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

Mickey Mouse
aka The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle
Platform: Game Boy
Developed by Kemco
First Released September 5, 1989
Re-Released in 1997 in Bugs Bunny Collection (Japan Only)
NO MODERN RE-RELEASE

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Thankfully, unlike the Famicom/NES review, I don’t have to consider the North American and Japanese versions of Mickey Mouse/Bugs Bunny to be separate. This time, they play identical, which means I only have to play it once! However, I’ll note that, no matter which emulator I used, the Super Game Boy version found in Bugs Bunny Collection was noticeably more sluggish and I don’t recommend trying it even if it’s an option. As for the original builds, pick your poison: Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse. I went with Mickey Mouse, who is 1 for 1 so far in my Disney adventures. Oh, and something I didn’t mention in my Mickey Mousecapades review: when you open-up the cart for the game, there’s a Hidden Mickey on the circuit board. WHY WOULD YOU EVEN DO THAT?

The Game Boy version leans heavier on massive door mazes that were relatively rare on the NES port. My theory is because it looks better on the colorless Game Boy screen.

So, why give this a separate review? Because, while the enemies carry over and there are some levels that feel similar to the Famicom/NES counterpart, Crazy Castle/Mickey Mouse is much different on the Game Boy. The level count is increased from 60 to 80, and allegedly all the levels are different from the NES one. Some seem similar, notably one that has a series of left-to-right staircases, but even this is slightly modified. Oddly enough, despite having twenty more stages, I actually completed the Game Boy version in roughly the same amount of time I did the NES version: about two hours and change. Curious, right? If you take the original game’s formula and add 33% more levels, you would expect to add another thirty to forty minutes of playtime. Yet, somehow I finished in roughly the same time. That hammers home how different Crazy Castle is on the Game Boy.

And, mind you, I died A LOT more on the Game Boy, too. Things are getting weird, folks.

I wondered if maybe the levels were physically smaller, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The speed is certainly a big part of the reason. It wasn’t rare for me to fly through stages in thirty seconds or less, even late in the game. While the Game Boy Crazy Castle has similar grid based movement from the NES port, where you travel further than perhaps you’d like to just by taking a single step forward, the whole game plays much faster. Or, at least, you seem to move faster. This does factor into the gameplay, too, as enemies take the stairs slowly, while you take them very quickly. I commonly died by trying to scoot past them when I thought I had enough clearance. In fact, most of my fatalities were just the result of bad judgment of how many paces a single tap of the D-pad would take me. The issue of walking over the edge while taking stairs was even worse on the Game Boy. And, thanks to the smaller screen, the issue of having to start each stage blindly not knowing where the hearts are, or even what enemies are present, is worse.

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Yet, I sort of liked the level design better in the Game Boy version. Whether you call it Mickey Mouse or Crazy Castle, the game is much more claustrophobic this time around than it was on the NES, which makes it more exciting and intense. The close-calls are much more plentiful and work with the faster pace instead of against it. Even the lack of color doesn’t hurt at all, and I figured it would! See the pictures above? The darker shaded Big Bad Wolf is the one who can use the stairs. The lighter one can’t. Easy peasy. There’s also a bizarre special feature where you can watch replays of the stages you just beat, though I’m not sure what the point of that is. For the memory they used with that, they could have probably bumped this up to 100 levels or more. I think it speaks volumes that I’ve finished 140 levels of Crazy Castle in the last two days and the only reason I stopped is because I ran out of levels. Thankfully, I have three more of these to go. And one better known as Kid Klown. That one probably won’t be as fun.
Verdict: YES!