Mickey’s Dangerous Chase (Game Boy Review)

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!