Welcome to another edition of Playing With Power. The review article that looks at all things Nintendo Entertainment System. And this week we’re going to look at something I certainly haven’t touched upon yet, a Disney game made by Capcom.
Okay, yes, this is one dead horse I’ve beaten quite a lot over the past year, but the record still stands. Disney and Capcom were milk and chocolate syrup. A combination that rarely ever did wrong. At least for the most part (though we can blame Mickey Mousecapade on someone else). So, how does their 8-bit representation of the happiest place on Earth stand in comparison to the games based on their hit cartoons? Well, come along as we review Disney’s Adventures in the Magic Kingdom.
YEAR OF RELEASE: 1990
PUBLISHER: Capcom
GENRE: Action Platformer
I honestly don’t know anything about how this game came to be. I guess the best explanation to give is that Disney was on a massive roll by 1990, as they were already deep into their big renaissance of the late 80’s-mid 90’s. Their allegiance with Capcom proved profitable as well, since their release of Ducktales proved a massive hit, becoming one of the top 10 best selling games on the NES.
So Capcom continued to put more games out for Disney. These of course included the likes of Chip N’ Dale Rescue Rangers, Talespin, The Little Mermaid, and Darkwing Duck, along with a couple sequels. But the strangest choice for a game from Disney/Capcom would be one focusing on Disneyland.
Adventures in the Magic Kingdom was released in June of 1990 in North America, and saw releases in Europe and Australia in 1992. This game was one that never saw a Japanese version for the Famicom, though this wasn’t exactly a rarity at this point as lots of games seemed to not make it to Japanese gamers.
The game proved to be a decent seller, mainly since by this time Capcom had begun to earn a reputation for high quality games, and the fact that this had Disney involved gladly helped matters even further. But with that said, is this another fine entry into the Capcom/Disney legacy? Let’s find out.
COVER STORY
There’s really not much to say about the cover. It’s Cinderella’s Castle. Though interestingly about the cover and title, the game claims to be about The Magic Kingdom of Disney World, when it’s really focused on attractions and the general layout of Disneyland. I think more people were attracted to the sleek purple Capcom border than the castle cover. Either way, it worked, since the game did sell well enough.
STORY
Mickey is just about to get ready to open the doors of Cinderella’s Castle to start the Disneyland parade, when he suddenly learns that Goofy has lost the six keys needed to open the doors. The keys are scattered all over the park in different attractions. Instead of doing it himself, Mickey enlists the help of you, the protagonist of the game to get them all back so the parade can truly begin.
GAMEPLAY
Adventures in the Magic Kingdom is a one player action platformer/sorta-mini-game compilation. You control the protagonist of the game (who you can name at the beginning of the adventure) as he must find the six keys needed to open the castle gates. You can move around the main top down hub with the D-pad, and go to your menu with the select button.
The main hub of the game doesn’t have too much for you to really do. You can explore the very barren and bland Disneyland, or enter one of the five attractions in the park, each holding one key. You can also talk to a person, who may give you the key if you answer a trivia question correctly. We’ll get into that in a bit.
The five attractions are all based on rides at the park. These being Autopia, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, The Haunted Mansion, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Each of these levels have a certain different goal. And save for the latter two levels, are all different styles of gameplay.
We’ll start with Autopia. In this level, you have to drive your car to the finish line to get the key from Keelhaul Pete. You move by Holding A and pressing up.Tapping up will increase the speed of your vehicle, while pressing B will brake. You must jump over ramps, avoid hazards, and even wait for bridges in order to get to the finish line. The interesting aspect to this is that you don’t have to come in first place, just make it to the finish line, as this isn’t an actual race.
Next up is Space Mountain. You control a space ship, that has to make it from station A all the way to Station F. To do so, you must navigate through the stars, as well as blow up enemy ships and planets. To do this you must pay attention to the buttons at the bottom of the screen. If it says to go right, press right on the D-Pad. If it says to press A, you do so. If you slip up, you take damage. Get hit three times, and you’ll lose.
Next is Big Thunder Mountain. In this level, you control a train that has to go to the right station where you will collect the key Goofy has. Tapping A will speed up the train, while B will slow it down. Holding left or right will help guide the train across the many jumbled tracks. You must avoid falling boulders, dead ends, and train markers in order to make it. And even then, you can still lose if you go to the wrong station. The only real hope is if you can get station 1 or 4, so you can try to hang on the far left, or far right of the tracks. It’s easily my least favorite of the bunch.
Finally are the two platforming levels, and we’ll start with the Haunted Mansion. The object is that you must travel through the mansion, and defeat the main ghost in order to receive the key needed. You can move with the D-Pad, jump with the A button, and shoot candles with the B button. You only have a limited supply to begin, but can find more as you go along.
You’ll go through many of the major events of the attraction, such as the haunted ballroom, and the talking busts. This stage has some tricky platforming, as you’ll jump from chandeliers to chairs, dodge flying books, and deal with hands that can pop up and knock you down. And unfortunately, our hero has a case of the “Simon Belmont” syndrome, where if hit, he can take a pretty rough knock back.
Finally, there’s Pirates of the Caribbean. The object of this game is to save the six captured maidens, and light the signal fire. Controls are all similar to the Haunted Mansion. However, unlike the Haunted Mansion, you don’t start with a weapon, so you’ll have to jump and avoid the many pirates in your way. Halfway through the level, you’ll find the candle, which never runs out, but you can end up completely missing it because it’s not in a spot you’d expect it to be.
These levels can be tough if unprotected, but you do get some help. Remember earlier that I talked about having a select menu? Well, in that menu are abilities your character can use if you have enough stars that you can find in certain levels. These abilities are Life Up, which gives you one point of health back (you can only have three at once). Freeze, which freezes enemies. Invincible, which makes you impervious to attack for a few seconds. And finally there’s 1-Up, which is pretty obvious. You can only access these in the two platforming stages, and outside in the park (which you can only activate 1-Up at).
Finally, there’s Disney trivia. You’ll go to the one lone person in the park, who claims to have info on where a key is. But only if you can answer one of the many Disney questions. Most are pretty simple, but others may require you have some history of the company and it’s many products (well, from 1990 times at least). After getting it right, the person will tell you that they saw someone else with the key. You’ll go ask them, who’ll tell you if you get another question right, then inform you that someone else has the key. So, you’ll be doing this at least six times or so, until you finally get the key.
Once you have all six keys, you head to the castle, and the game ends with Mickey saying he’s ready to start the parade, and we go to a static end picture. Wait, so we don’t get any major final level, nor do we even get to see the parade that we were working so hard in this game to get to?
Lame Capcom. Pretty damn lame.
Other than that, controls are all pretty solid. There is a bit of a difficulty, but most depends on how well your hand-eye coordination is as well as knowing how you use the items in your menu. You start with three lives, but if you get game over, you do get unlimited continues, so that’s definitely a plus.
GRAPHICS
Graphics range from being really great in some areas, to being pretty bland in others. For example, Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion are both really well done. Both have a great amount of detail within, like the buildings being on fire in Pirates, and for Haunted Mansion little things like talking busts and rain outside of the mansion. Levels like Big Thunder Mountain and Autopia are rather bland looking, and Space Mountain doesn’t have much to really write home about either.
Cut scenes are decently done, and caricatures of the likes of Donald, Goofy, and Mickey are very well handled. So, in the end, it’s a mixed bag. It has some stages that really bring out the best Capcom could bring on the NES, and other levels are mediocre. Shame.
MUSIC
The music in the game is Capcom quality as you’d expect. Quite a few decent tracks in the game like Space Mountain, and Pirates of the Caribbean to name a couple. Other than those, they do have a decent rendition of the Mickey Mouse Club theme as well. It’s not going to live up with the likes of Ducktales of Mega Man 2, but it’s still quality Capcom, like I said.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
Adventures in the Magic Kingdom is okay at best. There’s some variety, and all the games control well, as well as there’s good graphics, and decent music. My only real nitpicks is the lack of a final level, and the fact that honestly, the non-platforming levels are kind of bland. If they had found a way to augment other attractions into platforming stages, they would have been more fun in the long run. Though considering the rides chosen, maybe that’s for the better.
Not to mention that annoying trivia fetch quest that could have been replaced with another level to keep it from being such a short game. Short games are fine, but that depends on if the quality of the game can make up for it like Ducktales. This sadly doesn’t. I’d still say give it a look, and you might enjoy it a bit more than me. But in my eyes, there were some sprinkles of fairy dust, but this wasn’t all that magical a game.
RATING: Thumbs down