Mickey's Dangerous Chase

North American box.

Mickey's Dangerous Chase, known by it's in-game title simply as Mickey's Chase is a platformer game developed by Now Production and published by Kemco in Japan and Capcom in the USA and Europe for Game Boy on 1991-05-15. In the game, Pete stole a present that Mickey was about to give to Minnie, and both Mickey and Minnie chase Pete through several locations to get the gift back while Goofy guides their way. Like most platformers, you can jump over pits and hazards, but you can also pickup blocks and throw them at enemies to defeat them.

I decided to play this game because I wanted to better familiarize myself with Capcom's Game Boy titles. I beat it in a single sitting on 2020-01-19. After researching it, I discovered it wasn't a Capcom game at all!

Status

I don't own the game, but I have beaten it.

Review

4	6	5	5	3

Best Version: Game Boy

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The game's graphics are adequate for the system, and Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, and Pete are all recognizable.
• The music, although nothing special, is fitting for the game with various light and playful tunes for the early stages and more insidious tunes for the later stages. Surprisingly, all 15 stages have their own music.
• It's nice that the developers allowed you to play as Minnie if you want.
• The end boss is fairly tough, but the level gives you a 1-up fairly early on, so you get as many tries as you want.
• One of the three levels in each stage is an auto-scroller, which is a nice change from the fairly basic platformer mechanic.

Bad

• The game's difficulty changes pretty drastically throughout the game. The first couple levels are clearly designed for young children, but, by stage 4, the game reaches adult level difficulty requiring precision jumping. The bouncing barrels in stage 5-1 are especially difficult.
• By using such large sprites and blocks, you only have a small window with which to view the game. This doesn't have to be bad, but the map designers made plenty of blind drops with spikes at the bottom. Until you memorize the maps, you'll frequently fall into spikes, pits, and other hazards.
• The game's main attack, picking up boxes and throwing them at enemies, is very derivative of Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers.
• The game's plot is stupid, even for children. Pete just stole a present without any idea what was in it?
• The American title screen was not reworked for the American box title.

Ugly

• Climbing the tower in 5-2, is quite unfair. There are a lot of dead end platforms that guarantee you'll die if you take their route. The bonus tiles mostly guide your way, but you basically have to die a dozen times or so on the level to memorize it in order to beat it.

Media

Box Art

All regions use the same art, with minor cropping differences and layout changes. The art accurately depicts the weak plot: a stolen present.

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  Japan.

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  North America.

Documentation

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  US manual.

Maps

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  Map 1-1.

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  Map 1-2.

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  Map 1-3.

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  Map 2-1.

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  Map 2-2.

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  Map 2-3.

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  Map 3-1.

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  Map 3-2.

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  Map 3-3.

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  Map 4-1.

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  Map 4-2.

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  Map 4-3.

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  Map 5-1.

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  Map 5-2.

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  Map 5-3.

Videos

• youtube.com/watch?v=5CFdfflCujM - Longplay.
• youtube.com/watch?v=wOimQSNYZUw - Speedrun.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Mickey's Dangerous Chase
Japanese	ミッキーズ・チェイス	Mikkizu Cheisu	Mickey's Chase

Links