When my cousin Kristen and I were growing up, everyone associated me
with Winnie the Pooh and her with Mickey Mouse. In fact, they still do.
While I never got my hands on a Winnie the Pooh video game, one of the
first games I bought when my brother and I finally purchased a console
in the early 1990s – skipping right over the Ataris and Nintendos we’d
played at our friends’ houses to the Super Nintendo – was The Magical
Quest starring Mickey Mouse. Kristen had moved out of state before that
point, but we still got together when we could, and this game was a
staple of our sleepovers.
This is a two-player game, but
unlike some Disney SNES games, such as Goof Troop, only one can play at a
time. Hence, you’re basically racing each other to see who can beat the
game first, or at least who can get the furthest before you decide to
give it up for the day. Each player is Mickey Mouse, and when that
player loses a life, it’s time for the next player to give it a whirl.
When the players are greatly mismatched in terms of game-playing skills,
this can lead to some frustration. Annoyingly, there’s no way to save
game progress either, so it took us a fair number of get-togethers
before we were able to get through the earlier levels quickly enough to
finish the game in one sitting.
Mickey’s basic form is his
typical black, red and gold outfit, and plain old unencumbered Mickey
has some advantages in game play but lacks any special powers. However,
he has three different costumes that he can change into. Sorcerer Mickey
shoots magic, fireman Mickey sprays water and mountain climber Mickey
shoots out a grappling hook that allows him to scale cliffs. Each has
its charms, but my favorite is probably the fireman, since it’s such fun
to see the water extinguish those fires and, in certain situations,
create icy outcroppings. The grappling hook is great, too, but I often
had trouble making it work properly.
The Magical Quest has six
levels, each of which gets progressively more difficult, though after a
few times through, the first three are fairly simple to beat. In
Treetops, Mickey must ascend a series of twisty vines in a landscape
that seems partly inspired by Mickey and the Beanstalk. This
level is fun and not super-tricky, with Mickey hitching rides on flying
tomatoes (not of the Olympic snowboarding variety) and disturbing
snoozing birds to get to where he needs to go. The boss, a giant
snake-like dragon with Pete’s head, is easy to beat by throwing
projectiles at him, and the Pete-headed spider at the end of Dark Forest
is similarly simple to vanquish if you can get the right angle for
stomping on his head.
Fire Grotto is more challenging, since fires keep popping up randomly as they do in the Princess Bride’s
Fire Swamp. Still, there’s usually enough forewarning that you can get
through the level without being burnt to a crisp. The hardest part is
keeping up enough fire energy, which can be boosted by finding hidden
fire hydrants, much as magic can be boosted by collecting magic lamps.
The hardest levels by far, though, are the last three. Pete’s Peak is
incredibly windy, so there’s always danger of simply blowing off a
cliff, and the boss, a mother eagle, is incredibly difficult to defeat.
Snowy Valley, meanwhile, is slippery, and it’s very hard to keep your
footing. The game culminates in Pete’s Castle, where Mickey finally
hopes to rescue the missing Pluto. After those last two levels, this one
seems almost easy by comparison until you get to Pete; actually beating
him is another matter.
The graphics are pretty decent for two
decades ago, and the music has a fun adventurous ring to it. Once
you’re proficient, beating the game in an afternoon is not too
difficult, and my cousin and I managed it several times, though we
probably had the most fun while we were still getting the hang of it.
While elements of it can be aggravating, this is a classic game holding
many happy memories for me.
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