sense, like the difference between, say, Crazy Castle on the GameBoy and the NES. No, this is not a “re-imagining” or a “demake” or anything like that. Think of it as the little brother to the Genesis game that bears only a passing “clearly they’re siblings but not twins” type of resemblance. In fact, this feels like an amalgamation of three elite Disney games: the Genesis Castle of Illusion, along with the NES classics DuckTales and Rescue Rangers. Mickey doesn’t really do anything from a mechanical point of view to stand apart from those. I figured, as great as those games are, 8-bit Castle of Illusion ran the risk of not having an identity of its own. Yet, a startling amount of my readers insisted this was the superior Castle of Illusion game. Friends I trusted seemed to agree. I thought there was no way it could be true.

It is.

I’m going to just come out and say it: sentient chocolate bars as bosses are a crime against nature. It’s just.. wrong. And this one was only slightly more tolerable than the one from Cuphead. Which I remembered after this was really supposed to be a waffle. For God’s sake, Cathy, its name is Sir Waffington III.

I think a big part of that is Castle of Illusion SMS isn’t a game you can sleepwalk through. This one has teeth, folks. I died a lot, and while the game is thankfully plentiful with extra lives, I admit, I was sweating a few sections. Whereas Castle of Illusion Genesis has its platforms fine-tuned for thrilling jumps, the 8-bit version instead focuses on fine-tuned enemy placement. While the collision detection is a little bit on the iffy side, the challenge is more about timing. Knowing when to make your moves. When to attack, and when to back off. Combat is done two ways. The butt-stomp from the Genny game makes its triumphant return here, only this time, you don’t spring-up the entire height of the screen off enemies. I think this makes it more satisfying, as it gives the world a more nuanced sense of weight and gravity that the more “advanced” Genesis version was lacking.

This has a lot more restraint than Rescue Rangers does.

Then there’s the Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers style pick-up-and-throw mechanics, only it’s done in a more methodical “lift with your knees” type of way. You can pick-up rocks, barrels, balls, occasionally keys, and various other assorted blocks to use as throwing weapons. Unlike Rescue Rangers, they don’t just fly across the screen. Perhaps the most fine-tuned aspect of the game is the range you get with them. No cowardly “one-shotting an enemy from across the screen” malarkey here. You actually have to get close enough to be at-risk. I’d say Castle of Illusion is more conservative with the ammo, but everything respawns nearly the moment you leave that part of the map. This includes all the blocks. Otherwise, I’d say conservation of ammo factors in. It still sort of does.

Sometimes they do other things. Like this “block” is a lantern that allows you to, you know, see where you’re going.

Where an enemy lurks, there’s usually only a single block, maybe two, to deal with it. That’s assuming there’s any at all and you’re instead expected to use Mickey’s legendary rear-end. You can’t just “deal” with enemies with the projectiles. The way these baddies are designed is precision-engineered to require you to actually take your time and aim. They’re a jittery bunch, but in a good way. Original too. There’s a section with R.C. cars and planes where trying to attack them is pointless. Instead, you have to get rid of their remote control. I mean, come on! That’s charming! I was so certain I would prefer the frantic, fast-paced throwing action of Rescue Rangers, and boy, was I wrong. And I didn’t even mention that the blocks aren’t just throwing weapons. While rocks and balls vanish after a single use, the barrels can be used both as weapons and as stepping stones to reach higher platforms.

Even without the dazzling visuals, there’s several memorable set pieces.

Another big change is this Castle of Illusion heavily rewards exploration. Levels 1 – 3 can be played in any order, then levels 4 and 5 as well. Seemingly taking most of its inspiration from Capcom’s DuckTales, levels are laid out in a semi-labyrinthine style. There’s two extra hit points hidden in the game. I didn’t even find one of them in my first play-through, because I didn’t take the path to it on the stage it was on. Later, the game repeated the Genesis “there’s seven gems but only five levels” thing that made me roll my eyes. “Why not just have five gems?” Except, I missed a gem on the fifth stage. Again, I just didn’t take the right path and ended up in the boss chamber without it. After winning the fight, I had to replay the level to go get it. Upon picking it up, the game tallied up my points for the stage instead of making me refight the boss. I was a very happy person at that point.

This is an auto-scrolling section, and I normally hate those. This is different. Here, you have to allow the scrolling to push you under this gap. Clever. SMS Castle of Illusion doesn’t overuse the auto-scrolling, but when it’s there, it’s some of the best usage of this style of platforming design in gaming history.

And by the way, there’s six levels this time. After gathering the seven gems, instead of just cutting straight to the last boss, you play a sixth level. So, seven gems, six levels, seven boss fights. And not a stinker in the bunch. Each of the six levels is a joy to explore. Often tough, but never unfair. When I died via timing out, it felt like I deserved it. When I missed my jumps, I knew it was on me. When an enemy got me, I knew it was my fault for not attacking it right. And those bosses? Each one killed me at least once because I tried to cheese them and paid the price for it. In fact, 8-Bit Castle of Illusion has the best boss fights of any of the Disney games I’ve reviewed so far. I’ll take it a step further and say this is easily the best game in the whole marathon. As a reminder, this is the twelfth Disney release I’ve played. Better than Rescue Rangers. Better than the other Castle of Illusion. This is the current leader. And, while I’ve got over six-dozen left to go, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this Castle of Illusion ran the table from here.

Hey Capcom! Pay attention! I died on every single boss EXCEPT the last one, and that was sheer luck on my part. I died TWICE on this dragon. You don’t have to phone-in the finale of every level and have your bosses be total push-overs just because it’s a Disney property. Castle of Illusion has the best boss fights of any platform game on any third generation console. Yep, I went there. Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse on the Master System checks off a LOT of “best-of” boxes.

A reader on Twitter had a line that I just adored. He said the 8-bit Castle of Illusion “is a better game, but the Genesis one was a better experience.” With twelve words, he summed up the difference between the two games better than this whole review did. While Castle of Illusion on Genesis holds its own as one of the all-time greats, it also existed to provide an enchanting experience. It didn’t have time to experiment. It didn’t have time to get too creative. It had to look spectacular in those iconic GENESIS DOES WHAT NINTENDON’T ads. Remember, Sega had no Sonic The Hedgehog yet, and they had no idea if that game would turn out good. Or, even if it turned out amazing, they had no certainty people would embrace it. Great games get ignored by the public all the time, and Sonic would need a unique marketing strategy. Mickey Mouse, though? Everyone knows Mickey Mouse. Just make sure it looks great in commercials (check) and the game is really good (check) while also getting compared to Super Mario (check) and you have yourself a killer app. That’s the difference. The Genesis version needed to be great in gameplay and amazing visually. The Master System version? It needed to flip that, or it would serve as little more than a cruel tease for those kids without the upgraded system.

The Master System version of Castle of Illusion is on the left. The Game Gear version is on the right. While there WERE some changes, it’s almost entirely superficial stuff. That won’t be true of EVERY Master System/Game Gear combo. I have to review The Lucky Dime Caper Starring Donald Duck twice because the two versions feature different level design, among other things.

Well, the end result was the best Sega Master System game I’ve ever played. Yea, more than even Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap. In fact, I don’t even think it’s close between the two. This is head and shoulders above that, and far above the SMS versions of Sonic. It’s one of the best 8-bit games ever. One of the best 2D platformers ever. I’d throw it on the “most underrated game ever” list too, but given how many people bring up the fact that it’s better than the Genesis game, I don’t think it counts as underrated. Y’all got it right this time. Easily the superior game. It’s a shame Sega had to wait four years for it. If Sega had Castle of Illusion in 1987, Nintendo v Sega might have been an actual fight much sooner. Off the top of my head, I can only think of maybe four or five NES games I like more than Castle of Illusion. The real crime is that only the Genesis game is getting celebrated with remakes and re-releases when a case could be made that Castle of Illusion on the Sega Master System was Sega’s finest hour.
Verdict: YES!

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Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (Sega Genesis Review)

September 10, 2023 by 13 Comments

Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
Platform: Sega Genesis
Developed by Sega
First Released: November 21, 1990
Remade in 2013
Included in the Sega Genesis Mini

As far as I can tell, Castle of Illusion is the innovator of that most graceful of gaming staples: the butt stomp. To count as a “butt stomp” it can’t just be gravity doing the work for you. It requires you to manually call for the butt stomp to occur. I’ve put way too much thought into buttocks-based gaming attacks.

Take a look at pretty much any “best of the Sega Genesis” list and Castle of Illusion is bound to show up. I’m always a bit of a skeptic when it comes to such lists, and halfway through the first level, my skepticism was blasting my senses with sirens. It’s one of the slower-paced platformers I’ve ever encountered. There’s no run button, and Mickey’s walking speed.. on a quest to rescue his main squeeze, mind you.. could best be described as “lacking in urgency.” Come on, Mickster! Put a little pep in your step, buddy! Do you want Minnie to die? I get that being with the same partner for 95 years now is probably exhausting, but can you at least pretend to care?

Yes, yes, the visuals are fantastic. I imagine this game convinced many children of the early 90s that maybe it was time to move on from their NES. Was that you? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear your story!

I remember specifically thinking “well, kudos to Sega for figuring out how to differentiate themselves from Mario, I guess.” This was the first tent-pole platformer on the Genesis, and it feels NOTHING like Mario. Realistically, every first party Sega platformer was going to be compared, fairly or not, to Nintendo’s mascot. A year later, Sonic went the other direction with speed and managed to pull off the same “nothing like Mario” feat based largely around the game’s movement and physics. It’s kind of funny that Sega’s two best and brightest “Mario Killers” feel nothing alike each-other. But, while Sonic gets all the credit these days, Mickey was first. And I wasn’t sure that charmingly deliberate pace would work.

By the time I finished that first level, I was whistling a different tune, because Castle of Illusion is pretty dang good. Not by the standards of 1990. By today’s standards. Oh yea, this passes the test of time.

Having memorable set pieces right off the bat helps. Mario games always take their time getting to the exotic stuff. Castle of Illusion starts with a forest, so you think “well, that’s mundane” but, before that level is up, you’re hopping across leaves with gigantic spiderwebs behind you, which somehow still feels fresh over thirty years later. Nice!

I quickly came to realize the slower pace was actually the product of genius game design. Let me use the worst level in the game as an example. In it, you enter a room where the exit is right there, but the door is locked. The key is several stories above you, and to reach it, you must climb a seemingly endless and somewhat repetitive series of stairs. I would normally find this type of design to be mind-numbing. But, the action kept-up the entire time. The enemies were spaced just right so that I couldn’t coast, and the path would occasionally have pathways that led to items or health refills. Then, just when it felt like I was about to run out of patience, I grab the key and.. the stairs become a giant, multi-storied slide that you run down, grabbing points along the way. It wasn’t enough to just end this sequence. Castle of Illusion, at its most risky of venturing into blandness, instead paid off the worst part of the game (which isn’t awful by any stretch) with an exhilarating reward. And it was awesome! That’s how you cross over from quality title to unforgettable legend.

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I’m a hyperactive kind of chick, and I like my platformers fast-paced. So, imagine my surprise when I discovered Castle of Illusion is basically non-stop action. Huh? Wha? How? It’s the level design. The layouts are so fine-tuned to perfection that it almost feels scientific. From leaps that have you holding your breath to enemies swooping in at the exact right moment to spring off them to a just-out-of-reach platform, Mickey’s first of several adventures with Sega never lets up. While the movement is slow, the gameplay’s tempo is as energetic as any of Mario or Sonic’s best 2D games. Just replace surreal visuals with jaw-dropping backdrops that look like pixelated oil paintings. I can’t stress enough: the set pieces carry the day here. You want to keep going in Castle of Illusion just to see what the next stage’s theme will be.

The jumping is bizarre because it SEEMS like it’s going to be floaty and annoying at first. But once again, it’s precision-engineered to be exciting and satisfying. Each platform is measured so that you brace yourself when you take-off. Yet, it does this without the dreaded “edge of the ledge” design that I always despise.

Make no mistake: this is a hop and plop type of game. While you can pick-up projectiles, I mostly used them to take out enemies that I didn’t trust my butt-crushing skills with. While the sprite for the weapon changes from stage to stage, weapons all behave the same way. You can only throw them straight ahead of you, and they’re a limited resource. I figured this would be one of those games where they’re littered all over the playfield, but actually, the later stages are pretty stingy with them. They become candles in the final stage, which set off some déjà vu, and by time I had accumulated a few, the places I would have used them were well into my rear view mirror. Thankfully, the act of using Mickey’s rear end to slay baddies never stops being satisfying.

Rotating rooms always tickle my fancy.

Castle of Illusion is a short game at only five levels long, but it also never gets a chance to become boring. However, I do wish it did more than it does. While the levels are beautiful and well laid-out, it’s a one-and-done experience. Despite the fact that there’s no timer, there’s really not a whole lot of reasons to explore the stages. I played through the game twice and only discovered two hidden rooms, and all they had was a couple diamonds (points) or maybe some health and ammo. There’s no DuckTales-like hidden treasures. There’s no alternate ending, regardless of whether or not you finish the game on hard mode or not. I can’t stress enough: I enjoyed my time with Castle of Illusion. Very much. But, I’m also not exactly running out to play the 2013 remake either. I’m much more excited to play the Genesis and Master System/Game Gear sequels.

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My only major knock against Castle of Illusion is the whole “easy mode” fiasco. If you select this, not only does the game end after three levels, but all the bosses are removed. Okay, so.. what is the point of it? I played Castle of Illusion on Normal difficulty. It wasn’t “hard” at all. It was a cinch for me, but I’ve got over a quarter century of gaming experience wired into me. Thankfully, my Disney-loving niece Sasha doesn’t. I had her play Castle of Illusion on the normal, and she died twice. That’s PERFECT for a child learning how to play video games, right? This is how you get better. You don’t get better by punishing them for selecting an option you provided. I hate it when games do that, but the fact that a MICKEY MOUSE game does that really irked me. Remember: difficulty options are an accessibility feature. Don’t use them to gatekeep. Ever.

The last boss reminded me of Dracula’s sprite from Simon’s Quest, which is VERY fitting because the fifth level feels like it’s straight out of Castlevania.

While that whole “easy mode” thing frustrates me, I’m not remotely annoyed by a game with limited replay value. I have literally thousands of other titles I can play once I finish Castle of Illusion. Few retro games are made better by modern gaming, but this is one of them, since it’s no longer an expensive investment that’s expected to hold your attention, let alone a child’s attention, for weeks. Castle of Illusion is a nearly perfect game for two hours, and when it’s done, this is one of those rare amazing games where that’s totally fine. You’ll sink an hour or two into your play session with it, and have a good time crushing enemies with Mickey’s buns of steel. You’ll shake your head at how visuals that were state of the art in 1990 could somehow still look so gorgeous so many years later. You’ll have boss fights that are surprisingly deeper than you would expect, if a bit too spongy (except the last boss, who oddly died faster than I expected). You’ll marvel at fine-tuned level design. And, when it’s over, you’ll walk away happy and content. Worth checking out in 2023? Hell, I think Castle of Illusion will hold up for centuries.
Verdict: YES!

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DuckTales (Game Boy Review)

September 9, 2023 by 2 Comments

DuckTales
Platform: Game Boy
Developed by Capcom
First Released September 21, 1990
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

It’s DuckTales from the NES, only with reworked levels, no color, arthritis, and jank. So much jank.

In researching this Disney marathon I’m on, I became somewhat confused as to whether or not the Game Boy builds of Capcom’s legendary Disney-based games are straight NES ports or not. They’re not. Even if they attempt to retain the core mechanics and basic structure, they’ll still feel different and the levels won’t be designed the same as their NES counterparts. It makes more sense to drop the term “port” and call DuckTales on the Game Boy an interpretation of the NES game I just reviewed. And hey, I enjoyed the level design of one of the stages better, so it has that going for it. It’s also an unwieldy nightmare with major control issues and some spotty collision detection. And it’s slow, too. I’d never play this again without having a gun held to my head. I know DuckTales on the Game Boy is the source of warm memories for many of my older readers, but folks, this is neither a good port nor a good game.

The big moments feel less big. There’s nothing guarding Gizmo Duck’s remote control. Well, except two spikes. Hey, in this version of DuckTales, that’s a lot scarier than enemies because you have to use the pogo stick, and it gets pissy when you need it to work.

I’d never played the Game Boy version of DuckTales before. I decided to play it straight. No cheating. No maps. Come what may. Had my emulator not crashed on the fourth stage, there is a good chance I would have Game Overed at some point in either the fourth or fifth stages. So, technically I’ve played this 1.5 times. This is trying to be the NES game to a certain extent. Everything you can do on the NES you can do on the Game Boy. The iconic pogo sticking? It’s there.. or trying to be. It’s really badly done on the Game Boy and incredibly unresponsive. I brought two controllers with me on my trip. Tested both of them on this. Tested it on different emulators. Every time, the act of pogoing was much less responsive than on the NES. Unlike that version, I never was able to adapt to the Game Boy’s pogo issues. Plus, because the playfield is more cramped, you often don’t have the clearance to use it on baddies without taking damage. That would be fine if the whole point was to avoid the enemy entirely, but based on the level layout and enemy behavior, it often seems like it’s just not possible.

You will come to hate the ropes.

It’s not just the pogo stick. Movement in general is sluggish as hell. The ropes are noticeably harder to grab, as if the collision box with them is smaller. This chest here? I tried for quite a while to figure out how to fall off the rope and get to it, even trying to fall from the previous screen. I never got it. DuckTales GB is FULL of moments like that. It’s so bizarre, because they specifically altered the level layouts to accommodate the limitations of the Game Boy, so moments like this shouldn’t happen. But even with brand spanking new levels, it feels like the levels are laid out for the NES physics and responsiveness that isn’t present anymore. And by the way, they kept all the baffling quirks from the NES game. The two hidden treasures and the two extra hit-points are in the same levels they were before. Having to play the Transylvania level three times? The weak bosses? The race after being Dracula Duck? They’re all here, only they’re (mostly) worse. Bubba Duck was improved. They added a tiny little challenge to activating him and it took me a couple of attempts to get it right. So, hey, that’s not nothing.

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I don’t want to exactly say that the level layouts are “stripped down.” They’re just different, really. In fact, I think the level layout for Transylvania is superior on the Game Boy. It’s a better maze, period. Everything IN that maze is worse, but the structure of it feels much more labyrinthine. And.. yea, that’s the only real positive thing I have to say about DuckTales on the Game Boy, because everything else is like a ruined version of the original game. Name an aspect of DuckTales on the NES and it’s here and worse and really only serves to make you long for the TV version. The mine carts are back, and they killed me twice because trying to jump out of them onto the next platform just plain didn’t happen. The controls were like “we’ve received your request to hop out of the cart, and we’re taking it under advisement.”

Remember the “go to Transylvania to get the mine key?” bit from the NES game? Remember how it takes maybe 20 seconds to reach it, rendering the whole thing pointless? Yea, it takes under 10 seconds on the Game Boy. It’s in literally the first mirror one screen over from where you start on the Game Boy.

The bosses were even easier than before. They blink longer and you don’t take damage while they blink, UNTIL Dracula Duck, where I was stunned by how sloppy the whole battle was. I won, but I had to take a lot of damage myself just to score normal hits on him. It was baffling. Curiosity got the better of me and decided to rematch with him after I beat the game, and even after fifteen minutes of trying, I couldn’t damage him without taking damage myself most of the time. It’s the same boss, where you have to pogo off the bats to hit him, only you have A LOT less time because he teleports away so fast. You also have A LOT less space between you, the ceiling, and his head to hit him Also, he starts blinking to teleport away, but you can still hit him while he’s blinking, which is kind of confusing. Then, the final race between me and Glomgold wasn’t even close. He goes so slow they might as well not have bothered.

The “spring off the bad guy to not pay the toll” trick on the Amazon stage no longer works. However, there’s a hidden passage leading to a shortcut where you drop down into the boss’s chamber.

I could go on and on about little annoyances.. and I think I will. The man-eating plants at times seem like they’re impossible to leap over. There’s also too many instances of playing a treasure chest with only a single character length of clearance between it and a platform, only the golf club move can’t be activated, either. The Moon level is completely ruined, with a layout that isn’t fun to explore at all. Hell, even the base logic of hidden areas and what’s inside them are often just plain dumb. For example, the mines have an invisible passage that leads to a hidden room that contains a gem and a cake. The cake restores your full health. Oh, and where is this hidden wall at? Right behind Mrs. Beakley, the character who drops food that restores your health. Why have that cake in the hidden room instead of a second gem? It was at that point where I wondered if the words “does any of this make sense?” were even once uttered during the development of DuckTales on the Game Boy.

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I get that the Game Boy had limitations to it, so some jank should always be expected. Like, I enjoyed Link’s Awakening and Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins just fine, but they’re pretty rough games. But, they also don’t try to be copies of console games. I’ve now played probably in the ballpark of two hundred Game Boy games, and I’ve never really enjoyed any that attempt to be “the Game Boy version.” They’re never as good. I’ll never understand why developers stubbornly kept trying to do it, either. It makes more sense to do an entirely new game that plays to the strengths of the Game Boy hardware instead of trying (and usually failing) to make the same game while working around its weaknesses. This was an early Game Boy release, so I’d normally chalk this up to the development learning curve. Except this kept happening again and again for the entire record-breaking lifecycle of the handheld. And do you know who I blame? YOU, the children of the 1980s! For buying them despite them being awful. Were you THAT desperate to play a terrible version of a great game at school? Couldn’t you just go into the bathroom and smoke like any self-respecting delinquent?
Verdict: NO!

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Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers (NES Review)

September 9, 2023 by 12 Comments

Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Developed by Capcom
First Released June 8, 1990
Included in The Disney Afternoon Collection

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Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers is one of the four best platformers on the NES. Yep, I went there. I rank it up there with Super Mario 2 & 3 and Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse as the holy quadrilogy of NES platforming. It’s astonishing to me that DuckTales is held in this incredible prestige when Chip & Dale is the superior game. Not a perfect game, mind you, but it’s so close that I think a ROM hacker could make the necessary changes to create what would be a genuinely flawless 2D platformer. So, what does Rescue Rangers do that puts it so far above the insanely crowded mascot platforming field on the NES?

One major thing the game gets wrong is allowing you to circumvent as many as three levels. Rescue Rangers has one of the most nonsensical maps in video game history. Hell, look at where Level E is situated. It’s so weird. Really, the reason to play it is to bank more extra lives. That would be fine if Rescue Rangers were a hard game, but it’s actually pretty easy. I could get it if Capcom had a meeting and were like “man, some of these levels suck.” But, folks, all eleven stages in Rescue Rangers are fantastic. Don’t skip any of them. All-in, you’re looking at a little over an hour to beat the whole shebang even if you play every stage, and it’s worth it.

First off, that object-throwing combat is just delightful. Like a hyperactive version of Mario 2’s vegetable-yanking-carrying-throwing mechanic, and it’s so fun. Most of the enemies take only one shot to kill with normal-sized boxes. The act of picking them up and throwing them never gets boring. Then, there’s the non-throwing boxes that never get used up, and the gigantic fruits that weigh-down your jumping but fly through every enemy. When you defeat an enemy, it makes one of the most satisfying death noises on the NES. It sounds almost like a sloppy-wet death fart. And yet, the turd in Rescue Rangers’ punch bowl is tied to these boxes. It’s this:

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Yea, this is a head-scratching game design decision. I can’t justify it. I’ve tried to figure out the logic, and the best I could come up with was they had other plans for how this whole “ducking in the boxes” thing would work and what’s left in Rescue Rangers is a game-wrecking relic of those initial plans. So, in case you didn’t know, in Rescue Rangers, Chip & Dale can duck inside every box they pick up, including the multi-use steel boxes. Your eyes poke out comically, and it’s adorable. So, it’s a stealth thing, right? Actually, no. If an enemy walks into you while you’re hiding in a box like this, it dies. Instantly. Well, assuming it’s a one-hit-point enemy, which most of the baddies are. If you’re holding a wooden box, all you lose is the box. If it’s a steel box, you can reuse it again and again as a no-effort-needed shield of death. It nerfs Rescue Rangers to such an absurd degree that I ended up having an extended discussion with my friends trying to justify it. It’s “wacky” and “cartoonish” but it also absolutely murders the tension in the game. It makes you wonder if Rescue Rangers originally had a stealth element that was removed early in development. Why would you ever have something like this in a combat-focused side scroller?

Most of the set pieces are fun. The hammer, found in one of the optional levels, is a bit janky. It feeds into my theory that Capcom wasn’t proud of ALL the levels, and thus was born the map. For the record, the rest of this level slaps.

That’s literally my only major complaint about Rescue Rangers. Oh, plenty of little ones. Ones so nit-picky that I feel bad for even bringing them up, but screw it, here we go. Enemies flying off the screen when you kill them is nice, but I wish they had “damage sprites” so that I knew they suffered. Also I might be unhinged. The bosses are even worse about this. The bosses that utilize NES trickery to look massive just vanish from the screen, and not in a satisfying “Thanos snapped them into ash” type of way but rather in a “poof, existence ended” type of way. Since the bosses only blink when you damage them, it leaves what should be historically amazing combat a little lacking in impact. And yea, the co-op isn’t all that, but since both myself and my sister’s first instinct was to murder each-other, we might not be the best judges of it.

I appreciate how out of f*cks to give Capcom was about symmetry with some of the levels. In the first battle with Fat Cat, they said “screw it: TWO spikes on the ground in a spot that’s designed to create maximum annoyance. Does it look pretty? Does it look sophisticated? No? WHO CARES because it adds challenge.”

Admittedly, all of my annoyances with Rescue Rangers are exceptionally petty. Hell, I’m expecting a lot of push-back on my “hiding in the crates could have ruined the game” argument. But, I’m also calling Rescue Rangers a top four platform game on a console defined by platforming games. Clearly I love it, so those complaints are out of a desire to see it rise above Mario and claim the throne. The roughly one hour of gameplay Rescue Rangers gives you is breathtaking. Each of the eleven levels feels completely different from each-other. They each throw in at least one novel set piece as well, so as to not simply feel like it’s the same gameplay over and over and it’s just the background facade changing. That’s harder to pull off than you think, especially with the limitations of the NES.

It goes without saying that the sprite work is gorgeous. While I think Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse is the best looking overall NES game, Capcom wins the “consistently great looking” contest, hands-down.

Modern games have it a lot easier making levels feel different. File sizes are basically unlimited, so you can easily create a new setting. Retro games? They struggle with making stages feel distinguishable from one-another. Not only are you limited by fewer buttons and actions, but there’s only so much you can do with an engine that takes up less memory than any title screen from a game today. Rescue Rangers is the rare NES game that has over ten levels that all feel completely different while retaining the core gameplay. Part of the reason for this is there’s gags unique to each stage. Exposed live wires. Faucets you turn off. Machines dropping steel balls on you. A hammer that only appears once in the entire game. Rabbits who whip a carpet at you. It’s not enough they changed the backgrounds or the enemies. They gave each stage’s design logic its own personality. That’s what sets this apart from so many other quality games.

Huge variety of enemies too. I hated these ones. There’s a spot at the end of Fat Cat’s factory (the final stage) where you’re on a conveyor and I’m absolutely convinced it’s impossible to squeeze past one of these guys without taking damage.

There’s eight bosses, because three of the stages end without one. That’s disappointing, because the bosses feel like events. They have a unique combat mechanic: there’s a red rubber ball in the boss chamber that, when thrown, ricochets back and forth in a straight line off the wall, damaging the boss if it passes through it. Sometimes, you can even score two hits in a single throw. Just think: if Fat Cat hadn’t left a ball in the room with them, he would have taken over the world. Admittedly, the bosses all feel samey. This is the one area of the game where you sort of see the sausage get made and realize that it’s just the same boss with the same collision boxes, only with tiny changes to how their projectiles behave or how the collision box moves around. However, the settings and sprites do a pretty dang good job of hiding the fact that you’re fighting slight variations of the same thing over and over. The rubber ball being unique to their chambers helps with this too. If you want an example of how many alterations you can do to one style of 8-bit platformer boss, Rescue Rangers ranks right up there with Mega Man games.

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I get why DuckTales is more revered. It’s based on a more popular, more endearing cartoon (with a much catchier theme song) and the pogo stick mechanic is probably slightly more satisfying than throwing the boxes. But, in terms of gameplay, Rescue Rangers slays DuckTales. It’s got a lot more content and never makes you replay one level three times. It’s a bigger game. It’s got better boss fights. It’s got more gags and gimmicks than DuckTales. It’s even got co-op, if you’re into that sort of thing. I wish WayForward had also remade this one. Given how they took the six ultra bland bosses of DuckTales and made them delightfully wonderful, I can’t imagine what they could do with the eight boss fights in Rescue Rangers. The fact that Rescue Rangers sits in DuckTales’ shadow leaves it feeling a bit underrated. THIS is Capcom’s one true NES masterpiece. Not Mega Man 2. Not Bionic Commando. Certainly not DuckTales. Rescue Rangers, flawed as it is, is the best 8-Bit Capcom release I’ve played. Even if they kinda hosed Monterey Jack.
Verdict: YES!

OH! OH! I have another valid complaint! The bonus round that ends every stage SUCKS! There’s eight boxes on the screen, and you have roughly enough time to pick up four or five of them. One of them has an extra life. That sounds great! Exciting! Except, the order of the items is the same all ten times you can play it. The 1up is always in the top center box. Would it REALLY have been that hard to create a randomized pattern? Oh well. YES! Next!

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Adventures in the Magic Kingdom (NES Review)

September 8, 2023 by 5 Comments

Adventures in the Magic Kingdom
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Developed by Capcom
First Released June, 1990
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

The generic cowboy character was a mistake. It probably looked confusing from a marketing perspective. “Wait, which Disney character is this?” “Well, it’s not a Disney character at all. It’s YOU, a park visitor.” “What is this? The 1950s? Kids don’t walk around dressed like cowboys anymore. It’s 1990!” “I thought it was 2023?” “Don’t be a smart ass, hypothetical 1990 game consumer.” Ah crap, people, Cathy is having a running dialog with herself. Call the white coats.

Adventures in the Magic Kingdom is one of the most bizarre and creatively frustrating games I’ve ever played in my entire life. It’s based on a cross between Tokyo Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom park at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. I first played it in June of 2020, and I came to the conclusion that it was unfinished. There’s clues that more had been planned and dropped, although known prototypes of the ROM don’t seem to show it. The object of the game is to play through five Magic Kingdom attractions and collect six silver keys. Yea, I said six keys. Yes, I also said five attractions. One of the keys you get by walking around the park and answering trivia questions, which will eventually lead to you finding Pluto and having to answer TWO questions to earn one of the keys. I don’t think this was the original plan. I think there had originally been NINE attractions.

First, look at It’s a Small World.

You actually don’t physically line up with the door. You’ll always be half-a-character-length on the door and half on the bricks, so it’s impossible to physically walk through it. But, maybe it wasn’t always so.

Now look at Tom Sawyer Island.

And they could have probably reused sprites from Pirates of the Caribbean for this level.

And here’s the Jungle Cruise, which you would think would lend itself perfectly to this type of game.

This is the launch building for The Jungle Cruise, which lines up perfectly with the 1990 map of the Magic Kingdom in Florida, with Pirates of the Caribbean northwest of it.

And finally, the door to Cinderella Castle has an entry point too.

Again, it looks like it has a door, but you can’t psychically line-up with it.

Adventures of the Magic Kingdom has only two platforming levels, which are easily the highlight of the game. I have a hunch that there was originally going to be six platforming levels: Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, It’s a Small World, Tom Sawyer Island, the Jungle Cruise, and Cinderella Castle. Then, either they ran out of ideas or time or budget and instead we ended up with two measly platforming sections and the bizarre hodgepodge of “events” that make up the Autopia, Space Mountain, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Also missing? The Matterhorn, which is exclusive to Disneyland and would have lent itself perfectly to a snow level with an Abominable Snowman for a boss. Splash Mountain was also exclusively at Disneyland at the time this game was made (fun fact: I’m exactly six days older than Splash Mountain!) Obviously, they couldn’t do Star Tours without the Star Wars license. Still, the fact that only five attractions are actually playable is stunningly lazy for this concept.

Oddly, there is only one flat ride shown: the now extinct Rocket Jets. The Disneyland version of the Rocket Jets were torn down in 1997 to be turned into a crappier version called the Astro Orbiter. When I was a little kid, I was more scared of this ride than any other at the park. It was the same as the Dumbo ride, only it was three stories off the ground. You had to wait in line FOREVER for it, and since it had no seat belts and you were so high up, it was kind of terrifying for a little kid. Especially when their sadistic father kept the rocket at its highest point. You traumatized me, pops. Today, the Astro Orbiter sits at the ground level, and the magic is gone. Now it’s just a sci-fi Dumbo. I don’t even think it moves faster.

There’s tons of stuff that’s missing. There’s NO Fantasyland attractions here. Dark rides like Peter Pan’s Flight or Snow White’s Scary Adventures are missing entirely. Iconic flat rides like Dumbo the Flying Elephant, which is probably the most famous Disney Park flat ride EVER, is missing entirely. No graphical representation on the map. Same with the Mad Tea Party. You would think they could make nifty bonus games out of them, right? But hell, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, a now-torn-down but at the time very famous ride built around a large lagoon, isn’t shown on the map. Again, it would lend itself perfectly to a level in a game like this, right? I’m very curious if this started more ambitious and a lot of content got vetoed in planning. Seriously, the great Tokuro Fujiwara couldn’t come up with a Jungle Cruise level? No way. So, what DO you do in Adventures in the Magic Kingdom?

ANSWER TRIVIA QUESTIONS

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A glorified fetch quest where you walk around the map and, when you spot an NPC, you stand in front of them and answer trivia questions. Funny enough, I thought these would be lay-ups along the lines of “what kind of animal is Goofy.” That’s an actual question in the game, by the way. It’s a kid’s game from 1990, so it’s busy work to extend the run time, right? Except, there’s also questions like “what is Donald Duck’s middle name?” Wait, Donald Duck has a middle name? “Which Winnie the Pooh character was originally named Edward?” Wait.. really? Either Winnie, Christopher Robin, or Tigger was going to be Edward? No way. “Who portrayed the younger brother in the Hardy Boys?” OH COME ON! Would a child in 1990 know that, let alone me, a grown-up in 2023? If you miss a question, it doesn’t cost you anything. You just get a different question and keep going until you get one right. I have no idea how many questions there are, but I’ve played this three times now and have seen only one repeat. So yea, some of the questions aren’t easy. It’s not as crappy as it could be, but I’d rather have a level.

THE AUTOPIA

I’m the red car.

The Autopia is a children’s ride that’s like the world’s most boring, restrictive form of go-karts. Here, it’s a stripped down version of Capcom’s Rally 2011 LED Storm (which I reviewed in Capcom Arcade Stadium 2). Don’t mistake the Autopia as a race. It’s not. It’s an action-driving sequence where you can lose a life and get dumped back to the overworld, and there’s also a time limit of 85 seconds. You can also stock-up on stars that are valuable for the other modes in the game. The whole autopia takes just over a minute and change to complete and is the easiest attraction in the game that doesn’t ask you what Disney character starred in the most shorts (Donald Duck? REALLY?) or what Mickey Mouse’s officially recognized birthday is.

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What’s really strange is you’re incentivized to NOT do the fun stuff, like the jumps, since the stars are usually placed behind the ramps instead of in front of them. There’s a point to the stars: they’re the pause menu’s form of currency. In some of the levels, you can pause the game to restore your health, freeze the action on-screen, make yourself invincible, or give yourself an extra life. For Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain, trust me, you’ll want to restore your health. Too bad you can’t, because there’s no pause-menu shop on those levels. Only in the two platforming stages. Hah, suck it. The Autopia is plentiful with stars, but only if you play at the least fun pace. Technically, there is a time limit, so there is the barest of urgency. But, I had to screw around A LOT to run out of time.

There’s some genuinely exciting moments, like flying off jumps across gigantic gaps.

The other cars will bump you and provide a nuisance, but as long as you stay on the track, it’s pretty hard to die. The only parts where I came close were narrow docks and one section that has a bridge that you have to wait for to reach you. Surprisingly, if you don’t deliberately skip the jumps to scoop-up the stars, the Autopia actually is pretty fun. The jumps are exciting, the course layout is well done, and it’s satisfying to bump an enemy car off the road. The biggest problem is, like the other stages, it’s all over with far too quickly. I sort of wish the formula here had been removed from this game, then expanded into its own full game. I enjoyed my time with it enough to see the potential there. Oh, and you can replay it to bank stars until the cows come home. So play it once for fun, then come back to it if you’re struggling with other stages to bank currency. I’m just kidding. You won’t be struggling. The platform levels are a cinch and this whole game can be finished in about thirty minutes. Yea, this is one of Capcom’s shortest games, and it’s not all brilliant like DuckTales was.

SPACE MOUNTAIN

Unlike Dragon’s Lair, there’s no reason to look up at the “action” since, beside the meteors/ships, there’s no visual cues of WHERE you’re going or what the correct move is besides on this tiny little viewing window.

One of the two roller coaster-based “mountains” is going to go down as the hardest stage in Adventures in the Magic Kingdom. Most people would say Space Mountain is the worst. Space Mountain is basically an FMV-style quick-time-event game. There’s a small monitor at the bottom of the screen that gives you instructions of what to press on the controller, and you have a split-second to press it. Honestly, I don’t think it’s that hard. Once I understood the rules, I completed it on my very first legit attempt in 2020, then I did so again this go around. In fact, the media I took was so bad while I played it that I restarted and played it again and beat it again. Granted, I took damage this go around, but honestly, I don’t think it’s that hard for the majority of the level. Not until you get to the “E” section does Space Mountain find its teeth and “hit” you for not reacting fast enough. Until that point, it’s actually kind of easy. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever taken damage outside of the “E” zone. I guess it doesn’t stand for “easy” huh?

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The only link to the on-screen visuals are the ships and meteors. You’ll always press the B button to blow-up the spaceships, and you’ll always press A to blow up the meteors. Besides that, this is just a couple minutes of reflex-testing gameplay. There’s a few sections that have branching paths, but since there’s no real visuals to see besides which direction the stars flow, that doesn’t exactly add replay value. Is it fun? I didn’t think it would be, but you know what? I actually enjoyed this well enough because it doesn’t last very long. Also, that last “level E” section is some of the most fast-paced and exciting reflex-gameplay I’ve experienced. Better still, it actually feels like the real roller coaster’s finale. I’ve probably rode Space Mountain at Disneyland over one-hundred times (including three times with the lights turned-on in 2001. HOW LUCKY AM I?). It’s my favorite Disney thrill ride. Space Mountain’s finale in Disney Adventures in the Magic Kingdom feels very true to the real ride, with lots of unexpected twists and turns to close the experience. Besides, nobody can accuse this of wearing out its welcome. It’s done in about three minutes, and it’s exciting and challenging while it lasts.

BIG THUNDER MOUNTAIN

Look closely. Do you see the gate? I’m guessing this is one of those “CRT” things where it would have stood out easier once upon a time.

Big Thunder Mountain is a roller coaster themed like a runaway train, and also apparently the world’s funnest way to pass a kidney stone. Seriously, it’s a roller coaster. Why would this specific roller coaster be better at nudging a kidney stone through a body? I call B.S. The ride itself is a slightly overrated attraction at the park, while the game version is easily the worst event of Adventures in the Magic Kingdom. The object is to guide the train to the second station. Specifically the second one. Which one is the second one? Guess you’ll find out when you play it. It’s actually the second from the left, and in doing this review, I completely lucked into the right path by pure accident on my first attempt when I, not realizing the course was almost over, tried to go one way, missed the turn, and then pulled into the correct station anyway. This must be that “failing upwards” thing that’s all the rage these days.

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The trick to Big Thunder Mountain is using the brakes to avoid running into dead-ends (which are an instakill) or crashing through gates that are barely visible on modern monitors. There’s also the occasional boulder that crosses the tracks. I remember hating Big Thunder Mountain when I first played the game in 2020. I didn’t so much this time, but I’m still annoyed by it. For Space Mountain, while I’d still prefer a platforming section, at least what they have feels true to the ride. Big Thunder Mountain doesn’t at all. They could have easily made this an auto-scrolling platformer based around the train. Then again, they could have done the same with Space Mountain. I can’t believe the people who made this didn’t see that the platforming stages were far and away the best aspect of the game. I also refuse to believe they weren’t creative enough to come up with platforming sections for a space-based roller coaster or a runaway mine train. I could put up with Space Mountain, but Big Thunder Mountain is just a bore.

THE HAUNTED MANSION

One of the great brain farts in 8-bit history is not making the whole game play this way. Had they taken it that direction, I think Adventures in the Magic Kingdom would be remembered as one of the greats. Up there with DuckTales and Rescue Rangers, in fact.

Now this is more like it, and it’s based on my second favorite Disney ride. For two levels, and two levels only, Adventures in the Magic Kingdom is a pretty dang decent NES platformer. In terms of the mechanics, I’d go so far to say the platforming areas of this title are some of Capcom’s best NES work. Great jumping physics. Gorgeous sprite work. Decent enough combat. Nice level design, mostly. These are easily the highlights of Adventures in the Magic Kingdom. Since you can take the stages in any order, I would totally recommend someone who has no interest at all in the previous four activities to fire this game up JUST for the two platforming sections. While they’re not amazing, they also never manage to suck. For about ten minutes combined, you get solid, enjoyable Capcom-Disney platforming goodness that feel like a proof-of-concept for a game that never happened.

Okay, so the candles aren’t the GREATEST weapon, but what could be used as a projectile weapon in both a ghost house AND a village being raided by pirates, hmm? “A gun?” Touché.

Even better is that both the platform levels play differently from each-other. Haunted Mansion is the weaker of the two, with an emphasis on combat and moving platforms. You fight enemies by throwing candles at them. Ammo is “limited” and, in the Haunted Mansion specifically, collected in bundles of five. Most of the enemies are downed by a single candle. The ones that aren’t tend to be hands sticking out of coffins, but you might as well ping them to death anyway. The candles are too abundant. You can skip collecting a couple and still never really stress running out. Well, provided your aim is true. Since the controls are crisp and the movement is silky smooth, it should be.

The boss, which I think is meant to be the “ghost host” from the ride, has a swarming attack pattern. It also doesn’t so much as blink when you hit it, let alone have an “ouch, I’ve been damaged” sprite. When you defeat it, the damn thing just falls off the screen. Then the level just hard cuts to Goofy congratulating you. It’s such an unsatisfying ending to an otherwise solid level.

The Haunted Mansion’s weakness is that it’s a simple Point A to Point B affair that uses straight hallways for the maps. It’s really uninspired, especially when the ride opens the possibilities to so much more. I would have preferred a DuckTales style maze level. If any ride at Disney World would lend itself to that, it’d be the Haunted Mansion. While it does manage to fit in lots of the best set pieces of dark ride, such as the dancers, the headstones, and even the grim, grinning ghosts, the combat is lacking and the game has too heavy an emphasis on jumping off flying chairs. The biggest problem with Haunted Mansion is it never WOWed me. It’s solid, but it has no high point, if that makes sense. It’s also too short. Takes maybe four minutes to finish. Maybe. Having said that, while it never completely reaches a crescendo, this is the second best attraction in the game.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN

This beat the film franchise to leaning on the undead, supernatural element by thirteen full years.

By far the best part of Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, and hey, it happens to be based on my favorite theme park ride. Pirates of the Caribbean has a little more going for it than Haunted Mansion. Like the Haunted Mansion, it’s too short. This wouldn’t be a problem if the game had more than two platforming stages. If that were the case, this would be just a damn fine level. Alas. This time, you don’t throw candles until the final third of the stage. Instead, you have to avoid the pirates while you search the stage for six buxom wenches to rescue from the scurvy scoundrels. Since the candle-based combat in the game is just alright, not focusing on it makes for a more exciting game. Instead, there’s a few barrels around the level that you can shove into some of the pirates. I enjoyed that so much that I kind of wish they’d done more of it. Later, when you do get the candle, you can light the fuse of cannons. You don’t even need to score a hit with these. When the cannonball lands, it knocks all the pirates off the screen. Okay, come on. That’s too overpowered. This might be Capcom’s easiest game on the NES.

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Both platforming levels have periods of slowdown, but Pirates has the most by a large margin. Especially in the villages, where there can be a lot of enemies in one section. Pirates of the Caribbean does have one other small issue: it leans heavily into edge-of-platform jumping. This becomes especially annoying in the treasure room, where undead pirates throw six projectiles at a time AND skeletons walk around the platforms you’re standing on. Scratching out enough clearance to be able to successfully land the jumps is a bit tough. This was the only level where I lost lives. In fact, I lost four: three from jumping, and one from timing out. I missed one of the maidens and, by the time I found her, I didn’t have enough time to make it to the pile of logs you have to light to beat the stage. Also, once again, the level is too short and leaves you wanting a lot more. But, the level design, enemies, and the objectives are more interesting than the Haunted Mansion. That’s what makes this the best part of Disney Adventures in the Magic Kingdom.

WHAT A TEASE, RIGHT?

And that’s it.

Two “real” levels. That’s what this game is. The other elements of Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, despite lasting roughly the same length as each of the platform sections do, feel more like glorified mini-games. It’s a cruel game, because it leaves you feeling like they could have added much more of the “good stuff.” And mind you, I enjoyed the Autopia and Space Mountain. Not a lot, but they weren’t a complete waste of time, and hell, the Autopia could work as its own game. Big Thunder Mountain sucks and the trivia feels like a waste of time, but really, I’m endorsing 75% of a game and walking away disappointed. When does that ever happen? Well, when a game teases you with two solid platforming stages that hint at a greater potential, and then it just ends? It’s almost painful. So yea, check out Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, and join me in saying “what the hell were they thinking?” and wiping a tear or two away at all the potential squandered.
Verdict: YES!

 

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DuckTales (NES Review)

September 7, 2023 by 12 Comments

DuckTales
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Developed by Capcom
First Released October, 1989
Remade in 2013 as DuckTales: Remastered
Included in The Disney Afternoon Collection

Either the theme song to the show is now stuck in your head, or the catchy music to the Amazon stage. Either way, you’re welcome. 🖕😶🖕 Yep, it’ll be there all week, and you can’t make it go away.

Look, I’ve already reviewed the 2013 remake by WayForward that was pretty good. It fixed a lot of the problems I had with the NES game, the chief of which is that the big finale of the game is going back.. for the third time, mind you.. to the Transylvania stage. The remake created a whole new level. In replaying DuckTales on the NES for what I imagine is the third and final time, I was reminded of how annoyed I was Capcom took the game in this direction TO END THE GAME. Hell though, it could have worked. The Transylvania stage, like all the stages, is essentially a maze where you have to find your way around and there’s all kinds of off-the-beaten-path places you can go to score extra loot, extra health, or extra lives. They could have put some kind of giant door that you couldn’t access the first time as a tease for where the finale would take place. But, no. It takes place in the same boss chamber as before. It feels kind of lazy.

The second time you go to Transylvania, it’s to find the key to the mines. At least here, they hid it somewhere different that’s the “wrong way” for the standard level. Of course, it’s also literally at the beginning of the stage. Takes about fifteen seconds to reach. I really hated this whole direction. It’s the only time the game does that too. WHY HIDE IT IN TRANSYLVANIA IF THEY KNOW THEY’RE GOING BACK TO THAT LEVEL IN THE FINALE? It’s so frustrating.

That one not-that-minor complaint aside, there’s no question why DuckTales has reached legendary status among the NES library. It’s the rare high-quality licensed game on the platform. It looks fantastic. It has one of the best soundtracks on the NES. Oh, it’s got a lot of head scratching ideas. Like why would you ever have Launchpad take you out of the stage? Yea, I know there’s a secret ending for banking $10,000,000, but if they tacked that on just to justify Launchpad, they didn’t have to. Launchpad is used just fine on the Amazon level to help Scrooge clear a jump.

In my entire 2023 run in DuckTales, I never had any issue with the pogo stick EXCEPT on this specific section, grabbing the Moon’s hidden treasure. For whatever reason, the damn pogo stick wouldn’t stay on as I navigated the spikes. The weird thing is, I’m almost certain I had the same problem in the same spot the first couple times I played Duck Tales on the NES.

So, why is this a legendary game? I think most players would say “the pogo stick.” Yea, it’s pretty brilliant, but I’ll take it a step further and say the cane in general just works great as a weapon. First, yes, the pogo stick jumping is awesome, but why is it awesome? Because it renders traditional head-stomping gameplay into a more immersive experience. You’re not just letting your weight and the forces of gravity do the killing for you. Oh, no. You have to perform an additional input to make it work, or you take damage. You’re activating the pogo, meaning you’re performing the action of killing enemies directly, by your own hands, and that’s just more fun! But, you can also golf-club rocks, stones, and various other blocks at the enemies, and it’s always satisfying to do so. Especially when they placed enemies out of reach, and there’s the right shaped rock to kill them just sitting so helpfully right there. DuckTales has truly wonderful, cartoonish combat. It’s why I hate how the bosses only blink instead of having injury animations.

Finding the hidden treasures OR the two extra life points adds to the thrill. I wish the game hid even more hidden trinkets or consequential secrets in it. There’s tons of hidden rooms that see Scrooge walk up into the status bar to find, but they usually only have a couple gems, or maybe a 1up. EVERY stage should have had at least one hidden treasure. Putting only two in the game is a little frustrating, because it renders them kind of arbitrary.

However, I disagree with the combat sealing it for DuckTales. I think it’s the level design that punched its ticket to Cooperstown. I think you have five spectacularly designed stages that are such a joy to explore. Inventive. Lots of exciting moments, like pogo-sticking over enemies to clear gaps, or having to rapidly pogo stick to avoid a giant ball, Raiders of the Lost Ark-style. Combine that with nice enemy placement and tons of hidden stuff. I hate to keep picking on Transylvania but it’s clearly the weakest link of the bunch. Once you know where to go, you have little incentive to explore further. That’s not true of the other stages. If I have to get further nit-picky, I kind of wish the levels incentivized exploration to a larger degree. Not just bumping up the amount of hidden treasures, but maybe lock the boss door in every stage behind keys that you have to find throughout the level. If another DuckTales game ever happens, I hope they make it like this one, only with a LOT more hidden stuff.

They vastly improved the boss fights for the remake too. Look, I had a great time with the NES version, but the 2013 remake is just plain better. Sorry to my cantankerous older readers, but it’s true. Better in every single way except the annoying dialog.

The worst part of the NES game is the bosses. They’re too easy, frankly, and they’re all kind of teeny-tiny. I get it. That’s what the NES could do. But, again, Remastered fixed them all. They all feel like epic-prolonged boss encounters that stay true to the spirit of the original battle. On the NES, they often don’t even last half-a-minute. Remastered also fixed any issues you might have with the pogo stick, which I adjusted to anyway. It fixed the finale being a retread of stuff you’ve already done. It added two extra levels and a couple other bosses, like an awesome airplane duel with Flintheart Glomgold. If it seems like I’m a little fixated on the more recent version, don’t worry, I have a point to all this: the original is still fun. That speaks volumes to me. That the same game could be done better decades later, yet the original is still a damn good game that holds up to the test of time. My nephew, who is a fan of the 2017 cartoon reboot, is exactly one day older than the remake. He had never heard of either DuckTales game. So, I tested it on him, and he LOVED it. A game that came out the year I was born. And when I told him an even better version of the game existed, he looked at me awestruck. “They made this game EVEN BETTER?” As if he couldn’t believe that was even possible. I can’t think of a better endorsement!
Verdict: YES!

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