Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The Short


Pros
- Lets you play as all four turtles, with their unique weapons
- Can switch between turtles at any time.
- Music is pretty awesome, and super catchy
- Lots of stages with lots of variety, and you can drive around in the turtle-van
- Has some classic bosses from the cartoon show

Cons
- Difficult, and in unfair ways
- Only Donatello and Leonardo have good weapons; Raph and Mike are garbage
- "Dam" level will forever be remembered as the stage that ruined my childhood
- Controls, especially for Donatello, are extremely obnoxious
- Doesn't look all that fantastic
- Plenty of cheap deaths and frustrating level design and enemy placement
- Why is everybody on the cover wearing red? Was it "Dress like Raph" day?

I have a feeling this review is going to be very polarizing

The Long

Let me establish something here: I love the Ninja Turtles, and I played the crap out of this game as a child. It was one of the few games that both my two best friends and my cousins owned, so I got ample time playing it growing up. I have lots of fun memories switching off, assigning each friend a turtle, and trying to blast our way through this game. However, even at the time I knew something was off. The game didn't seem fair like most other NES games. Sure, it was hard, but it was also really frustrating. And that stupid level with the dam...

Anyway, years later and I had to get a cart of this, for obvious reasons. After burning through it for a bit by myself (which isn't nearly as fun), I came to a similar conclusion that I'd been just on the cusp of as a wee lad:

This game isn't very good.

Might as well restart your game now. 

At its most basic, TMNT is an action-platformer with the emphasis on "action." You have essentially four lives (being the four turtles), and each with their own health bars. You can switch out at any time if one of the turtles is looking like he's in trouble, because once a turtle goes down he's gone for good. So you'd better get good at switching before getting screwed over.

Each of the turtles uses their unique weapons, for better or worse. Leo has his badass sword, which has long reach and can hit low enemies directly in front of him. Raph is by far the worse, spinning his little knife...thing like a moron and only able to hit stuff when it's right in front of him. Mike is a bit better, with the nun-chucks having ok range but still a bit crap. Don is by far the best, but with one rather large handicap: the only way he can hit short enemies is to duck next to them and stab down. Which is...really obnoxious.

So basically you'll use Leo and Don as your mains, and Raph and Mike as your punching bags. 

You can fight on the overworld which...um...that's cool?

The game starts out ok, luring you into a false sense of security. Yeah, you're fighting bugs and weird...other bugs, as well as foot-clan that look more like ghosts, but whatever; it's NINJA TURTLES! Plus everything explodes with an awesome sound effect that still makes me happy when I hear it. And there's power-ups like ninja stars and stuff, just like games like Ninja Gaiden! This is gonna be awesome, right? Unfortunately, the game gets kind of crap quickly.

The problem with TMNT is it wanted to be a hard game without putting forth the effort in level design. Games like Castlevania and Batman are great games because, while being hard, you never felt cheated. Enemies didn't respawn in the absolute worst locations, they didn't block ladders (essentially forcing you to get hit), and didn't insta-kill you on the world map (freaking steamrollers). TMNT falls into a rather large trap that many NES games fell in: an obvious lack of playtesting, and the idea that "more is better." There are whole, extremely difficult stages where your reward is...a pizza. Awesome. And when hunting for the Technodrome at the end, you basically fight your way through tons of the hardest levels in the game hoping it's there. If it isn't, you go back and try another one. This isn't fun. At all. 

But what really killed me as a kid was the dam level.

Just looking at this makes me mad. 

 Essentially the only "swimming" level, you are tasked with finding and disarming a set number of bombs before the timer runs out. The problems is everything's in a maze, and in most instances the walls hurt you (stupid stinging plants!). So you have to both go fast and try and not let your best turtles die, and all with loose swimming controls. I never got past this stage as a kid. Not me, nor any of my friends or cousins. We just couldn't do it. Luckily since then I've gotten a little better at games and can actually pass it, but the point still stands: this game is really frustrating. 

Now, I'm certain plenty of people see this as a challenge, which is fine. However, excusing lazy game design as "challenge" isn't hardcore or neat, it's just excusing crap. I've already mentioned some games that are very difficult but still manage to still be fun and feel fair. TMNT is fun for a while, but seriously...have you played the inside of the Technodrome? That crap is totally impossible. 

Luckily the music is rad, even with no TV show theme

Graphically, the game isn't awful, but it isn't very good either. As stated, I like how all enemies explode, but most everything looks bland and generic. Worse, the game has the "sprites flashing in and out of invisibility" problem that a lot of NES games have, except for this one it's way worse for some reason. I've heard playing on a top-loader helps remedy that, but I only have the "toaster" NES so I can't argue it either way. In either case, having enemies disappear just helps to make the game more frustrating and annoying. Too much crap on the screen, Ultra games. Maybe tone it down a little?

Music, however, is fantastic. Most of these songs (especially the first level's song) are burned into my memories. The title screen song is super catchy as well, even if it doesn't use any music from the actual TV show. 

Want...to smash...controller...

As it stands, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the NES is a game I'll always remember fondly because of the memories I had with it, but replaying it now the game just infuriates me. What bugs me even more is that TMNT 2: The Arcade Game was so much better (and had actual co-op), but we had this Turtles game instead. Why did everybody buy this crappy game? Ugh. 

Anyway, there is still a...decent amount of fun to be had with TMNT, just know it's going to come at the expense of your sanity. I'm completely convinced every person who grew up on the late 80s/early 90s has some memory of this game, and considering you can get it for around $3-5 you might as well for the nostalgia. Just be aware: this game isn't great.

Two out of five stars. 

"Cowabunga," you jerks. 

Batman: The Video Game

The Short


Pros
- Excellent action platformer with BATMAN
- Music is kickass
- Use a wide array of bat-gadgets as well as your fists to punch your way to the Joker
- Excellent graphics, especially in cutscenes
- Wall jumping is fun and makes you feel really versatile
- Unlimited continues (with Konami code)

Cons
- Excruciatingly difficult
- Some very cheap deaths and hits
- Will test your patience and stamina
- My cartridge freezed right when I beat the third boss. Curse you, game!

I'm Batman. 

The Long

Ah, Sunsoft, you are so awesome. Famous for making incredible games that are hard as all hell (the exception being Fester's Quest, which was just junk), they are probably most well known for the game Blaster Master, the tank/car/person/shooter hybrid with open work exploration and multi-part stages. However, Sunsoft also did a bunch of licensed games, and one of these was Batman, based off the Tim Burton movie. 

And oh, is it one kickass game. 

Batman: Punching dudes in jetpacks since 1989

Batman plays very similarly to Ninja Gaiden, Tecmo's tough-as-nails NES platformer, though I personally find it most similar to Castlevania in terms of playstyle. You start with just your fists (or bat-fists), punching the crap out of thugs, robots, and whatever else gets in your way. Yeah, robots. This isn't very...loyal to the movie, but that's probably for the best.

Anyway, the tricks come in with both the gadgets and the platforming. Like Ryu from Ninja Gaiden, Batman can attach and leap from the walls, a "wall jump" essentially. This is required in a lot of areas, but in some areas you can actually use it to bypass harder sections if you are a skilled wall-jumper. Also, unlike Ninja Gaiden, where I found the wall-clinging to be a bit unwieldy, I never had any problems with it in Batman. You can determine how high you jump off a wall by how long you hold the jump button, which adds considerably more control when compared to his ninja counterpart. 

You can either fight your way up the right, or if you have the skills take that small shaft up on the left via wall-jumping. BRANCHING PATHS!

Another good feature is the gadgets. Essentially you start with a whole arsenal, you just have to collect power-ups to fuel them. Punching is free, but everything from batarangs to a splitting bat...thing and the bat...uh...gun (?!) costs powerup points. The game is, thankfully, very lenient on dropping powerups, meaning you'll usually be well equipped for every situation.

Which is good, because even the most basic enemies in this game are hard.

Guns are no problem for THE BATMAN 

From the first level you know this game's gonna chew you up, especially when you meet your first jetpack enemy. While you have a health bar (thankfully), you have a very limited number of hits, and while enemies do drop life it is extremely rare. So expect to die. A lot.

Coupled with that is some very tricky platforming. Remember that wall jumping that was so awesome? You'd better master that crap quick, because in stage 2 you have to pull of some insanely tricky jumps and kills. And it only gets harder, with conveyor belts and tons of tricky enemies that require specific gadgets to be equipped to defeat. It gets really crazy, really fast.

That being said, this (along with Castlevania) is one of the fairest NES-hard games I've played. One of the main reasons I actually prefer Batman over it's counterpart Ninja Gaiden is a simple one: you don't fly back when you take damage. This is probably my biggest frustration in most NES games, when you get hit and your character leaps back like two miles and falls down an insta-death hole. In this game, Batman's a badass and just takes is standing up, which helps make little mistakes more bearable.

Gah, just looking at this makes me want to snap a controller. 

It's more of a Castlevania type game when it comes right down to it. You have to take things slow and carefully, at times memorizing enemy placements and platforms on each stage so you can best get through while taking the minimum amount of damage. It's a classic challenge, common in old games, but Batman does it masterfully. The tight controls and wide variety of attack options (and mobility options) help make it more bearable, and actually beating a level without losing a life is extremely satisfying.

The music is also rad, like all Sunsoft games

The graphics, as you can see, look great (which is another Sunsoft staple). Batman's a bit...purple, but they used his color contrast with a lot of orange and red stages to make him pop out (kind of like a reverse Castlevania). The cutscenes also look incredible, showing some fantastic 8-bit Batman art.

The music, as well, is moody, exciting, and super catchy. It just all ties together into a very complete package. 

Remember in the movie when Batman fought the dude with the hair? No? Oh...right. 

As it stands, Batman: The Video Game on NES is a fantastic example of how games were done right on the system, as well as how the "Nintendo Hard" phrase is totally justified. The game is absolutely incredible and ball-bustingly difficult, so much so that when I picked it up from my local video game store he advised against it, because the last couple people who had bought it had brought it back in frustration. I have yet to bring it back (in fact I've even made it to the Joker, though I confess I haven't beaten the game) because this game is really good. Aside from the extreme difficulty, there's a ton to love here. As the first Batman game on the new wave of video game systems, Batman delivers. And considering you can pick the cart up for less than $5, it's absolutely worth buying. 

Not everybody will enjoy it (again, difficulty) but for me it's one of my favorites on the system. Four out of five. 

Batmans: ROLL OUT. 

Nathan vs Video Games: The Kickstarter

I'm doing a kickstarter!

Like Let's Play's? Curious what I'd sound like on camera? Want me to play some REALLY AWFUL GAMES (Like PK Out of the Shadows on Gamecube) with commentary? Want to SUGGEST an awful game and have me review it ON VIDEO?

All this can be yours if you just contribute a few bucks to my kickstarter! RAD.

GO GIVE ME SOME MONEY! 

In all seriousness, I've been wanting to do video stuff for a while. I have a ton of video editing software already (hence why the kickstarter doesn't have to be too expensive) but I'd love to get a really nice capture card and maybe some good microphones and do some delicious video content. I can't guarantee it'll be all quality right out of the gate (hey, it's a learning experience) but I'm determined to make some awesome stuff should this get funded, and if anything watching me swear at Donald Duck while playing that awful PK game will probably be worth a couple bucks (in my humble opinion).

If you are interested, PLEASE go donate! As another cool bonus, if you donate $15 or more you get a PERLER BEAD sprite of your choice! Pretty rad, huh?

Share this around and we'll see how it goes! Thanks for contributing; and expect tons more content coming up in the next few weeks!

Dragon Spirit: The New Legend

The Short

Pros

- Awesome top-down shooter where you play as a DRAGON!

- Powerups are cool and do neat things (give you more dragon heads, etc.)

- Both an easy and a difficult mode based on how you play the first level

- Infinite continues

- Two levels of fire like Xevious

- Nine stages (on hard) and all are a reasonable length

- Game plays extra-good on the NES Advantage with turbo on

Cons

- Easy, even on the harder difficulty

- Getting hit loses both a life AND your power-up. Lame!

- Graphics are pretty hideous

- Music is also ho-hum

- Guy on the box/cartridge art looks like a doofus

MIGHTY DRAGON SPIRIT!

The Long

There was no lack of shmup (or just "shooters" if you are normal) games on the NES. From Lifeforce to Gradius to the majority of crap on Action 52, the NES did it's best to compete with the arcade fads with ports of the popular titles. Dragon Spirit: The New Legend is a port of the Arcade (and also TurboGrafx-16) game Dragon Spirit, and while it isn't the best shooter on the NES, Dragon Spirit: The New Legend still manages to bring enough uniqueness to the board to be worth looking into if you have any fondness for the genre.

Go forth, mighty DAG-RON. 

Let's just cover a few important things first: this game, at its core, is pretty mediocre. The graphics, aside from the absolutely awesome dragon transformation cutscene at the beginning, look abismal. They are cluttered and grainy, and it can be very hard to see what you are shooting or even what is in the foreground and what is in the background. The animations are dull, and aside from a few graphical tricks on a couple of levels, the game just looks like a mess.

The other thing not worth writing home about is the music. While not bad, it certainly is far from catchy or memorable, and just serves as basic background noise. Instead, why not listen to some Dragonforce while playing? It'll make you play better, I promise. 

Fight dragons with dragons. 

That aside, there's actually a lot of fun to be had with Dragon Spirit: The New Legend. First off is the idea that you are a dragon who was once a dude. Basically, the game opens with a simple "starter" level where you play as the original dragon transformer guy. In a rather clever trick, if you lose on this first level, the game lets you play as a different, easier character for the rest of the game (with fewer stages and a "bad" ending) while as if you win you unlock the harder character and the full nine stages. After the first stage the original dragon-dude settles down and has two kids, and if you sucked you play as the girl (sexism!) and if you did well you play as the guy. Both cases you get the most awesome dude-->dragon transformation sequence ever.

By the end of this review, this dude will be a dragon. 

Then it's off to actually play the game. The story doesn't really play any other role until the ending, so you can politely pretend it doesn't exist.

The game plays like your usual top-down shooter, with a few chinks. First, you're a dragon. Second, power-ups actually change the way your dragon looks. You get multiple heads (up to three!) which increase firepower, invincibility, rapid-fire fire, and more. What sucks is that when you get hit, you lose most of your powerups (similar to Legendary Wings) and also lose a hit (out of three if you are the blue dragon, six if you are the gold). It's double punishment (in Legendary Wings your powerups were your life, and maxing out gave you three hits before being downgraded) which can be kind of obnoxious, but it just makes you play much more carefully.

Another neat trick is the Xevious style shooting. Similar to that game, you have button for shooting enemies in the air, and the other for carpet-bombing stuff below. Multiple heads mean multiple bombs, and unlike regular shots these have no limit to the number on screen (meaning a turbo controller is your friend). Switching back and forth is fast and frantic and quite fun, though you can't shoot both the air and the ground at the same time. Keeps it strategic.

You don't want to wake the dragon. 

The stages themselves with regard to gameplay layout aren't particularly unique, though it does throw a hefty amount of (easy) enemies at you, and you start shooting dinosaurs in the prehistoric time (awesome. Dragons vs Dinosaurs) which is pretty rad. The game itself isn't particularly hard; you'll probably get at least half way through before having to continue, even if its your first time playing the game. The best feature is the game has unlimited continues (the only downer being you have to start the beginning of the stage over) as well as mid-stage checkpoints, though the checkpoints aren't as frequent as one might like. 

The bosses are also relatively cake. You can do the common Lifeforce exploit of sitting right next to their weak point and holding a turbo button (or mashing fire) and shooting an insane number of shots into it for a quick kill. But they do try to spice things up, including a boss that can only be hit with the ground-level bombs, but shoots out air-level enemies (that you'll have to dodge or shoot down) and requires some strategy. Again, not to difficult, but difficult enough to be satisfying.

Protip: If a sword talks to you, always do what it says. 

As it stands, while you could argue Dragon Spirit: The New Legend pretty much plays it by the book, there's a lot to love in this game. The slightly easier difficulty curve made it more accessible and a lot more fun for me to just pick up and play, and the goofy premise and the fact I got to yell about dragons every time I got another head (or lost one) was also pretty amusing. As it stands, while this isn't the best shmup/shooter on the NES, it's a solid one, and if you haven't played it before I suggest picking it up and giving it a shot.

Just...squint a little and play some Dragonforce or Rhapsody of Fire while you do so.

Three out of five stars. 

I warned you! "I mean...he was a dragon man..."

Loopz

The Short


Pros
- Fun, extremely simple puzzle game
- Simply make complete pathways to earn points
- Piece complexity quickly ramps up
- Difficulty settings help keep it fun

Con
- Absolutely atrocious color scheme
- Equally atrocious music; ugh.
- "Easy" will never end; it's way too easy
- Never adds anything particularly unique to the formula

Are you ready to LOOPZ?!

The Long

Apparently Loopz is "the most addicting game ever." Weird, I thought that was Diablo 3, but what do I know? 

Anyway, I originally played Loopz on some weird game compilation disc that came with our 486-66 computer way back in the day. I've been searching for the name of this game for years since, and only recently finally found it out. Considering the PC version won't run on anything anymore, I opted for the NES version, ready to relive classic memories of making LOOPZ. 

Alas, while this was the game I played rather studiously growing up, it seems twenty years will do a lot for one's opinion.

This is really the best color scheme they could come up with. 

The concept of Loopz is actually simple but quite addicting (the box didn't lie!). Essentially, you have a small grid which to put pieces on. The game randomly gives you various pieces (and there is no "next piece" like in Tetris) and your goal is to make a complete "loop" out of them (read: a complete connection). Partial connections just clutter up your space, until eventually you run out of room. On the bottom is a timer to place each piece. If you fail to drop a piece in time, you lose a life and it goes to the next one. Lose all your lives, and you're done. Simple enough, right?

If this sounds simple it's because it really is. The pieces get weirder and more complex, adding to the challenge, but Loopz never "throws you for a loop" (ha. PUNS.). It's just the same thing. Which, considering this is just a simple puzzle game (and you can get this game for like $2), I'm fine with that. It actually is pretty addicting, and having a loop-in-progress plan come into fruition can be very satisfying.

It's just too bad all the packaging for this fun concept is utter garbage.

All these screenshots are gonna look really similar...

First off, the game looks pretty freaking hideous. I mean, look at it. Ugly dark green, lots of wasted black space, and that weird tan/red for placed pieces. Way to be. What is far worse, however, is the piece placement. It colors the pieces a weird purple/magenta and white, which not only contracts putrid, but on the smaller pieces the shading is so bad it takes a while to figure out exactly which direction the corner is. Spinning it doesn't help, so at first you'll get a lot of messed up pieces. Luckily your brain eventually adapts to the awful graphics and it becomes fun, but seriously? The PC version I played had a gray/white background with very crisp brown pieces. I never had any issues knowing which way pieces were going.

Whatever you do, don't listen to Tune A (first on this sound collection). It's so...bad. 

The music is also pretty obnoxious. Tune A (the default song) is absolutely, ear-bustingly obnoxious with its high-pitch whining. The other two songs are ok (I like that Tune C is super catchy), but still are a far cry from the Tetris theme. Just make sure you change the song. Again, the PC version sounded much better in my recollection.

Lastly, the game just...has no sense of progression. Essentially you can pick your game mode at the start (all three are almost exactly the same), your music (don't pick Tune A), and then your difficulty level (0-9. Don't pick 0). The only difference in difficulty level is the time you have to drop a piece. The main issue is that, while you do get more complex and harder pieces as you advance, you can never bump up to a new difficulty stage. You know how in, say, Tetris the better you play the harder it gets until you finally lose? That's a good idea; it keeps you from being trapped in easy level limp. Loopz is easy level limbo. Once you master the difficulty level you are on, it's over. You'll never die. The only way to quit is to turn off the NES or throw the game. No sense of challenge.  

Also, "A" is spin piece and "B" is place, the opposite of like every other game in the world. Way to go, Mindscape. 

The lack of being able to see which piece is next also axes a lot of strategy.

Do I still recommend Loopz? Well...yes, actually. While the core gameplay is repetitive and the game looks like ass, it's still...decent. I dunno. Maybe I'm being influenced here because I was so excited to finally find out the name of this game and then find a copy for cheap that I'm trying to justify its existence.

Eh, screw it, this game isn't very good. It's a few minutes of mindless puzzle fun but really it's just shallow and dull. While I'd still suggest grabbing it if you can find it for $2-3, don't go out of your way or anything.

One out of five stars. Curse you, childhood. 

Ah, PC version. With actual progression. You look...actually not much better. My childhood is a lie!

Life Force

The Short


Pros
- Fast paced, old school space shooter
- Has both horizontal and vertical levels! Insanity!
- Konami Code works, and the game has unlimited continues. Finally.
- Is a blast two player, and plays awesome on an NES Advantage
- Crazy weird "story" with lots of bananas enemies and locations
- Fantastic music
- Is called Salamander in Japan. That's kind of cool.

Cons
- Is pretty short
- Losing all your powerups sucks
- Also, that fire level is a massive pain
- Most bosses can be easily "cheesed"
- Graphics are hit or miss

I have no idea what is going on in the story to this game. 

The Long

Ah, space shooters. Once the staple of any game library, they've sort of faded into obscurity over the past decade or so (with most of them being specialized "bullet hell" games or...indie "bullet hell" games). However, looking back to the roots of the "Shmup" - being "Shoot 'Em Up" -  Genre, you'll find some genuinely classic titles across the early gaming systems. One of my absolute favorites is Lifeforce, a game I played religiously with my dorm neighbor back in college, blasting red blood cells, Egyptian King Tut masks, brains with one eyeball, Easter Island heads, and more. Yeah, this game makes no sense, but that doesn't stop it from being awesome.

You should just hit "play" on this now so you can listen to the music through the review. 

At it's core, this game is essentially Gradius. You have the same tiered power ups, the ultimate one being an "Option," essentially a small orb that follows you around and also shoots. You can also get Speed, Missile, Spread, and Laser power-ups, each of which gives you more abilities (except Spread or Laser, which you can only have one at a time) to fend off the hordes of strange enemies. Of course, if you die you lose it all, so you have to play careful. 

The game is fairly simple. Either you are side-scrolling left to right, or heading up. What makes this game fun is the mixture between excellent enemy placement, obstacles, and constantly mixing up the mechanics of the game. Some stages just overwhelm you with enemies (causing some crazy NES slowdown). Others, such as the fire stage, are more taxing on split-second reactions to environmental warnings. Others still, like the "Egypt" level, have you shooting through sand in order to clear a path to the end. And don't forget the awesome last level, where the course speeds up to insane speeds and you have to dodge between closing doors while escaping the planet (and an earlier stage which has you navigating a thin corridor while doing the same thing). Had it been just shooting and bosses Lifeforce would have sucked, but the constant mix-up in variety keeps things very fresh.

Curse you, fire level. 

The downside to this is that, with all the variety, there aren't very many stages. You can beat the game in one sitting, and usually with the 25 lives you'll get for punching in the Konami code (though the last few levels can be taxing). But despite being short, it's a great game to grab a friend and play co-op with, considering you both can have fun and beat the whole game in under and hour. Honestly, I'd rather have a refined, excellent experience rather than a bloated one (see Castlevania: Lords of Shadow) so Lifeforce does well in making the whole experience feel exciting, if it is short.

As stated, this game does accept the Konami code for more lives (I'd suggest it), but even better it has unlimited continues! Continuing refills your Konami-coded collection of lives, and just makes you start the stage over. It's unfortunate that, with two players, you don't have the option to continue if your friend is still alive (you have to wait for him or her to die completely and then you can continue), but hey...unlimited continues are still awesome. 

This game is really freaking weird. 

Graphically, Lifeforce is ok. It has an absolutely bizarre sense of what is going on (read: I have no idea what is going on in this game), so one moment you'll be flying through a ribcage and the next bouncing Easter Island heads will be coming for you next to...a pool table? Yeah, it's really weird. There are a few lazy graphical moments (the bordering fire in the fire level just seems to show up, with no well-drawn transition from the space to the fire. You can even see where their tiled background graphics start), but ultimately it looks fine. When you have missiles equipped and there's a hefty amount of crap on the screen (which is frequent) the game is prone to some serious slowdown, but that's pretty much par for the course for these types of NES games.

The music, if you've been listening while reading, is quite good. It certainly lives up to Konami's reputation, with some seriously kicking tunes throughout. 

Don't get bit by space-fangs!

Lifeforce is probably my most favorite Shmup ever. Yeah, it isn't complex and deep like Ikaruga or even particularly long or difficult, but it's a classic game that's straight up fun. My advice? Grab a friend, punch in the Konami code, grab your NES Advantage (gonna need that stick and turbo button) and have a great time. Considering this game is pretty cheap anyway, it's totally worth picking up if you have an NES. even if it is short. 

Four out of five stars. 

Suck it, Egypt. 

Mickey Mousecapade

The Short


Pros
- Mickey Mouse adventure with lots of stage variety
- Minnie follows you around and can be useful
- Reasonably solid platforming
- Started Capcom's relationship with Disney, which brought us awesome games like Duck Tales, Talesspin, The Little Mermaid, and others

Cons
- Extremely short
- Nothing particularly compelling about the platforming or combat
- Having Minnie follow you around (and be required to leave screens) can be obnoxious
- In addition, if Minnie falls down a hole, you lose
- Stupid forest level has no rhyme or reason to it
- Music is obnoxious
- Despite having two characters, this game does NOT have two player co-op

Note the "Hudson Soft" under the copyrights. 

The Long

Mickey Mousecapade (or just Mickey Mouse according to the title screen) was the first Disney game published by Capcom for the NES. I say "published" instead of "developed" because this game wasn't actually made by Capcom; it was made by Hudson Soft (makers of Bomberman), which probably explains why Mickey Mousecapade isn't on par with other Capcom NES offerings. That being said, Mickey Mousecapade is a decent enough platformer, even if it is wrought with frustration, weak level design, and is offensively short. 

The "story" in Mickey Mousecapade is...well, it's a thing that it doesn't tell you anything about. From what I understand based on the ending, I'm trying to rescue Alice (from Alice in Wonderland) from Malificent, the evil witch from Sleeping Beauty. How she go in on this I have no idea and the game makes no effort to say how these words crossed. I guess you could consider this a precursor to Kingdom Hearts, except without all the angst.

It's nice of that door to tell you what you need. 

Anyway, Mickey and Minnie run off to save her (with Mickey yelling for Minnie at the start of each stage; she should hit him) and on their way are attacked by EVERYTHING. Snakes, cats, furniture, brooms; everything wants these guys dead. It's basically a "grab everything that looks remotely like an enemy or is from a Disney franchise and shove it in here" affair, which makes the enemies completely inconsistent. 

The other thing that's inconsistent are the goals. Take the first stage, for instance, in the screenshot above. That door (which is the end of the stage) needs a key. So you go up a few screens and...BEHOLD AND LO! There's a key. So you grab it and come back and...door's still locked. Guess what? You needed another key, the one hiding behind the boss. Well that's awesome; why have two keys? And the doors the first key unlocks aren't even really shown to be locked, at least they aren't saying "KEY" really obviously. Quality level design.

Some levels are just a flash in the pan. Take the second level, the "Ocean." When I first played it, it was something like 5-6 jumps dodging bubbles. Then I fought a crocodile boss and died. At the time I was like "this has to be a mid-level boss or something; this level can't be that short." Guess what? It was that short; that was the end boss. The whole level was maybe two minutes long. Quality, there.

Precise jumps + Minnie = Suckfest. 

Perhaps the most annoying thing is Minnie is tagging along the whole time. Sure, she can be useful. She can shoot, but is also invincible, so with some quick cheesing you can make some of the bosses a lot easier by putting her on the ledge with them while Mickey hides below. But she almost isn't worth the effort when it comes to levels that require jumping (like the final Castle level). The problem is that her AI is downright moronic, and she has issues keeping up. If she falls down during one of these jumps, you have to go down and get her and start all over. When all the enemies are dead and all you want to do is go to the next room, the tedium of the whole thing is just nauseating.

And don't get me started on the forest level. Trees to enter, trees to not enter, a circular stage that requires you in some points to completely cycle around before going in a tree-door, different seasonal screens, and so on. It's a maze with no point; it'll probably take you the longest just because you'll have no idea where to go without strict trial and error. And one of the doors required to leave is invisible, and you have to shoot it a number of times for it to show up. The requirements to progress are so precise it could take you ages! I guess that's where the "length = value" idea of Mickey Mousecapade comes in, because they certainly ignored it for the rest of the game.

Drop Minnie down a hole. 

I should probably also put this in at some point, because I was confused about it like everybody else: THERE IS NO CO-OP IN THIS GAME. Yes, you can plug a second controller in and shoot and sort of move, but really all you can do (aside from shoot and fight with player one for control) is determine how far back Minnie stands from Mickey. There is no actual two-player functionality in this game, which sucks because you always have Minnie tagging along anyway so they should have put it in.

Shooting knives from his eyes. 

The music in this game is pretty bad. Unlike actual Capcom games, which have kickass music, this one is just...bland. The opening level's ("Fun House") song loops way too soon, and drove me absolutely crazy after just a few short minutes. Luckily the game's six levels are super short (except the forest) so you don't have to endure the assault on your eardrums for long, but would it have killed them to put some music that wasn't insulting to my brain?

I've been pretty mean to Mickey Mousecapade, but in truth I don't hate it. Well, I hate the forest level, but as it stands the game isn't broken at least. For what its worth, it's a decent platformer which at least has some variety. Some stages are platformers, some require keys, some are impossible (FOREST)...etc. But unless you have some nostalgia for it, your patience isn't going to last very long. It's decent enough, but just about any Disney game on NES made by Capcom is going to trump it by a long shot. 

And no co-op really is just a kick in the pants. That's one of the reasons why I bought it! Oh well.

Two out of five stars. 

Plus you can beat the whole game in seven and a half minutes.