Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, and Mortal Kombat 3 (Sega Master System Reviews)

September 21, 2023 by 1 Comment

Mortal Kombat
Developed by Probe Entertainment
Published by Arena Entertainment (Acclaim)
First Released September 13, 1993

If you want that beautiful blood, you have to enter a code. There’s a text card after the first Mortal Kombat logo that talks about “codes” (yes, really) and during that screen you have to press BUTTON 2, BUTTON 1, BUTTON 2, DOWN, UP. If you do it right, it’ll say “NOW ENTERING KOMBAT” before reaching the PRESS START screen. It’s super easy to do. I got it on my first attempt. Enjoy your gore, you sickos!

Wait.. Mortal Kombat on the Master System? You betcha. It’s really stripped down, as you can imagine. Part of that is the limitations of the Master System’s two button controller. So, there’s no high or low aspect to the punches and the kicks. There’s only two stages, one of which is The Pit. Hey, at least the Pit fatality is there! Actually, no. You can’t execute the uppercut off the bridge and into the spikes. There’s also no Kano. But, hey, there’s blood and fatalities, and most of the moves found in the arcade and 16 bit console versions. Allegedly. I couldn’t pull off half of them, even with a guide. I know they’re in the game, because the AI could do them against me. Mortal Kombat looks the part, but it plays really sluggishly. I couldn’t consistently do the most simple of special moves, like Scorpion’s spear. Actually, “sluggishly” might be the wrong term. “Unresponsive” is more like it.

I eventually gave up. I could get to that second endurance match with ease, but once Raiden showed up, I was lucky to hit a single move. He would counter everything with his Superman tackle. It was like fighting a supernatural Bill Goldberg.

If the AI was better, I might have enjoyed this a lot more. I found the game to be unplayable on the medium setting. On EASY, I was able to make it to the endurance match-ups. But, once I got against Raiden, the game was over as he doesn’t play fair at all. Like every other game I review, I went into Mortal Kombat with an open mind, even if there was a voice in my head bracing me for what would no doubt be extreme suckage. I’m only human, and open-minded or not, I had very low expectations. There’s also no way I can ever put myself in the shoes of someone who lived through the Mortal Kombat hysteria of the 90s and wanted the first mainstream gory game, no matter how much they had to suffer to play it. Imagine my surprise that it wasn’t a complete dumpster fire. It’s bad, don’t get me wrong. The unresponsive controls assured my immediate NO! But, it’s not as bad as I figured it would be. If you couldn’t play the better versions of it, you could still be one of the cool kids and decapitate people. Well, you probably weren’t cool if you only had a Master System by 1993. I suppose 8-Bit Mortal Kombat made you cool-adjacent.
Verdict: NO!

Mortal Kombat II
Developed by Probe Entertainment
Published by Arena Entertainment (Acclaim)
First Released November, 1994

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Wait, the Master System got Mortal Kombat II as well? Yep, and it uses the exact same engine as Mortal Kombat I on the SMS did. This one is missing FOUR fighters: Raiden, Baraka, Johnny Cage, and Kung Lao. There’s also no Kintaro fight, no Friendships, no Babalities, only two levels (one of them, the Pit II, has no stage fatality), and each character only gets a single fatality. You have to wonder if, after a certain point, the developers are asking how much you can surgically remove from a game and still call it a port of the same game? It’s more of the same, and all the problems from Mortal Kombat 1 are along for the ride. Sluggish, unresponsive controls and cheap AI. Also, the fatalities are largely modified from their Arcade/SNES/Genesis counterparts. Again, it’s not as bad as you would think, but since it’s the sequel and even more content and functionality is missing, it makes you wonder what’s the point?
Verdict: NO!

Mortal Kombat 3
Developed by Software Creations
Published by Tec Toy
First Released December, 1996

This is the famous “scare to death” Kabal fatality. It’s pretty lame. The ghost doesn’t even run off. All the other fatalities are of the “burn” or “explode” variety.

Okay, now you’re messing with me. Mortal Kombat 3 is on the Master System as well? Yep. This is the last one. Promise. This doesn’t use the same engine from MK 1 and 2, and in fact, it’ll make you LONG for it. This is a terrible port. Once again, there’s only eight playable fighters, which really hurts since there’s fourteen in the arcade (fifteen with Smoke, who is hidden in this). As unresponsive and frustrating as the first two games were, this is so much worse. More sluggish. More unresponsive. And also, highly cheesable. I was unstoppable with Sheeva’s teleport-stomp move.

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Do you know what the problem with Mortal Kombat on the Sega Master System.. the whole franchise.. really was? They attempted a one-to-one translation. That wasn’t very wise. With the limitations they had, there was zero chance of pulling it off. They would have been better served to pay tribute to the spirit of the game while tailoring the graphics, controls, and gameplay to the strengths of the console. I use Bionic Commando on the NES as my default example. They couldn’t make a game that looked as good or sounded as good as the arcade version, so they took the core grappling arm/no-jumping gameplay of the coin-op and built a new game tailored to the NES around that. The end result? Bionic Commando on the NES, with its weaker graphics, is universally recognized as a better game than its older arcade brother. While it’s kind of amusing that MK as a franchise exists on the Master System, it shouldn’t. At least like this.
Verdict: NO!

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Safari Hunt (Sega Master System Review)

September 20, 2023 by 1 Comment

Safari Hunt
Developed by Sega
First Released September, 1986
US Launch Title
Uses the Sega Light Phaser
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

“Oh, you want to shoot ducks? Look, we at Sega have ducks too! Please don’t buy that NES. We promise we’ll have something like Super Mario at some point in the next decade! WE SWEAR!”

Never sold on its own and packed exclusively with a Hang-On cartridge, Safari Hunt seems like it’ll be a Duck Hunt slayer. After all, Duck Hunt was either the same ducks or the same skeet shooting over and over again. Meanwhile, there’s no skeet shooting in Safari Hunt. Instead, three’s three levels, each of which has three to four different animals for you to blow-away. Oh, you want to shoot ducks? There’s ducks here, along with rabbits and fish. That’s just the first level, too! In the second level, ducks are replaced with parrots, and even bears show up. On the third level, you’re taking out bats, monkeys, and ultra high scoring panthers. It sounds like it just does a better job than Duck Hunt. But, it really isn’t the Duck Hunt killer you’d think it would be.

Does the bear shit in the woods? Well, yea, because I riddle them with bullets. Actually, the bears take five bullets and yield only 2,000 points. Comparatively, the armadillos that spawn more frequently score 1,000 points. I could easily clear the qualifying score just shooting them and ignoring the birds AND the bears.

The problem is, Safari Hunt’s scoring system wrecks the whole game. In order to progress from stage to stage, you have to meet a minimum score. If your score reset, or if your cumulative score was kept separate from the individual stage score, that would work. But, all the points you’ve earned carry over from level to level. So, by time I reached level three, I could have gone without shooting ANYTHING and still passed the stage. Even worse, by the time I finished the sixth level (which was level three done a second time) I probably had enough points to just coast for several rounds, or kick back and shoot the high-yielding animals with no pressure.

If the game only spawned one or two panthers per round, that would be fine. But they spawn continuously, and while they are the hardest target in the game, they’re not THAT hard, especially for 2,000 points. Comparatively, the spiders score a measly 100 points, the lowest scoring critter in the game. Look at my score at the top, and compare it to the qualifying score needed. It’s a toothless game.

A big part of that is there’s no balance in scoring. The high-yielding animals don’t appear that less frequently than the lower scoring ones. While there is a time limit, there’s no tension because the game gives you far too many high scoring opportunities. Ultimately, what ends the Duck Hunt v Safari Hunt debate once and for all is that Duck Hunt actually does get hard. You only get three shots per group of two ducks, and the ducks move more and more erratically. That doesn’t really happen in Safari Hunt. Things might get faster, but they aren’t harder to hit. That just means rounds end faster because you’re shooting more targets. Safari Hunt made me better appreciate what Duck Hunt accomplished. That game works more as a video game with an actual challenge to it. This? It’s fish in a barrel.
Verdict: NO!
Reviewed with the Sinden Light Gun.

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Altered Beast (Sega Master System Review)

September 19, 2023 by 2 Comments

Altered Beast
Developed by Sega
First Released August, 1989
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Those poor SMS kids.

A.K.A. “Hey Mom and Dad, are you sure we can’t afford a Genesis? It comes with Altered Beast and it’s so much better than this.” Okay, that’s mean, and knowing some people who were running Sega at the time, I know they genuinely were trying to provide the best possible content for those who couldn’t upgrade to the 16-bit era. Look at the miracle they pulled-off with Castle of Illusion. But, in 1989, Sega hadn’t figured out that staying true to the spirit of the original while creating an experience better suited for the Master System was the better course of action. Altered Beast on the Master System tries to be as close an approximation of the arcade experience as possible, and the end result is bad, people. It features animation just barely a step above LCD games and character sprites so small that I genuinely felt sorry for those kids who couldn’t upgrade.

The OOMPH isn’t awful. That’s about the best thing I can say about Altered Beast SMS. Oh, and it’s oodles better than the Famicom port. Yes, the Famicom got Altered Beast, and it’s damn near impossible to play. I’m shocked Sega didn’t insist THAT port get a US release. It would have been the best possible advertising for the Sega Genesis.

8-bit Altered Beast strips down what limited gameplay the coin-op/Genesis games had to begin with. You only power-up one time, going straight from shirted and athletic to Dolph Lundgren on (more) steroids. It only has four levels, with the bear level missing entirely. All the enemies from the true versions of Altered Beast seem to be here, though they’re much smaller, and it’s much less satisfying to slay them. As the dragon, you don’t even let loose an electric field around you. You just blink. As the buff human, you don’t have a fireball-looking “power” behind your punch. Altered Beast is a game that relies entirely on spectacle. Take away that spectacle and it exposes what a shallow game it is.

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The whole game takes maybe twenty minutes to complete, and they will be twenty of the sloggiest minutes of your life. I did make it to the last boss in three tries (I couldn’t get the level continue or the extra lives cheats listed on the GameFAQs to work). The last boss was the only time I really cheated and used save states so I wouldn’t have to replay the entire game from the start. I found I needed multiple attempts to defeat the rhino due to the unresponsive jumping controls. You have to press both face buttons to jump, and the only way to both attack and defend yourself against the big baddie is to jump and slowly ping off health by doing a fireball dash move across its scalp. It’s misery, but a fitting conclusion to what has to be one of Sega’s less than bright ideas.
Verdict: NO!

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TaleSpin (NES Review)

September 17, 2023 by 1 Comment

TaleSpin
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Developed by Capcom
First Released: December 11, 1991
Included in The Disney Afternoon Collection

So, I know this is a stupid way to do screenshots, but instead of having the emulator automatically take a snapshot every second, I prefer to manually do it myself. Any time I use an emulator, I map the screenshot capture to my controller and pump the capture button as I play. Usually I take several hundred screens per game. Sometimes it’s over a thousand. I use maybe ten of them, if that, and toss the rest. For TaleSpin, I was stunned by how little action is happening in most of them. The game felt pretty intense, and yet, very few of my pics are “exciting.” 8-bit games often have that problem, but few have it as bad as TaleSpin. So, rest assured, this is a very difficult and intense game.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that (1) I’ve never seen a single episode of TaleSpin. It only got one season that was off the air shortly after I turned two years old, and I never saw reruns of it that I assume MUST have aired on Disney Channel at some point. Then again, I barely watched DuckTales and Rescue Rangers, either. I might as well preemptively note that I’ve never seen Darkwing Duck either, even though it got three seasons. (2) It’s been a long while since a game’s epilepsy risk was high enough that the precautions I must take stood to affect a review, but in this case, they certainly did. The larger bosses flash my specific white-strobey trigger when you damage them. I had to sit very far away from the screen and wear sunglasses, limiting my visibility, which limited my excitement in what should have been the highlights of the game. But, I didn’t want to cancel the review, since there’s still plenty of stuff to talk about in this, the second of three TaleSpin titles I’m playing in this marathon. The first one? It didn’t go so well. Despite being a different genre entirely, and by a company with a proven track record with Disney, this might be an even worse disaster. Because, TaleSpin NES is a game that SHOULD be amazing, and it’s not.

Do you see what makes this different from other shmups?

TaleSpin has one big twist in the shmup formula and one big-big-big twist. The singular big twist is that your bullets that ricochet off solid objects.. or even enemy shields.. are still live and can damage enemies. Getting the hang of taking advantage of this helps speed along several boss battles, or makes a couple sections in levels more tolerable. Of course, the big-big-big twist is that, with the press of a button, you can flip and fly upside down. The scrolling also shifts direction too, so you fly left instead of right. This allows you to shoot enemies behind you or pick-up items you missed. In theory, flipping is primarily used to prevent you from being crushed by the auto-scrolling. It’s a great idea! Of course, this all hinges on the game actually registering that you’re pressing the flip button. Sometimes TaleSpin doesn’t. Actually, quite often it doesn’t. As in it constantly, throughout the entire game, just plain refuses to work.

The upside down plane does tend to look silly.

Yea, TaleSpin has a massive problem with responsiveness. I thought it might have been tied to maybe flipping while your max bullets are on the screen, but that wasn’t it. So I was afraid maybe it was tied to movement, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Or maybe flipping again too quickly after flipping once? Nope, that doesn’t seem to be it, either. After playing through the game a second time, I’m stumped as to why sometimes the flip button straight-up doesn’t work. Sometimes SEVERAL flip button presses go unnoticed, with no rhyme or reason. The one and only common denominator seemed to be how “busy” the screen was with environmental scenery. It’s a pretty damning mechanical hiccup, and one that was universal no matter which emulator I used. This is including my copy of Disney Afternoon Collection. By far my most common form of death was being crushed by the auto-scrolling when I would be hitting the flip button and the game would be like “fill out this form and we need two forms of identification. You’ll receive your flip in 7 to 10 business days.”

The shame is, there’s some damn clever design in TaleSpin that goes to waste because of the amount of frustration the flipping generates.

So consistent was TaleSpin’s inconsistent unresponsiveness that I have no choice but to declare it a deal breaker. How can I not? I, the player, was pressing the button that SHOULD have stopped the scrolling from crushing me. Sometimes it worked and I flipped. Sometimes it didn’t, and I died. It felt completely random whether it took or not. Since TaleSpin utilizes the auto-scrolling as a primary hazard, placing items and building stages around the risk of being smooshed by the screen, having it work every time is a must have. But, there was no methodology I could spot that would have allowed me to predict when the flip wouldn’t work. Sometimes it happened in the middle of the screen when I’d position myself to shoot an enemy behind me. Sometimes I could flip multiple times in a row with no issues. Sometimes it would work when I was a fraction of a second away from death via screen. Other times, the game didn’t cooperate when I needed to flip because the combat was behind me. I’m sorry, but that’s the ballgame when it comes to a shmup. And mind you, this is a game that is shockingly difficult for a Capcom Disney title, with some very tricky patterns of enemies and projectiles to deal with. Responsiveness is paramount, and not having it should be a deal breaker for any fan of the genre.

Come on, WayForward, remake this one too. Well, provided you fix the flip first and foremost. But seriously, there’s a GREAT shmup here.

The unresponsiveness isn’t my only problem. TaleSpin hides items in completely arbitrary spots on the stages. Sometimes I’d go to shoot an enemy and, instead, the bullet would reveal one of the hidden point items, essentially shielding them. If the items had been hidden in a way where you could logic-out their locations, I would have enjoyed that a lot more. Part of me also wishes the game had done a lot more of the maze-like level layouts. I suspect that had been the plan, but Capcom caught-on to the fact that the flip button didn’t always work. There’s several areas of the game where the level design reverts back to very pedestrian layouts, which makes me think they cut something more bold.

Credit to Capcom, who knows how to do set pieces, even in a shmup.

Otherwise, the combat in general is very nice. At the start of the game, you’re only allowed to have one bullet on-screen at a time. If you miss, you have to wait for this relatively slow projectile to pass the entire length of the screen before you can shoot again. Honestly, I really liked this part. I would have been fine if there had been no upgrades to your primary weapon. It added spice to what could have been an otherwise mundane shmup. But, you can upgrade your gun twice to allow more bullets, which makes some of the spongy bosses go quicker, but it also means you can be a little more spam-happy with your bullets. And also makes them significantly more likely to trigger a seizure. For what it’s worth, those non-photosensitive among us would probably really enjoy the fights. They’re typical for the genre, but with a Disney flavor that makes them feel fresh. I have no doubt if the flipping worked every single time, I would have really loved TaleSpin. But, it didn’t, and I don’t.
Verdict: NO!

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Fantasia (Sega Genesis Review)

September 15, 2023 by 3 Comments

Fantasia
Platform: Sega Genesis
Developed by Infogrames
First Released: November, 1991
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Well, at least there’s only four levels. She said, staring off into the distance, her soul shattered into millions of pieces.

Boy, do I have a funny story for you. I nearly beat Fantasia unaware that there was a way to kill enemies by hopping on them. Now, on occasion, enemies would die from me landing on them, BUT I always took damage too. What I wasn’t aware of is that Fantasia has a butt stomp that’s activated by pressing DOWN when you jump. Now, I might be an idiot, but there’s no way I could have missed this at the start of the game. What I think happened was I tried to perform a butt stomp on the early enemies, only Fantasia’s legendarily horrible collision detection flipped a coin and awarded the victory to the enemy. I took damage and assumed there was no butt stomp. That’s on me for not reading the instruction book.

And when I say “I made it to the end of the game” I mean I was literally about to clear the final screen. This is where I accidentally discovered the butt stomp works. I think I deserve a little credit for making it this far while having to mostly avoid enemies while trying to round up enough magic to take out the ones I couldn’t manage to jump over, even after rewinding and retrying dozens of times. It’s why a game that took me around 45 minutes to beat the second time took me 8+ hours the first go around. Lots and lots of rewinding trying to avoid enemies with collision boxes the size of a galaxy.

The way I played Fantasia, where I had to spend several minutes just to be able to make it one enemy further along, was just about as unhappy a gaming experience as humanly possible. I had to start over, because otherwise my opinion on Fantasia would have been based on an incoherent series of swear words. So, I started over from the beginning, and learned that Fantasia isn’t the worst game ever made. It also meant that, technically, I played the first and third levels three times. See, the object of Fantasia isn’t to get to the end of stages. It’s to score enough points. If you don’t score enough points and reach the end of a level, you have to start over. Since I wasn’t killing very many enemies at all, I wasn’t finding hidden notes or scoring enough points.

Music notes, like the one pictured here, score the most points of anything in the game by far. AND they restore life. AND they give you temporary invincibility. AND they give you an extra life. Seriously, it does all that, all at once. Mind you, there is no extra life item OR temporary invincible item, so it’s not like the note combines four in-game items. That would be cool. The fact that this restores health AND does three other things? It’s just so random. This is like how an imbecile designs a video game.

And sometimes slaying enemies opens up hidden platforms or reveals items, including the insanely overpowered musical notes. Except, killing them with your magic almost never does it. Only the butt stomp works. There’s no bosses and the end of stages lack any climatic feel. The closest the game comes to that is having a wave of basic enemies spawn when you reach the final fairy of the final stage. The fairies are also haphazardly done. Sometimes touching one takes you to another part of the stage. Sometimes it means the door is AROUND where you’re at. Hell, on the first stage, I even collected one of the fairies.. somehow. I don’t even think it did anything, either. So, after putting in over two play sessions since last night in Fantasia, while Fantasia isn’t the worst game I’ve ever played, I feel comfortable calling it the worst game Sega has ever published. As for Atari, formerly Infogrames, seriously, go to your room. You’re grounded. I know nobody there today probably had anything to do with Fantasia, but I don’t really care. Go to your room and think about what you’ve done.

Any game with bad collision and spongy enemies should probably avoid spamming the whole screen with enemies. That’s Fantasia’s go-to move, and they always tend to cluster-up no matter where they start on the screen.

Calling Fantasia on the Sega Genesis “historically inept” doesn’t feel like it does it justice. It’s clearly a game designed with little more in mind than looking good in advertisements and disgustingly invoking the previous year’s incredible Castle of Illusion release. That game? Very good. Fantasia? One of the worst platform games ever made. A title that does nothing right except look the part. And the “looking the part” crosses the line into being genuinely morally reprehensible because it’s trying to imply a relationship or even sequel-status to Castle of Illusion. Castle of Illusion was fine-tuned to the point that it felt scientific. A literal “fun for all ages” release that could cast the widest possible net for the Sega Genesis while it was in start-up. If you looked at it and Castle of Illusion side-by-side, it sure seems like Fantasia is trying to appear be a direct sequel, does it not?

The object of the game is NOT to reach the end of levels, but to first score X amount of points AND THEN finish the level. Each stage has a minimum scoring baseline you must reach, or you have to start over.

I reject the excuse that Fantasia’s problems came from the holiday release window time crunch. It shouldn’t take that long for one person to raise their hand and say “this isn’t fun” or “why are the collision boxes so big that Mickey takes damage from enemies over a character length away?” I just checked this with a stopwatch. It takes three seconds to raise that objection. My apologies if someone did raise their hand, only whoever was in charge rejected it. That might have happened. The project manager hasn’t done a game since 1996. Good. Fantasia is nearly unplayable. From the “score X points” premise to the level design to the shockingly massive collision boxes to the way combat is handled to the enemy placement to the movement physics.. EVERYTHING is bad. Screw it. EVEN THE GRAPHICS AREN’T GOOD! It has decent sprite work, but when visibility is often a major factor, what good is a sprite clear enough to say “yep, that sure is Mickey Mouse.”

I really don’t get the whole “at least it looks good” bit. Castle of Illusion? Now THAT looks good and there’s no visibility issues. Here, I often couldn’t tell what was a platform and what wasn’t.

Fantasia is a laundry list of bad design choices. I’m going with the collision detection as the worst part, because it’s truly shocking. I’m talking about collision boxes so large they need to be measured in the percentage of screen they cover. They’re not consistent either. Sometimes jumping over enemies or ducking under them is viable. Sometimes they can cause damage by hitting the corner of your box just by being in your general vicinity on your side of the screen. Take a look at this:

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And here it is in motion.

Since Fantasia relies on spamming the screen with enemies, this is sort of important. Even once I discovered the butt stomp, I was stunned by how the game typically programs enemies to deal with this. First off, enemies are INSANELY spongy. Some of them take several bounces to slay. Also, since most of them tend to sort of move upwards, when you butt stomp them and they keep rising up, you’re likely to take damage if you try to finish them in one motion. The only other options are limited magical projectiles, or “spells.” You can cast two tiers of spells: strong (which cost 3 magic points) and weak (which cost 1). They should really be labeled “weak” and “weaker” because even the ones that cost 3 points aren’t enough to finish the majority of enemies.

Oh god, I forgot to write about the movement. QUICK, CATHY! Six Flags is waiting!

Yea, I forgot to do a bit on the movement. Well, it’s sluggish and unresponsive. Turning around is a chore. This is further compounded by often having the platforms themselves have a little bit of give to them, like they’re unstable. You know, sort of like I am after playing this game. In a game that’s this centered around combat with enemies, many of whom move erratically, having just the act of turning around and starting to move be an exercise in patience feels like it wasn’t the wisest choice. After a certain point, I have to ask if anyone making this had even a tiny lick of fun, or were they just really angry at the world while they made Fantasia?

The magic books give you ammo, though even this seems inconsistent. Most of the time, I’d get 3 points from them, but sometimes I swear I’d only get 1. Same with the life refills.

The story goes that, after Fantasia the game was rushed out to make the 1991 holiday release, Disney apologized to Sega, saying that Fantasia’s license had been granted to Sega by accident. See, Fantasia, the 1940 motion picture, was Walt and Roy O. Disney’s baby. Roy E. Disney, son of Roy O. and gatekeeper of the Disney legacy, was dead set against Disney licensing Fantasia to anyone. Disney apparently gave Sega an extended deal as a make-good. Either way, the unsold inventory was pulled. Part of me wonders if that still would have happened if Fantasia had been a halfway decent game that got Castle of Illusion levels of critical acclaim.

I actually did finish Fantasia without cheating on NORMAL difficulty the second go around. My reward? This. That’s it. There’s not even a credit roll. It really screams of a rush job made by clowns. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to rush to this review’s conclusion so I can go ride roller coasters.

This is Disney game #18 on this marathon I’m on, and this is easily the worst. It might actually be the worst holiday release in gaming history. And, unlike some bad games, it’s not even worth fixing Fantasia. Even if they tweaked the collision boxes, the enemies are too spongy. Even if you removed the sponginess, the levels are boringly designed. After a certain point, so many things need to be fixed that you might as well tear it down and start over again. You’d think the one thing a Fantasia game would get right is the music, but these chip tune versions of the film’s famous orchestral arrangements are some of the worst in gaming history. The soundtrack sounds like a synthesizer is trying to die and it just can’t.
Verdict: NO!
I recommend Playing at the Next Level: A History of American Sega Games by Ken Horowitz. Among other things, it contains the history of this piece of crap.

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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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