Posted on November 7, 2011
Adventures in the Magic Kingdom (NES)
This one may seem a bit childish on the surface, and it does somewhat come out of left field compared to the other games I’ve written about.
1990 - NES (Capcom)
Capcom had the rights to create Disney games for quite a while in the late 80’s to mid-90’s, and they took that license and ran with it. So many memorable games came out of it – DuckTales, Chip n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers, Aladdin for the Super NES, just to name a few. Adventures in the Magic Kingdom is another one of those games, but playing the game now doesn’t have quite the same effect it did when I was little.
I never had that “urge” to go to Disney Land when I was a kid (or Disney World, I never remember which one is where). I didn’t really like Disney movies or cartoons all that much… I was a Bugs Bunny and Road Runner junkie, more than Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Still, games like Mickey Mousecapade and this one held my attention quite a bit.
As with many of my gaming memories, this one goes back to Baie Sainte-Anne, playing on that old television in my grandmother’s room.
Something like this one, but not quite.
Remember the buttons *other* than the dials to change the channel? There were sometimes three, sometimes more, and their function was usually to adjust the brightness or contrast of the image on the screen. I never touched them, usually, but playing with one of those buttons during a Magic Kingdom playing session changed the whole gaming experience.
The “Tint” button… oh yeah. Turning it different ways turned colors on the screen all out of whack; water turned red instead of blue, fire turned green instead of red, and everything you knew about the game just changed. What color would Bowser be once you got to him? You just didn’t know!
Pirates of the Caribbean!
It was actually at this exact point in the game where I paused it, and then started messing with the Tint button. If my skills with Photoshop were any good, I’d try to recreate the messed up colors I ended up getting. As it is, I’d have to take a painfully long time in MS Paint to do it, so we’ll just have to end up using our imagination. The fire was blue, the main character’s hat and shirt were red, and the captive woman’s dress was purple. To me, it was like playing a new game entirely!
From there, I did the same thing with other games, and it added that extra layer of fun when playing games at my grandmother’s.
Like I said above, I didn’t know enough about Disney movies and characters to complete one of the tasks in this game. There are six silver keys to collect in order to get into the castle, and the first one dealt with talking to NPC’s who would quiz you on your Disney knowledge. This was a question of trial and error for me, and even in this video, I had to take a wild guess on one of the questions.
The racing game is somewhat weird; instead of having a gas and brake button, you have to hit up or down on your d-pad to speed up or slow down. There’s even one part in the course where you have to come to a complete stop! If you didn’t know from failing that part of the level before, you had to start from the beginning… and even then, you had other cars bumping you out of the way most of the race, and that was annoying as well.
There are two platforming levels, one based on the Pirates of the Caribbean, and another on a haunted house type of stage. A Space Mountain-themed level and a Wild West train course round out the key search, and then… that’s it.
I had never been able to beat this game, but when I did so yesterday, I was kind of disappointed that there was no final showdown in the Castle itself… the game just ends. Then again, this is a Disney game. Not sure what else to expect.
Without clicking on your video, or having played the game for well over 10 years, I remember the Pirates level theme song to the note. Couldn’t tell you the level layout, or all of the enemies (some falling barrels?) but I would hum that tune/riff all the time when I was younger.
For whatever reason, this game reminds me of Win Lose or Draw and Pictionary, those games that never really made a good transition from board game to NES.