Felix the Cat (1992)

Beat on normal speed. This was a fairly simple and easy platformer with much in common with the super Mario games. No jumping on enemies though. Instead you used a short ranged punch. Instead of having separate power ups, coins spawned the 1 and only powerup in the game, which upgraded your weapon. The punch became magic stars that hit in all directions at short range, then a car that fired horizontal mid range shots, and finally a tank that lobbed long range shots in an arc. The tank was the best of course but the weaker forms could still be better for hitting certain angles, so it was not too much of a penalty to take a hit and be reverted to the previous form. The forms also had time limits so I had to be on the look out for milk and hearts to keep them fueled up. There were also flying, water and underwater stages that had entire new sets of forms. Of these I found the surface water stages the most difficult to control and fight. I barely kept the 2nd form dolphin so did not see if there was a 3rd form. Sky had punch, balloon with down arcing discs, then plane with straight shot. The underwater turtle and submarine both had straight shots. There was also a mechanic where certain tougher enemies could only be hurt by the stronger forms. The only real difficulty I had was running out of time during 1 flying boss fight, but that was easily corrected by being more aggressive. Near the end was a single spaceship stage, which was difficult because losing the ship meant falling to your death. This was the only part where I had to save state scum to make sure I got enough fuel to make it through. All of the bosses were extremely easy. I did not like how the "story" was presented, with the villain calling Felix to say nothing of worth. Why does he return home to answer the phone in between stages? Overall this was a decent game that only stood out due to the wacky forms that kinda made it play more like a shoot em up.

7.0/10

The NES had a ton of licensed games, and most of them were terrible. Granted, DuckTales and Batman are definitely exceptions, as are a few others, but most of them were of low quality (looking at you, LJN). Felix the Cat is of a higher quality. Based off of a cartoon from the 1920s, Felix experienced somewhat of a revival in the late 80s-early 90s due to a new series on Saturday morning television and all the merchandise based on the character (most famously, the clocks).

This game is a later NES title and doesn't seem to get as talked about, but I think it's worth playing. The game is colorful, has amazing music, and so much variety due to the magic bag that Felix brings along with him. The challenge is a bit on the easy side, as it's very easy to get 1-UPs. You have limited continues, but it's doubtful you will even use one continue before finishing the game.

It's not the most groundbreaking game, but the graphics, music and fun factor are all high quality for the NES. If you love platformers, I'd recommend Felix the Cat, perhaps the most underrated licensed game for the NES.

Fun game, a little on the easy side. I've played quite a few hudson games now so I can definitely see some similarities to their own platformy stuff (some of the shooty bits in Air Zonk perhaps) this is def a 'copy cat' (+ 100 pt) of Super Mario Bros 3 and to some extent super mario land. I've played both of those games many times so when i see the egypt stage with hieroglyphs on the walls inside the temple of stage 2-2 i know exactly where they got that idea from. And a showdown in space with a spacecraft? oh come on...

That's not a Super Mario Brothers Super Power Player Interface. Thats a Felix Magical Bag Asset Construction User Display-Trick!

In any case, this is a pretty solid platformer, albeit a bit too forgiving. It's got a kind of creative upgrade system. Basically you just keep upgrading (up to +4 i think )and when you get decked, you level down on your upgrade. For a platformer, that's a boon. The only caveat is your upgrades or on a timer of a sort. once you run out of 'magic juice' you lose an upgrade. gain magic juice by bopping enemies and collecting milk.

Pretty easy, i managed to finish this without cheating with almost 30 lives. there are a variety of levels in it so your upgrades change based on whether its land sea air or space. Fresh! In addition, this is a pretty nice thingie based on the old cartoon.

only bad thing? The color palette is dark. the colors themselves are fine but they added like a 20% gray to everything. And the darkness really stands out and is annoying as i've never seen a game that looked like this.

Platform:

NES version.

Graphics/Sound:

The graphics in this game are simply amazing. I don't think there is that many NES games that look this great. Especially the ice stages look almost like 16 bit at times.

Gameplay:

It's a platformer, yes. But the gameplay is somewhat unique in that you have a powerup system reminiscent of shmups where you transform when you get enough power up tokens. Also the powered up state is timed, so you'll lose it unless you get some milk. Also going through the levels you transform further with flying stages having Felix go through several flying power up states like an umbrella, a balloon or a jet. Underwater stages also have their own power up system.

Difficulty:

The game is fairly easy. When you're powered up you can easily dispose of enemies, and some of the flying stages for example you can maneuver around much of the challenges.

This is certainly a gem. It's relatively unknown considering the famous licensed character and the big name of the publisher. But it's also one of the best platformers on a system which is known for it's platformers. If you can get along with the trippy weirdness that's happening here, this is definitely recommended.