Mickey Mousecapade (1987)

Preliminary: Wow this is much better than I expected. The Look, the Sound, the surprisingly difficult but reasonable gameplay. I'm already at the Woods (and look at this great screen!), I can honestly say it has better mechanics (as often happens with NES) than several of the arcade games I just played... kinda crazy. The jump mechanic was tight, the shooting fast and fun, and the 2 characters factor is actually fun and manipulatable.

Look: 9/10 Omg and look at the woods colors!

Wow the Look of that whole stage, complex and frustrating as it would be without a a strategywiki/map showing where the tree doors lead and the secret tree dors are, was beautiful. Different areas for different seasons are always a favorite of mine, then ended with a beautiful garden Look. Time to wrap up for the night, I already went way later than planned, but wow very impressed so far. (This really probly should be an 8, but I wanted this to get a 5 star so uh... :-p)

Sound: 8/10 On my 2nd play session, I still never really particularly noticed the Sound, except I did like the ending jingle. The fact I wasn't annoyed by it for an NES game says a lot, plus I kept the sound on the whole time. I might be overrating this, but the Sound contributed nicely to the good Feel.

Play: 9/10 Loved the controls, as tight as arcade controls tbh. Had most the advanced mechanics I expect from 87 platformers, yet even some of the arcade ones were lacking. Everything was intuitive except the puzzle aspect of the Woods level. There even was some backtracking with keys etc, I suppose this was borderline Metroidvania lol but not really. With a StrategyWiki to reference it was entirely fun, I might have gotten annoyed without one, butttt I think even without one back in the day, with a limited selection of games like most of us younguns had unlike nowadays able to download hundreds of games etc., I would've enjoyed the fast-paced gameplay, forgiving health replenishment item spawns, and trick of going back and forth till a Fairy spawns as a Hidden Item (no way to control or use a guide for that either, just pure action fun of hoping/RNG/working hard) enough to warrant learning the woods puzzle.

Feel: 9/10 Cute feel, tho I have no clue what the plotline was I think I liked it? Seemed very based on Through the Looking Glass? But with Disney tropes spread throughout like the brooms from Fantasia. Certainly a cute Look, good Sound tho nothing spectacular, and fun Play. Can't ask for much more from a feel!

Attachment: 8/10 Tho Maleficient/final boss was quite disappointing because I still had an Invincibility Fairy from grinding for one for the Walrus miniboss (the last level has a sort of boss rush ha... in a Mickey Mouse game.. nice), the ending was super cute. Didn't really understand the plotline but that's okay.

I honestly could see myself playing this again. It reminded me of the Konami Goonies for the MSX with its fast shooting mechanic. You actually upgrade your weapons, tho that's a short-lived feature at the beginning of the game. For the most part, just straightforward action fun. And I don't regret it at all!

Completion: Main Story Playtime: 1h 10m

Mickey Mousecapade is a challenging adventure platformer by Hudson released for the NES in 1987. You play as Mickey and Minnie on a quest to save Alice from Wonderland. Most aspects of the game are crafted in a very simple manner. The graphics are colourful and clean but have little to offer, the musical tunes are stellar but loops and are way too short and the level design consists mostly of rooms connected by ladders and run-to-the-end type stages with pits to jump over. After all, it is a Hudson game.

Your attackers are most of the time anything from snakes and chairs to broomsticks and bears (aka the usual), as hordes of enemies charge you trying to escort Minnie through perilous castles and woods while collecting diamonds and cake for that elusive high score! Nothing spectacular at all, however...clear cut, difficult, frustrating - but cute, fun and challenging at the same time.

[2.5] / [5]

Wait, how have I only heard bad things of this game? I liked it -- thought it was cute.

First things first, this game was developed by Hudson, not Capcom, which makes a lot more sense to how it feels (and even how it sounds) if you've ever played Adventure Island and Milon's Secret Castle. A pretty straight-forward, maybe more obvious evolution of the single-screen arcade type of game.

There's this unique gameplay feeling of trying to keep Mickey and Minnie in the same area to reach the next area. A few vertical platforming focused sections felt borderline like a puzzle game because of the slight off-sync of Minnie to where it was only doable to actually split them up (until I realized you can just hold up or down to keep them closer together), like some sections in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.

But also de-syncing can work as a strategy, like sending Minnie off to take care of business on a separate floor without taking damage (I did this successfully for the pirate ship's boss).

I did cheat and rewind like 4 times, which I am pretty against most of the time if I want to experience games genuinely -- call that a sacrifice I took to reach the game's end faster so I could move on to another game sooner. At least I was able to experience the silliness of unintentionally defeating the final boss in a second because I had the invincibility "star" power-up, lol.

Nice little game, I would've liked it and probably would've held a lot of nostalgia for it as a kid.