Mickey Mousecapade (NES/Famicom Review)

Mickey Mousecapade
aka Mickey Mouse: Adventures in Wonderland
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Developed by Hudson Soft
First Released March 6, 1987
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Say CHEESE! While Minnie follows Mickey, there’s this weird delay to it. Also, she doesn’t take damage. At all. You can use these two quirks to your advantage if you can separate Minnie from Mickey. Here, she’s killing the first boss while Mickey has a break below her. Hazel the Witch’s bullets pass right through her, and they don’t go down to where Mickey is. Once again, leave it to women to do all the work.

In Japan, Mickey Mousecapade sends Mickey and Minnie on a journey to rescue Alice from the 1951 Disney animated film Alice in Wonderland. Well, except for level four, where Captain Hook shows up for no reason. While saving Alice is still the ultimate goal of the US port of Mickey Mousecapade, all other references to Alice and Wonderland, along with Captain Hook (always the real victim) have been removed. Why would they do that? I have a theory.. that it’s a demon. A dancing demon. No, something isn’t right there. Sorry. My theory is that the NES was marketed to boys and Alice in Wonderland is a “girl’s movie” and Capcom didn’t want boys of the 80s to think they’d get cooties playing on their beloved Nintendo Entertainment Systems. That’s it. It’s cynical, and I hate cynicism, but I think that’s the reason.

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In this platformer, you have to make your way to a boss fight in each of the five stages, all of which feel relatively different from each-other. The first and last stages play out a little like a maze, where you have to first fetch a key before you’re able to finish a level. In the first stage, you also have to locate the projectiles that you use for combat. There’s two chests in the stage, one at the beginning and one near the end, that contain stars. If you get both, Minnie will be able to cheese two of the five bosses for you, since she can’t take damage. One annoyance with Mickey Mousecapade is that enemies tend to be spongy, taking many shots to wipe out. But, this is tempered by Minnie being invulnerable. Separate her from Mickey and the combat is literally free shots. The second stage is a traditional scroll-right platformer with tons of pits. While the jumping is satisfactory, you also have to jump for two characters who aren’t in sync. If Minnie falls in a pit, you both die. Mickey presumably has a broken heart, making this gaming’s most adorable death. Of course, you won’t find it adorable. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be telling Mickey to dump the bitch.

I’m dead here. By the way, this is the Japanese version, and I think it’s harder for reasons I’ll get into.

Level three is one of those abstract “pick the right path” mazes set in a forest. The seasons change, and the trick is there’s two hidden doors that you have to shoot your projectiles at to reveal. Mickey Mousecapade is FULL of these invisible goodies, though in levels 1 and 5, they could be whammies that steal Minnie from you, forcing you to find a way to rescue her before you can finish the stage. Level four is a pirate ship that’s only an embarrassing four single-screens big. Well, they sure phoned that one in. The final level is done in the style of the first stage, but it seems designed to make it harder to keep Mickey & Minnie in sync with each other. You can’t leave any room unless you BOTH leave it, and it becomes frustrating.

They’re just not seeing eye-to-eye.

Since Mickey Mousecapade can be beaten in under an hour, and I’m a compulsive moron, I played through both versions. The graphics aren’t the only difference. You start the Japanese version with a lot less life, for one thing. That’s the only 100% certain change about the difficulty, but having played through both, it sure seemed like Minnie follows you much less closely in the Famicom version. I cruised through the second level on the NES port, but in the Japanese one, Minnie simply wasn’t hitting her jumps with me. Then, in the final level, while the NES version had annoying moments, I especially struggled with getting Minnie to be able to navigate the platforms with me on the Famicom. She’s the OG Yorda from Ico in that she just plain doesn’t follow your directions. I’m open to the possibility I’m imagining this, but it seems like the NES version might have slightly adjusted the delay between your input and Minnie doing something.

The pirate ship being a whopping FOUR SCREENS is shamefully lazy. Seriously, FOUR SCREENS? Given the fact that the fourth boss is also in the final stage, why even bother with it, especially since Captain Hook has NOTHING to do with Alice in Wonderland. If the four screens was a file size issue, dump the stage and add four more screens to one of the other levels.

In general, Mickey Mousecapade is slightly harder than I expected it to be. It’s not just the spongy enemies, but there’s lots of cheap enemy design. Meanwhile, bosses, and even mini-bosses, degenerate into fire fights where you both spam projectiles at each-other until one of you drops dead. The final level repeats the Peg Leg Pete battle from the fourth level before you face off against the big bad, which is Maleficent in the US or the Queen of Hearts in Japan. I think both versions are a bit on the janky side, and I can’t stress enough how insanely the bosses spam projectiles. Of course, having three out of five bosses be cheesable to some degree takes the edge off that.

If you find a fairy on the literal final door to the final boss, you can one shot the last boss with invincibility. Whose stupid idea was it to hide a fairy there?

But, overall, Mickey Mousecapade isn’t a bad little game. Most of Hudson Soft’s output from this era didn’t age very well. Mickey Mousecapade aged better than most, and I think the level design plays a big part in that. Sure, I was very annoyed about the pirate ship. Hell, pirate-themed levels are one of my favorite gaming tropes. But, the first, third, and fifth stages are really well done. The first and fifth especially, where I wish the whole game had been done in their style. And hey, while the combat is spongy, it’s also satisfying enough. I walked away from Mickey Mousecapade having beaten it twice in a two hour span and I never got bored. I actually wish they’d do a sequel all these years later that focused on the maze aspect, and had more creative boss design. Still, not bad for a game creeping-up on forty years of age.
Verdict: YES!