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Mickey Mania Game Review

Mickey Mania is a 1994 platform video game developed by Traveller’s Tales for Sega Genesis among other platforms. It’s such an underrated gem of a platformer.

Back in the early nineties Disney games had their heyday. This was a time when many of their best-known movies got very strong game adaptations, but it was also a time when Mickey Mouse got a plethora of very charming games himself. Many of these are underrated and especially Mickey Mania, a game that should be better regarded for its visuals alone.

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In the game, Mickey has to travel through his most famous stories that are all based on some of the mouse’s most iconic cartoons. They range from 1928 all the way to 1990, so they encompass pretty much his entire filmography up until that point in time. The choice to focus on all these well-established classics was a brilliant one, but one does wish that the creators used these stories better plotwise. They also needed a connective tissue that simply never came.

With that being said, the game is still a joy to play through for anybody and especially for Disney fans such as myself. I watched all these shorts, so I’ve had a blast seeing all of them receive these incredible adaptations. The sound is quite remarkable. Though at times too goofy, most of the sounds here are both very evocative and highly cartoony, which fits the tone of the game beautifully. The score is even better. This original soundtrack is immensely varied as the tunes range from cheerful to goofy to downright creepy depending on the story itself. The game just sounds amazing altogether.

But Mickey Mania reached its greatness in the visuals. I have rarely seen video game graphics emulating so perfectly the traditional hand-drawn style of classic animation. As a big animation buff, this cartoony aesthetic was not just gorgeous, but it felt like home to me. It was so cozy and charming, so polished and artistic and oh so detailed that it genuinely resembled a cartoon come to life. It is beautiful to look at throughout and it’s one of the better-looking games from this period.

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The game is rather short admittedly so, but it’s so difficult to finish that it will still take some time to properly end it. The first of the six levels is Steamboat Willie. The initial black-and-white aesthetic was both visually arresting and highly original, especially in the addition of colors arriving in the later half. It’s the easiest, breeziest, but most endearing level here. The Mad Doctor is my favorite. It adapts its classic source material wonderfully while benefitting from excellent character design and more usage of puzzle elements. It’s a superbly constructed level in its entirety. The potion-brewing bit was very unique.

Moose Hunters is something completely different. This is a level where you run from a moose and the graphics are rendered in primitive 3D. It looked impressive back when it was released and it’s still a very cool level to play through, though it requires excellent reflexes obviously. Lonesome Ghosts is littered with ghosts. Trying to desperately evade them was a nuisance at times. This level is highly atmospheric in its horror elements, but overly difficult it most surely is.

Mickey and the Beanstalk is one of the easier and more pleasant, though forgettable levels. How the climbing and the different levels of height were handled worked great, but otherwise it’s much less memorable than these other levels. The Prince and the Pauper is a broken level in my opinion. The very last level should be the hardest, that goes without saying. But this one went above and beyond in attempting to make you miserable with way too many enemies on each screen, resulting in the possibility of evading them all being extremely slim.

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And that is the main issue with this game besides that short length – the extreme difficulty level. You can just take five hits and after that you lose a life. When you lose all lives, you get back to the beginning of the level. The game was so hard, in fact, that I had to abuse the save states for that last level as it was ridiculously crushing. Except for Pete of course. As the last boss and his signature enemy, he was surprisingly easy to beat. Most of the bosses in the game aren’t all that difficult, which contrasted the regular enemies that could be a huge obstacle not just in their extreme number, but also in enemy placement that was downright unfair at times.

You can replenish your health by finding these stars, which were essential for the gameplay. Enemies are killed by jumping on them in the regular platformer fashion and also by throwing marbles at them. The latter is crucial for some levels, but sometimes the game included too few marbles to collect, leading to you having to hoard them carefully.

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The enemy placement was the biggest hurdle that this platformer never overcame. The skeletons in the second level can get very difficult, but those terrible weasels in the final level were utter hell to get through. Having so many enemies on one screen and some of them shooting you with arrows even before you arrive rendered those situations frustrating and extremely unfair. With that being said, the variety of the gameplay and the graphical style was very impressive and the game deserves more accolades for introducing so many concepts in just six levels. It also controls well and some of the level designs were genuinely brilliant here.