NES box art for Mickey Mousecapade, the cover of NEStalgia episode 127

127 · MICKEY MOUSECAPADE

▶ Game info

VerdictSkip it

GenrePlatformer

ReleasedOctober 1988

SeasonSeason 4

DeveloperHudson Soft

PublisherCapcom

July 10, 2020 · 46 min · transcript available

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One of Mickey's friends is in trouble, and Mickey and Minnie Mouse are on a rescue mission! Mickey Mousecapade is an action platform game. In order to reach your goal (and find out which of Mickey's friends is in trouble), you'll need to jump and climb your way through various levels which take place in different locations (including a fun house, a treacherous sea side, a pirate ship, and a castle).

SHOW NOTES

Mickey Mousecapade NES LongPlay

Famicom Version

IGN rates it 89th Best NES Game

Hidden Mickey on the cart

Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse or Garfield or Ghostbusters?

Our verdict: Skip it

Hudson Soft made this for Capcom in 1988, the start of Capcom and Disney's video game romance. Mickey and Minnie cross four or five stages, throwing shooting stars at Disney enemies to rescue Alice from Alice in Wonderland. It applies some lessons from good platformers correctly, but stumbles on execution.

Two mice, one controller

Steering both at once. Sean's first thought was Ice Climbers, only less intuitive.
Minnie takes no hits, but falling kills you. Enemies pass through her, yet if she drops into a pit it is game over for both. At a glance the two are easy to confuse.
The ladder trick. Leave Minnie up a ladder and she can't be hit, so Mickey can step aside below and fire away at the first boss. We doubt anyone intended that.
On purpose, sometimes. In the castle, both mice have to land on each ledge or you go back and do it again as a team.

What doesn't work

Placement. In the ocean stage, waves come back to back and the jump only allows close to frame-perfect inputs, so we damage-rolled through. Going slowly showed the enemies were hand placed, which is worse.
Bosses. They shoot faster than Mickey can, a fight can run five minutes, and the alligator's barrage seemed to leave no way to avoid hits.
The shooting star. It is your only weapon, yet you have to find it in a treasure chest first. Miss that door and you can walk to the first boss unarmed. The manual is half a strategy guide for level one.
Enemies. We could barely find one to like. Chandeliers are the worst: one fell on us, and another we jumped into without knowing it was an enemy.
The music. Sean hated that it just kept repeating.

What works

Each stage plays differently: a house maze, a more standard platformer, then a wood maze. Holding the jump longer goes higher, which is great.

Worth knowing

The Famicom version. It has Alice in Wonderland enemies: the Cheshire Cat instead of the Donald Duck witch, and the Queen of Hearts instead of Maleficent. In the American version, Peter Pan's crocodile is on the box but Captain Hook is not in the game.
A hidden Mickey. Open the cartridge and Mickey Mouse ears are soldered onto the circuit board.
The mix-up. The first two Mickey Mouse Game Boy games reached North America as Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle games, and the fourth as The Real Ghostbusters.

The bottom line

Skip it. Nobody voted it onto the Essential Games List. Joe called the unintentional parts of the design the worst offense, because they make it frustrating. IGN put it 86th on its list of the 100 greatest NES games, and we would not put it on ours, let alone that high.

Written from our conversation in this episode.

Click a timestamp to play from there. Landing a little off?

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

Enter the world of fantasy, mystery, and excitement with Mickey and Minnie as you solve the mystery of Mickey's missing friend. This is Mickey Mousecapade.

And welcome to NEStalgia, chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. I'm Joe. And did you guys catch that interesting bit of Disney trivia there? Alice is only friends with Mickey Mouse, not Minnie. Yeah, Minnie and Alice famously don't get along. Now, are Mickey and Minnie like a couple? I can never really remember that. Or are they just really close friends? They're a couple. Okay, so yeah, I mean, I get it. I mean, she would be very angry if, you know, if the guy has more gal friends than she has gal friends. I mean, you've been in that situation before, right?

That human girl he's always hanging out with. Yeah. Of course, you know, there's also more important things to talk about than just Mickey's friendship with... I prefer to talk about this. Yeah, all right. That's good. You know, because this is also the start of Capcom and Disney and their little video game romance. I don't know if you guys know about this, but there's like a bunch of other Disney Capcom games on the NES, but also on the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis and stuff like that. You guys have any experience with any of those other ones before we start talking about Mickey Mouse campaign? I don't think so.

Yeah, I owned the Great Circus Mystery. Okay. Which was a Super NES game. And like when I actually, because of this episode, I went and watched some footage from it and it was a blast from the past. I remembered most of what was going on, including some of like the boss designs, but I was like five or six years old at that point.

And I guess I didn't realize how easy it was because I guess one of the main complaints from the game was that it was easy. But I guess it's also for kids. As pretty much all Mickey Mouse games should be, right? I would hope so.

You know, can we talk about Mickey Mouse for a second though? Because the mouse himself hasn't gotten like a ton of love in the last like 30 years or so outside of like some things like Kingdom Hearts and, you know, Disney World like has Mickey Mouse everywhere. But he doesn't get like, there's no movies about Mickey Mouse. I think there was like a House of Mouse TV show on Disney Channel, but like even that's now a while ago. What do you guys think is up between Disney and the mouse? I felt like when I was, you know, growing up and everything, I really did. I mean, I knew of Mickey Mouse as this mascot, as this like, this, you know, ubiquitous character that's everywhere. But I don't think I ever knew anything about like his character.

I don't think I had ever seen him in anything actually. Like it's not like I had ever seen Steamboat Willie or any of that. I feel like he just kind of like, he like transcended like actual story and just became like the face of Disney for a while, at least in at least in my experience. And then I know like they have things more recently like Epic Mickey and stuff. It's the only thing I think of that like, that I would have been interested in that was like strictly Mickey Mouse based. I mean, not a clinic in parts.

Yeah, I think I agree with Joe here where it just sort of turned into Mickey Mouse as just a manifestation of the company now. Like he's not in anything, but they're going to use the ears as, as like a, as an icon from now until the end of time, even though there won't be any actual like film or TV with him in it for another hundred years.

Yeah, I'd argue even that like making a Mickey Mouse movie would be a mistake on Disney's part. Like at this point, don't do anything with him because it would probably be uninteresting or uninspiring and diminish the character at this point. I think Mickey Mouse is kind of, you know, he's Walt Disney just now as a mouse.

And another reason why you don't really want to use Mickey Mouse that much is because then you wind up with video games like this, which, you know, totally not conflicting my viewpoints here. But let's talk about Mickey Mouse Capade. It's a, it's a platforming game where you control, somehow control both Mickey and Minnie through about four or five stages. And you throw these shooting stars at various enemies from all different types of Disney games and Disney movies rather. And they're all doing this to find Alice from Alice in Wonderland. And I suppose to rescue her from her nap.

But like, I guess that would make Mickey trapped inside her dream, but we're not going to get into that. Let's just talk about the game overall. Sean, what were your feelings on it? My first thought was that this game sort of controls like Ice Climbers and Smash Brothers, but not as intuitively. Because it's not like one will automatically, because you're controlling both Mickey and me at the same time. And it's not like one will automatically do the exact same movement. Like, you're just controlling both of them from, like, the positions that they're in. So you can really mess yourself up because of that. That was my first thought. And my second was that I really hated the fact that the music just kept repeating.

Yeah, that's a huge problem in these NES games when they just have, like, one track on the jukebox and they just keep replaying them over and over and over again. To go back to your Mickey and Minnie thought there, because I think that is important. It's also important that they didn't just make them 1-1, though, right? Because otherwise they'd just be on top of each other at all times and there'd be no reason to have Minnie there.

But they could have done it better. Yeah, one thing that we played recently that sort of had multiple characters being controlled by one input was Ghostbusters. I don't think that they should have gone that route either. But in that, it was just they would, each character would mimic your input, but somewhat delayed because they're behind you, if you know what I mean. Yep. So I don't know which way would have been better if you just got rid of the press A to step forward button.

But I mean, it wasn't like this ruined the game. It was just an oddity that I felt was interesting. Yeah, it was weird because I feel like there are a couple ways you can do it. And I don't think it's necessarily like a complete no-no to do it where it's one-to-one exactly. You just have to have the character that's behind be like a second delayed so that they're never literally right on top of each other. Kind of like if you played like Final Fantasy VIII. Yeah, that's my other thought. Exactly the same.

Granted, that makes the gameplay a little different where I think that the fact that they're not stuck together completely made some, like you said, Sean, some annoying things possible that I definitely do not think were intentional. And also some interesting, like helpful things that I still don't think were intentional. I think there's some ways you can kind of cheese this game because of that. Yeah. Like you can get Minnie stuck somewhere while Mickey is safe and Minnie cannot be hit.

So then you're just kind of safe. But then on the other hand, you might just be focusing on Mickey for a minute. You're right at the spot where you need to leave. You're running away from an enemy and then you can't leave because you realize Minnie is stuck three levels below you, like stuck on like a wall or something.

So I don't know if any of that was intentional. But if it was, I think they could have designed some interesting mechanics around it. Yeah. I mean, also the laws of Minnie throughout the game do change quite a bit. Like she can't have any damage done to her by enemies. So she just can walk right through them. But since you control Mickey primarily, if you successfully jump over a platform but Minnie doesn't, if she goes into pitfall, that's a game over for both characters.

So it is a little strange to have Minnie act like the ice climbers from Smash Brothers if we're going to use that analogy. I do think it's very clear. I think that helps paint a picture. If we're going to use that example, what would have been better off is Minnie just also like respawning later on somewhere else. You know, like if she falls, it's no big deal.

But also like, you know, if she's going to be – if she's going to fall and that's going to end the game, she should also be responsible for taking damage as well. Because she can shoot stars of her own that Mickey can't. So if they're both able to shoot stars and they're both able to, you know, traverse, they should be also accountable as the same thing, no? I mean, I agree. Like in principle, I would – I think that that would be a much more – a much worse experience because we would be getting hit a lot more.

Yeah. Right. They would have had to design the game with the idea of like Mickey and Minnie working in tandem on separate parts of the stage, right? Yeah. If they wanted to do it that way. Yeah. I think what you mentioned about Minnie falling and that suddenly counting against you bothered me a lot because, first of all, the entire first level, which is pretty long, nothing can do damage to Minnie. So you're already kind of conditioned to like, okay, she can fire, but she doesn't get hit by things. You don't have to worry about her.

Now, by this point, it's like – there's just like too much to think about. Like, okay, so you got to focus on Minnie when things are coming at – or Mickey when things are coming at you. Don't worry about Minnie. But when you're jumping, you have to worry about both of them. And like let's be honest, like at a quick glance, it's hard to tell which one's which. Like Minnie has a bow and like five pixels of a pink shirt where like Mickey doesn't.

But like otherwise, like they're just – it's pretty easy to confuse them. And I feel like in the levels where you have to look at both of them, it gets a little confusing because I'll be like, wait, which one's in front? You know, because the one in front is the one that you're always like primarily like controlling.

Yeah. Like in the first level where you're – I think it's the fun house. Yeah. Where you just sort of traverse through the same room over and over with different colored walls.

I noticed that, oh, she fell down the ladder. And like, oh, that's weird. That's when I noticed that she's also like a physical character in the world and not just sort of mimicking your actions.

And like, but that's okay. I finished the level. That level was pretty easy. And then we get to the ocean and they've got these like tidal waves that come for you. And if you try and sort of do some weird movements in the air to just like delay your fall so you don't get hit by a tidal wave, she will fall between and end your run right there.

It's odd. I guess that's just what my – how my opinion on it morphed over two levels. Yeah, no. We should talk about the platforming aspect of the game because it isn't opposed to using mechanics that you might see in a Super Mario Brothers style game where you have to jump from platform to another ledge to even carrying momentum from one section of the stage to another. Later on in the game in like I think the castle stage, there's like specific elements of platforming where there are different ledges.

And it's actually I think purposeful to design a challenge where you have to make sure that both Mickey and Minnie successfully land on each of these ledges. Because if you get to the end with just Mickey, you can't progress to the next stage. You would have to go back down to the beginning and work through it again as a team. So I definitely think like some of this stuff is purposeful. But then back to that level you were talking about, Sean, the ocean level, the second stage, there's very little intent on the platforming there.

I don't know if you guys have ever played Super Mario World. It's my favorite Mario game. Of course. But there's a level in that game early on where it's a water-based level and a bunch of dolphins like run into you and you can ride the top of them. But you're also trying to like actively avoid them. And it all makes sense. Like they're purposefully placed. It's easy to jump over one or land on another one to help it carry you along. Like it all checks out. In this level instead, birds just fly from any particular direction. If you dodge the first wave, there's an automatic second wave right behind it that is guaranteed to hit you.

You know, like the jump mechanic doesn't allow for anything other than like close to frame perfect inputs to make sure that you get over both of those waves. And so you're pretty much just damage rolling through this stage to make sure that you continue to progress along. Because otherwise, you're just going to keep getting hit by the waves that keep coming. So what I notice, and usually when we talk about a level design like this, the culprit usually is that they just have –

it's just like as randomly spawning enemies just so that there's something on the screen for you to have to dodge or move around or kill. So, but I had to play this level so often because I kept dying from the boss too was I would take it very slowly. And I noticed that if I was slow, the enemies weren't spawning on the same screen. So it's somehow worse to me because it means that these were hand placed poorly. Not just like, oh, it's just random and it's bad because it's random. It was just bad placement because they put them there themselves.

Yeah, it's like they thought like what would be hard – oh, it would be hard if this and this and this were here. They didn't think about spacing them out or putting them in a way where it's a fun game to try – you know what I mean? Like it's hard to articulate I guess what we mean exactly. No, I think it makes sense though, Joe, because it's – the difference is that there are times in this game where things are done really – you know, they're done well and they're done with intention.

And so therefore it kind of seems to me like the whole game was made with details in mind. But it just seems like at other times the details that they include are just too punishing for the game that they're playing. You know, like it doesn't make any sense to have to program the two waves to go back to back or later on to have like certain enemies immediately as you enter a screen that they're just on top of you, you know? Right. Yeah, it's like they didn't put thought into like, okay, what would be the best timing for these to come up to make this like an experience that feels challenging but attainable?

Not like just, okay, this is just a mess and I got to kind of like spray and pray and hope that I hit what I get, what I'm going for. You know, and then there's also the shooting star, our only weapon in the game. And this is a super annoying complaint from me, but I do think it's valid. It's the only weapon in the game. So why do you have to find it first?

Like what is that all about with going to the treasure chest and finding the shooting star? Like you should just have that available to you. It's like Mickey never learned the powers of shooting stars until he found it inside that one chest. Well, here's the thing, Mike. Mike, they were – Capcom was bound by the Disney incorporated deep lore. And because in previous iterations or previous movies, Mickey never had a shooting star power. So he had to go and get it first. I hope you understand.

Now, I would argue that that's not true though, right? Because didn't he like in the VHS home videos of all the Disney movies, didn't they start with Mickey as the Sorcerer's Apprentice like shooting a star out of his hand?

I think so. So he clearly had this power. Which one inspired which? I don't know. Were the VHS is inspired by the NES game? You tell me. It's not the actual movie. It's just on the VHS.

Now, I agree with you, Mike, that I think it's weird. That was a weird decision. But to play devil's advocate, I think I can see the argument for it. I don't think it necessarily works in the way that they did it. But I guess there is like something to having to get through like a portion of this level where you don't have a weapon to then see how that changes when you do have it.

You know what I mean? Like I'm thinking of Pokemon and when they first introduced like running shoes into Pokemon, they would make you walk for the beginning of it for the first, you know, 20 minutes, half hour of the game and then get the running shoes. So you can be like, oh, wow, these running shoes are great because they make the game easier. Like I said, I don't think it necessarily accomplishes that, like something that needed to be accomplished. But I can see that being like an argument. It's a kind of tool that you see in much more, much deeper games.

I guess it's sort of like a film student putting like symbolism into their like student film. Like the game, like the student film doesn't require this symbolism. Yeah. And this game doesn't require that technique. Do you kind of know what I'm saying? Totally. Yeah. It's like there's not enough to this game to be like, wow, this is going to make it so much more.

People are going to appreciate the stars so much now. Yeah. The argument there, of course, is that we've already been trained on NES games like Metroid to believe that, you know, it's OK to learn power ups and, you know, acquire these things as you go through. But you need like you need more treasure chests with more active like shooting power or something throughout the game as well. And this isn't a Metroidvania. Nothing else happens. You just find the shooting star. And then it's like, I hope you enjoy the one power up. The first level is pretty Metroidvania.

Well, you know, it's funny because you can, even though Joe made it seem like, you know, you learn how to play the game without the shooting star first and then you get the shooting star. You can just not notice that that door is there and you can just continue on with the rest of the level, never getting the shooting star and make it all the way to the boss.

Obviously, not able to defeat the it's like a witch or something like that, not being able to defeat her. And then you have to then re-traverse. It's actually better at that point to just reset the game. But you could decide to like re-traverse all the way back to the beginning and go through that door you missed. Yeah, I think that they must have realized that kind of that oversight or that kind of mistake before they released the game because the manual clearly is like, do this, this, and this to get the star. First thing you should do is just go here, here.

It like walks you through where to get the star because it's like, you should just start with the star. They panicked. They realized it after the fact. I was going to mention that. Like the manual is like half, half strategy guide for the first level. And it's like when you use these hints, like quote unquote hints, it's more just stuff we forgot to communicate to you through gameplay.

You know, are there any enemies in this game that aren't annoying? And I don't mean like just from the way that they like populate the screen or the way they attack you. But I genuinely didn't find any enemy in this game fun, approachable, you know, cute in character design. It's just, it all just exists. I have one. Yeah. The blue eels are, they don't really do anything to annoy you. They just sort of scurry about and they're not super fast like those little dog things. And they don't bounce around like those blue bouncy balls. And they don't fall within the same frame like those chandeliers. It's, they just sort of exist. The chandelier is the worst.

Yeah. Especially because sometimes the first time I experienced the chandelier, it was before one had fallen on me. So it was just a part of the background and I just jumped. It didn't fall. I just jumped and hit the chandelier and died. And I didn't even know that anything was there. I just thought like I've seen those chandeliers before. I didn't know it was an enemy. The first, the first time I saw a chandelier, one fell on me. So I was afraid of every chandelier from there on out.

As far as another enemy that that was, I mean, I wouldn't, interesting as a, maybe an overstatement, but that was like remotely like recognizable, at least where the brooms. Yeah. And I just found that interesting because it was the only thing of the, of the main enemies that I was like, oh, that's a Disney thing. Yeah. The rest were just weird shapes. Shapes. Yeah. And less like our Disney knowledge is like really deep Disney knowledge that, that we don't have. But, uh, it just felt weird that there's like, oh, this one enemy that's, that's a recognizable Disney broom. And then there's all these other things. Are there a lot of pooping birds in Disney movies?

Well, I think those are just projectiles, right? Like it's not, it's not necessarily shit. It looks like shit. All right. Well, you know, it's funny because even what Joe was talking about there is like, you might need some deep Disney lore. Uh, you kind of do because like, did the people who made this game ever watch any Disney movies? Like what is, there's no coherency to what's going on here. I mean, if we could just jump ahead to the end here for a second, the final boss is Maleficent. Now, why would Melissa Maleficent have Alice from Alice in Wonderland captive? That's not even the same game. That's not the last time that happens.

Yeah, that's true. Uh, that maybe she was trying to just gather the seven princesses of light, you know? I guess that maybe they hadn't. Maybe it was, we have all these assets. We have the rights to these characters because we've given, we've been given carte blanche by Disney. Um, and they're like, oh, Maleficent looks cool. And you know, Alice in Wonderland sort of looks like a, like a damsel in distress sort of thing. So they just cobbled together the, the, the best like super Mario, like knockoff they could. I don't know. I can't say, I'm talking about Capcom. So this feels really, uh, this feels really bad, but I don't know. I can't, I can't tell you.

Are you ready for the bad news? Okay. A Famicom version of this very game exists and has all of the correct enemies and bosses. So you're playing against Mickey specific enemies. So in the first stage, as I already alluded to, there's a witch in, at the end of the, like to be the boss of the fun house. And apparently, you know, here's some deep Disney lore for you. That witch is called Witch Hazel, a Donald Duck character, like exclusive to Donald Duck cartoons.

That's what you get in the American version. But in the Famicom version, it's the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. That kind of makes sense, right? I guess. Yeah. Right. That you would fight the enemies from Alice in Wonderland. Now. But was the Cheshire Cat an enemy, you know? I never saw Alice in Wonderland. He was deceiving. Wasn't he like a helpful? He smiled a lot. He was deceiving. Yeah.

And then, and then the final boss, instead of being Maleficent, is the Queen of Hearts. Now, why change that? If it's in the Famicom version. But who's the Queen of Hearts? The Queen of Hearts is the bad woman who locks, who like sentences Alice to trial. So this is an Alice in Wonderland deep lore game with Mickey just in it. Mickey's in it because Mickey is, like I said, Walt Disney. He's just Walt Disney trying to rescue Alice. His IP. Yeah, his IP. From the public domain.

Okay. I really appreciate this reading of it. I like this much better. Okay. Now, the game overall for the Famicom version obviously focuses more on Alice in Wonderland. But it also includes Captain Hook as a boss on the, like, ship level. Now. With Robin Williams? Which is weird. No, no, no. Not Hook. Captain Hook. Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's weird about this is that in the American version, there's no Captain Hook.

And I just think that's baffling because the box art for Mickey Mousecapade in North America has the crocodile from Peter Pan right on the box. So if you're including, like, the idea that Peter Pan would be in this realm, you know, you don't have Peter Pan in the game. You don't have Captain Hook in the game. I don't remember seeing the crocodile. I saw the crocodile. But it's on the box. Okay. He's on the box, so he better be in the game. Yeah. But why remove Captain Hook? There can only be one captain in this game, and that's Captain Commando.

Wasn't the crocodile the boss of the second level? Yeah. Oh, yes. That's right. Okay. No, I was thinking about the ship stage. Like, why wouldn't he be there? But I guess if you're removing Captain Hook, why have the crocodile show up in what's supposed to be, you know, Hook's ship as you're going through. Really, what I'm saying is that the Famicom version is Kingdom Hearts, and the North American version is just some, you know, early version of, like, how anime wasn't cool yet in America. So they just said, screw all that. We'll just make some nonsensical story that kids will appreciate instead. Anime still isn't cool. Oh, okay. Yeah.

So the Famicom version had all the Alice in Wonderland enemies, but going back to that deep lore Joe was talking about, the American version features enemies from The Jungle Book, Country Bear Jamboree, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty. So yeah, they just chose movies that we wouldn't necessarily be looking for those types of enemies.

We can't talk about how the game sucks until we talk about the boss battles. Hmm. Let's hear it. Because that is just a very strange idea. I think they kind of, like, they saw what happened when you have the fire flower in Super Mario Brothers when you're going up against Bowser, but they forgot that, like, most players won't shoot Bowser to death. They'll just jump over him and land on the axe. See, I never did that.

You're talking to the wrong guy, Mike. Got it. Well, you see, what I'm saying is, is, like, this game takes those same elements of, like, bosses that will shoot projectiles like crazy, keep in mind.

And you have to, you know, be on the same platform as them and just kind of trade off shots with them. But they shoot so much faster than Mickey can shoot that if you're not trying, if you're not, like, being really good at dodging and also, like, kind of reverting back to if it's on platforms, like, going lower. If you're not doing that kind of stuff, you could die very fast. But if you do that kind of stuff, you could be in for, like, a five-minute boss battle with some of these bosses, right? Yeah, the alligator one specifically with just – it's just a barrage of projectiles moving on different trajectories so that you really – I can't think of a way that I would be able to get it without getting hit.

Because they're not – there isn't, like, a designated safe area, like, if you jump in between them, because there's always another wave behind it. So, yeah, I agree. The way that they designed the bosses here, it's just sloppy. Yeah, and going back to, like, the lack of intent and things, it does feel like that there are sometimes just, like, that the projectiles are just so randomly placed that I think they could be wrong. But I think that there are times that you literally can't – it's literally impossible to avoid hits. Maybe I'm wrong, but it sure felt like that.

And then on the other side of it, in the first boss battle against the witch, I don't know how you would beat it other than – I mean, how you would not get hit other than the way that I eventually learned you could do, which is climb up the ladder as Mickey and Minnie. Climb down the ladder, but as soon as you step off, move to the side as Mickey. So, Minnie is stuck on the ladder. Climb back up the ladder as Minnie. She's up there. She can't get hit. Mickey's down below. He's safe. And you just fire away. Wow, you've got – you've got this whole thing going.

Yeah, this is, like – this is, like, for speed running the game. This is the game FAQ version. Yeah. I say use every mechanic the game gives you to your advantage, but I can't help feel that these boss fights are, like – you know how, like, when you're playing some JRPGs or just – or just, you know, tough bosses in general, they usually have, like, one devastating move that you have to watch out for.

But thankfully, it just happens, like – it happens for, like, a short instance or it's an attack that does, like, a lot of damage, but they only do it once in a fight. Like, I feel like that's just what these bosses are doing at all times. Like, they start with their final move, and they just keep unleashing it until you die. Just supernova over and over. Right. Okay.

Any other thoughts on the game from you guys? Not really. It's kind of sad how much lack of intent and, like, weird enemy designs kind of sums up the game. I guess I get one thing. I did appreciate that each level played kind of differently, even though that execution left something to be desired. But the fact that you're going from, like, a maze of a house and then a more stereotypical platforming experience in the second level and then a wood maze after that. Like, I appreciate that it switched up its gameplay loop a little bit.

Yeah, I think what we have here is a game that tried to, like, take lessons from good video games and at some points applies them correctly. But the overall execution just kind of stumbles. And I think of things even, like, when you jump, you can change the momentum of your jump. Like, a long press will jump you higher than a short press, which is great. You know, like, that's what we look for in good jumping mechanics in NES games. But if you jump forward and then you realize you're going to land into an enemy, if you try to move backwards, you just fall straight down. Or mini will, at least.

Yeah. Yeah, but, like, you can't change, you know, you're not, like, so floaty and so in control that you can really platform in this game the way you want to. So I think, like, the ideas were here, but I don't know if they quite landed on them. I will say that, landed, platformer. I will say that to Capcom's defense, this was a Hudson Soft game. And probably Capcom learned some lessons from this and might have said, like, you know, hey, in the future we might have to develop these games ourselves if we want a relationship with Disney.

That makes sense. Because, I mean, they did get better. Like, my experience with the Super NES games tells me that. They're not groundbreaking, but they're definitely got more spit and polish.

There is one really cool thing about Mickey Mousecapade, though, that has nothing to do with the actual game. However, if you take the cartridge out of your NES and you unscrew it, they put a hidden Mickey on the actual circuit board. Are you guys familiar with the concept of hidden Mickeys? Yes. But that's, are you serious? Physically, there's a hidden Mickey there? There's a physically, it's a, you know, it's probably programmed to nothing, but it's, like, soldered on as the Mickey Mouse ears.

That's cute. I like that. You know, like, Disney does that all over the theme parks. And I just thought it was, like, a really nice touch to also have that hidden on the game. I wonder whose decision that was since no consumer would ever really see it. It was probably just some guy that was in the, that actually worked for the company that manufactured the cartridges.

I don't know. No, no, it's true. It's true. It's probably, it is probably something like that. Because you're not supposed to see that. Right, right. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure in the NES manual, amongst other things, like, don't sit on your cartridges, I'm sure that it also says don't open them. Or you'll, like, void warranty, you know? Yeah. So, that's just, that's just a cool thing, I thought.

And then, in the realm of not cool things, IGN put this as the 86th greatest NES game of all time on their list of the 100 greatest NES games. And we've played, I don't know how long ago, to be honest. I should, it's probably old now, and they probably, like, know, because people probably call them out about this. But, I would just say that, like, we've played 100 and, almost 130 NES games.

And, this would fall into. It's already lower than 86. Right, right, right. This, yeah, this would fall maybe into our top 100 right now, but has, like, zero chance of keeping, of staying with that momentum as we get closer to the other 700. Yeah, I have to agree. Otherwise, we're going to have a very bad time for the rest of this podcast. Yeah. Okay, so look, there are so many Mickey Mouse video games, and there are so many Capcom Disney video games, that we are not going to do an extensive sequels and spinoff section here.

We can talk about the games that we'll be seeing between Capcom and Disney on the NES that we haven't played yet, such as Avengers in the Magic Kingdom, Darkwing Duck, DuckTales 1 and 2, The Little Mermaid, Tailspin, and Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers 1 and 2, which is very personal to me and Joe. Well, half of it is. You know, all the stuff with Dale.

Just wait until you get to Dale. Yeah. So much better than Chip. Sean, are you excited for any of those? The only – is the Adventures in the Magic Kingdom the one where you're kind of – like, you have, like, a world map that's just Disneyland? You know, I don't actually know if you get a world map or not in that game. I thought it was just separate stages in Disneyland. There is an NES game that my stepbrother owned on a really janky old NES that kind of just looked like you were walking around Disneyland. So whatever game that is, I'm interested to review that because it's – I feel like it's got to be that one. Yeah. So that's it. I don't really know anything about Chip and Dale.

Okay. No, no worries. I know something about Chip and Dale. Probably for the best. Yeah, yeah. Chip and Dale is for sure. But Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers 1 is a game best played without any spoilers. It's really that great of a story? It's not the story that it gets spoiled. Okay. It's the gameplay.

Anyway, I needed to use this sequels and spinoffs section because there's no other time we'll get a chance to talk about this in the rest of our shows ever. But Mickey Mouse has a very complicated relationship, I guess, with North American games because there are a series of Mickey Mouse games both on the Game Boy and the Famicom that just never come to North America except for they kind of do.

Do you want to know what I'm talking about, Sean? I have no idea. So please enlighten me. Okay. So it starts with Mickey Mouse 1. Okay. That comes out on the Game Boy in 1989 in Japan. Okay. But in North America, it comes out as Bugs Bunny in 1990. Okay. So it's the same exact game but with a swap of the characters. Of a competitor. I'm just not sure how that's legal. Like, can you do that?

I don't know. I mean, as long as they don't own the code, I guess. I don't know. Yeah. And to be clear, this is Bugs Bunny's Crazy Castle, which I'm sure people know of. But it's just referred to as Bugs Bunny on the startup screen. Bugs Bunny never had a fucking castle. He was always. Oh, you don't know Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle? You don't know that series? It's like there's four of those games. No. Okay. It's great. They're great games.

Okay. But the story continues because Mickey Mouse 2 came out on the Game Boy in Japan in 1991 in Japan. In North America, it comes out as Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2. Wow. So it just continues, right? So obviously when Mickey Mouse 3 comes out for the Famicom, what are we going to get, Sean, for the North American release? A Bug's Life. We're going to get a game in North America called Kid Clown in Nightmare World. Mayor spelt like Mayor de Blasio. Yeah. Like Mayor. Mayor? M-A-Y-O-R. That is the Nightmare World. Nightmare World.

Now, I don't know who Kid Clown is, but I don't understand why they couldn't have Mickey Mouse. Is that a city management game? It's not. Apparently, it takes place in Kansas, Kid Clown. Okay. So it's a city management game. Is it at least spelled like K-N-I-G-H-T? Like you're a Nightmare? No, it's N-I-G-H-T. It's even worse. And what's funny is we're going to have to play this game. So I can't wait for that. I'm looking forward to it. Especially knowing that I'm actually supposed to be playing a Mickey Mouse game.

Okay. And of course, we're not done. There's one more big one because I said there were four Mickey Mouse games. So Mickey Mouse 4 comes out in Japan on the Game Boy in 1993. It comes out in the United States in October of 1993 as what, Sean?

Bugs Bunny goes to the circus. How about the real Ghostbusters? Are you serious? It's the real Ghostbusters on Game Boy. It's actually Mickey Mouse 4. Everything is connected. It doesn't end there, Sean, because the European version, they couldn't use Ghostbusters. They couldn't use Mickey Mouse. They couldn't use Ghostbusters. So in Europe, the game gets released as Garfield Labyrinth. I had to look. I'm sorry. I cannot believe it's a Garfield game after all that time. I hate Mondays.

Was this just like all the main mascot characters were just passing around this code and making games out of it? Was there a reason they were like, oh, you got to use this for your character? I don't understand why it was. I mean, I guess Ghostbusters isn't really a mascot character. Well, no, apparently it was. Remember, Ghostbusters is a huge franchise, not just one movie. I would imagine that because Kemco is the developer of all these games, that it has something to do with them not being able to retain the rights throughout international releases and having to look for another IP that they can partner with and then just reskin the game.

Yeah, this is bizarre. It's a rabbit hole that we had to go down because I'm not sure when we'll ever be able to talk about it again. Yeah. Anyway, we're done having fun. It's time for the Essential Games List.

Sean, I'm going to need your vote for Mickey's Mousecapade. Well, I think it deserves enough respect to call it by its real name, which is Mickey Mousecapade. I felt so bad. I felt so bad when I said it wrong. I knew I botched it because people call this game Mickey Mousecapades, referring to both Mickey and Minnie, but it doesn't have an S anywhere. This is a singular, monolithic game. It does not need pluralization. But even though it is that, it's not going to be on the Essential Games List. It commits too many sins. And it's just not my type of – it's not my can of jam, you know what I'm saying? I hear you loud and clear, buddy.

Joe, what's your vote? Well, actually, earlier when you asked us if we had any more thoughts about the game, I feel like we accidentally kind of just had a little Essential Games List there. We each said our little things. Yeah. So I feel like it's kind of, you know, cats out of the bag.

But yeah, I mean, just this game being so – the unintentional part of the design, I think, is the worst offense because it just makes this game – I don't want to say unplayable, but definitely unfun. Like, it's a very frustrating experience. So I'm going to also say no. All right. And, you know, while I'm thankful that this game kick-started the Kingdom Hearts universe, I just cannot – I cannot sit here and put it on the Essential Games List, let alone say it's the 86th best NES game of all time. I definitely won't do either of those things. So right now it's a no. And when we finish this whole podcast in 2033, it'll be a no then too.

Well, it's not counter chickens before the hatch. Oh, that's true. That's true. It might actually have like a renaissance, you know. I usually listen to public opinion. So if public opinion changes on Mickey Mousecapade, you know, maybe there's just something about that game that we missed. Yeah. It's like how a lot of art isn't appreciated until like long after the artist is dead and then people are like, oh my god, we missed this beautiful piece of art. So once these anonymous Japanese developers die.

Yeah, that's more morbid than I was trying to do. Yeah. Well, yeah. Once Tetsuya Nomura dies, then this game will become invaluable because as Joe and I were talking in the pre-show, which nobody can listen to, we were talking about the fact that, you know, Mickey Mousecapade will eventually work its way into Kingdom Hearts lore. Just like all other video games will eventually, like God of War on PS4 will find its way into Kingdom Hearts by the end of the universe. And I just want to state real quick that just because you had a conversation before we recorded the podcast, you don't get to call it the pre-show.

All right. Thanks for that, Sean. And, you know, while everybody's still listening, I think it's important to note that our next game is Millipede, the arcade classic. We're going to be playing a lot of arcade games, you know, if you haven't noticed already with Joust and Galaxian and Defender 2. We're also getting Millipede, Pac-Man, and probably some other ones that I can't think of right now. But who cares? Because they're arcade games. If you've ever walked into an arcade, chances are you've played these games.

But maybe now is a good week for you to just kind of like revisit, you know, Millipede and ask yourself, like, why do I step on Millipedes when I see them on the game? No, Mike, you're not being sensationalist enough. You won't believe what you forgot about Millipede, and you'll find out next week on Nostalgia. Maybe I should start titling the episodes as clickbait. Yeah. Six things you wouldn't know about Kid Clown in Nightmare. Number three will blow your mind.

All right. Numbers three will blow your cartridge. Yep. That's all the time we have. We're rambling. So thank you so much for listening to the rambles. And also, just quick shout out to everyone there who doesn't like sections of our podcast but chooses to continue to listen anyway and just use the chapter marker feature rather than delete the episode entirely.

That's a big bonus to anybody who does that because you could very well say, I'm done with these guys. They're washed up. They used to be cool, and now they're not. But you don't. You continue to listen to us. And if you want to hear more from us, it's at NostalgiaCast on Twitter. Lots of cool stuff posted there. And also, I'm Michael Esposito. You can find me at EspositoFilm on Twitter. And I'll talk to you soon. I'll talk to you soon.