Mickey Mousecapade

Mickey Mousecapade

NES - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Hudson Soft Publisher Hudson Soft Published 1987-03-06 Platforms NES Genres Licensed, Platform shooter, Platformer, Shooter Themes Cartoon Series Mickey Mouse Distribution Commercial

Mickey Mousecapade is a Mickey Mouse-themed platform game developed and published by Hudson Soft for the Famicom in Japan on 1987-03-06. It was published by Capcom for the NES in the USA in October 1988. Although Hudson secured the rights for Disney in Japan, Disney must not have been happy with their efforts, because all subsequent games were developed and published by Capcom in both the USA and Japan. Disney even had Capcom change the bosses in the USA release of the game.

In the game, you control Mickey Mouse with Minnie Mouse always following close by in an attempt to rescue your "mystery friend." Interestingly, by crossing over several Disney franchises, this makes the game seems like a prototype of Kingdom Hearts.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes.
Finished	2018‎-12-23.

I remember seeing ads for this game in magazines in the early-1990s. Although I liked the box art, I was a little too old to be impressed by Mickey Mouse games, so I made no attempt to buy it, and none of my friends did either. I know I played it in an emulator at some point in the 2000s, but found the graphics and controls to be awful, and gave up in the first level. In 2018, I was trying to increase my total count of finished video games, and this one came up in several lists as being easy to beat. The game wasn't actually that easy, but I still finished it.

Review

2	3	3	3	2

Best Version: NES

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The idea of having a side-kick follow you around and shooting with you is a good idea (although it's poorly implemented).
• A bird poops on you.
• Unlike everything else in the game, the boss enemies are drawn quite well. It makes sense because Capcom most likely drew them, not Hudson.

Bad

• Over all, the graphics, sound, and play control are of low-quality.
• Mickey and Minnie are very poorly drawn. It looks like the designers only had access to a really old Mickey Mouse cartoon, but, even then, the style is quite off. It certainly doesn't fit with Mickey from the late-1980s.
• The Ocean and the Pirate Ship stages are both far too short.
• The ending is bland and there is no "mystery" to the mystery friend (especially in the Japanese original which displays her on the cover!).

Ugly

• To me, it seems pretty clear that Hudson Soft already had a half-assed game made and then slapped some Disney graphics on it at the last minute after securing the rights. Nothing about this game other than some of the sprites has anything to do with Disney. This is very disappointing because Capcom was making wonderful games, so they should be ashamed for not fixing this garbage before selling it.
• The "maze" in the Woods is really annoying and forces you to play the same couple sections of the stage over and over again until you figure out the correct path.
• The boss battles are terrible. Maleficent is defeated simply by jumping over her evenly timed shots and shooting her in the back. But Pete is pretty much impossible to defeat without taking a lot of damage. You just have to have a lot of life and then rapidly shoot him and hope he runs out of life first, or exploit a trick with Minnie.
• Normally, for a game of this length, I would say it's too short, but it's so bad, you'll be happy it's over.
• The manual is awful, it's poorly translated, the boss names are wrong, and it doesn't present a decent story.

Media

Box Art

• 

  The Japanese box makes the game out to be an Alice in Wonderland game with a cross over with Mickey and Minnie (which might have been good), but the game has almost nothing to do with either.

• 

  The North American art makes it look like a mystery adventure with Mickey and Minnie, Peter Pan, and Pete. Again, it could have been a good idea, but the game is none of these things. The art is fantastic though.

Documentation

• 

  Game manual.

• 

  Nintendo Power, Pak Watch.

• 

  Nintendo Power, 1988-11 - Page 1.

• 

  Nintendo Power, 1988-11 - Page 2.

• 

  Ad.

Maps

• 

  The Fun House.

• 

  The Ocean.

• 

  The Woods.

• 

  The Pirate Ship.

• 

  The Castle.

Font

The game's fonts are in the video game font collection.

Videos

Commercial - Japan.

Review - NES Works.

Longplay.

Play Online

Famicom, NES (USA)

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	The game has several female characters, but none are every strong.
Bechdel test?	Fail	Women never speak to each other.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	All the human characters are white.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Mickey Mousecapade
Japanese	ミッキーマウス 不思議の国の大冒険	Mikki Mausu: Fushigi no Kuni no Daibouken	Mickey Mouse: Adventures in Wonderland

Links