5 Classic Disney Games

At last week’s PAX East Capcom unveiled a wonderful surprise for long-time gamers. DuckTales Remastered from WayForward is an HD remake/update of the classic NES platformer that has taken on legendary status for gamers of a certain vintage.  More recently- at least up until the release of Epic Mickey– Disney games have generally been the kind of shoddy cash-ins that typify most licenced games. Old-school gamers know this wasn’t always the case. There was a time when Disney characters starred in some of the best platformers around. Today we look back at some of the cream of the crop! And DuckTales was just the beginning…

DuckTales

More than a mere cartoon licence, DuckTales is to this day considered one of the true classics of NES platformers. Taking control of Scrooge McDuck, the player worked their way through a series of smartly designed levels, defeating enemies with the money hungry duck’s trademark cane jump. One of a number of great platformers produced by Capcom at the top of their game, this remains one of the most beloved games of the 8-bit generation. In March 2013 it was revealed that the game would be returning later this year in WayForward’s DuckTales Remastered! (Woo-woo)

Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse.

Disney’s biggest icon has starred in more games than any of their other characters by some way. Various big name developers have made Mickey games, Nintendo, Capcom, Traveller’s Tales but for many platforming connoisseurs the Illusion series is the pinnacle of the rodent’s gaming career. Despite starring the most American of characters the game was produced by Sega of Japan. Appearing on the Sega Genesis (aka Mega Drive in PAL territories) back in the 1990s, it was a hit with both critics and audiences worldwide. Sega produced further instalments in the series with Land Of Illusion and World of Illusion (in which Mickey brought Donald Duck along for the ride) but Castle is where it all began. Excitingly for fans of the series the 3DS version of Epic Mickey 2 is subtitled Power Of Illusion, and pays homage to the classic series.

The Lion King

The film is arguably the House Of Mouse’s finest hour, so it’s only fitting that the game was also a classic. Appearing on all the consoles of the time, it was a major hit, proving to be one of the biggest selling games of the year. The graphics brought the cartoon to life as accurately as technology of the time allowed, and the music captured the now classic tunes with aplomb. However where Virgin’s platformer really succeeded was in recreating scenes from the film with rare accuracy. From a spot-on recreation of the ‘I just Can’t Wait to be King’ musical number (complete with dancing Hippos) to the harrowing Stampede, it is justifiably remembered as not just one of the best Disney games but one of the best film licences full stop.

Chip ‘N’ Dale Rescue Rangers

Another one from Capcom’s 90’s golden age, the chipmunk duo’s NES outing didn’t have nearly as big an impact as Ducktales, although it sold enough to spawn a sequel. One of the game’s key selling points was the simultaneous two-player mode, which was not common in platformers of the time. Although this mode may have been designed for co-operative gameplay, that didn’t mean that gamers didn’t have a great deal of fun by throwing heavy objects at the other player. Or so I’ve heard…. in an interview with Polygon WayForward’s Rey Jimenez said that if DuckTales was a success other classic Disney games could follow and stated “I think Chip ‘N’ Dale would be the next logical one“.

Aladdin

Like most film licences of the time, Aladdin appeared on multiple consoles. However unlike most of those licences the different versions were developed by different companies and were quite different from each other. The version released on Genesis/Mega Drive was produced by Virgin Interactive and boasted remarkably fluid animation due to a technique called ‘digicell’ in which they were able to use traditional cell animation in the game. It was this version that most other versions were ported from. Meanwhile the SNES game was produced by our friends at Capcom, who produced a game that while still a platformer, looked and played quite differently. Looking at the two different approaches is a fascinating way of comparing the differing approaches of western and Japanese games of it’s era. Audiences didn’t seem to care too much about the differences though. Both versions were huge hits, and nearly 20 years later are still fondly remembered..

DuckTales Remastered is coming to PSN, Xbox Live and WiiU E-shop in Summer 2013. Here’s the trailer:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPaBBE_elTc&w=500&h=281]

[This is a modified version of an article that first appeared on Rant Gaming]