Day 96 of 100 Happy Gaming Days: Kingdom Hearts

When my wife and I first got together she introduced me to Kingdom Hearts, an adventure game starring a young boy named Sora, a host of Disney characters, a smattering of Final Fantasy characters and a bazillion monsters known as the Heartless. I'd never heard of it, I'd never played it, and seeing as it came from a developer I didn't particularly like, my expectations certainly weren't high.

On the surface it seemed like an obvious cash-in on FF fans and Disney fans alike, but what lay under the surface?

I agreed to try the game out, choosing the hardest difficulty setting and the Mage skill-set. My wife did warn me that this was going to be tough, but I scoffed, believing Kingdom Hearts to be a game for babies ... boy, was I wrong.

I discovered a wonderful adventure game allowing me to explore the Disney universe in a whole new way, armed with badass key-shaped sword that I can use to splat horrible creatures into nothingness. The hardest difficulty setting made Kingdom Hearts horrendously frustrating at times, but the challenge was worth every minute. It also introduced me to Disney movies I'd never even seen, Tarzan for example, it's a great movie and you're doing yourself a great disservice if you haven't seen it.

I played Kingdom Hearts for weeks determined to see the end, and I also collected all 101 of the missing Dalmatians WITHOUT A WALKTHROUGH!!!

When I played through Kingdom Hearts I thought it could match The Legend of Zelda series in terms of quality. A wonderful sprawling adventure that was a joy to explore, with so much to see and do, and the Disney characters only added to magic. A truly fantastic game.

Day 67 of 100 Happy Gaming Days: SNES Game Fest

Ugh, the whole afternoon has been a blur of Irn-Bru, Wotsits and Super Nintendo games. We decided to play the SNES since Snezzy decided to come back to life, starting with Goof Troop.

Goof Troop is a Capcom/Disney title which we've never gotten around to finishing it before. It's similar to A Link to the Past with the added bonus of co-op multiplayer. Surprisingly there's only 5 levels or so and you can have the whole thing finished in under 2 hours, but like many of the Capcom/Disney games the animation's wonderful, and it's nice if you just want something quick to play through.

We then decided to go through some of the Super Famicom games we picked up at NERG last year. One of them turned out to be a mahjong game, so that's going straight to the charity shop, but then we tried a fighting game called Ranma 1/2...

It's based on an anime that I've never watched so I didn't have a clue who I was playing as or fighting against. There was Ranma who is apparently male and female, some other guy who transforms into a pig, a Panda, and another fellow with candles on his head. The animation was fun but it was essentially a Street Fighter clone, good for a giggle.

Super Bomberman provided some more co-op related mayhem, just for the record I'm crap at Bomberman, so we didn't get very far. Thankfully someone and sellotaped a piece of paper to the cartridge with a level code on, so we jumped to world 4-7... and died almost instantly. (; _ ;)

Finally some Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest to round off the day. I forgot how amazing the soundtrack to this game is, and while the 'DKC Returns' series on Wii/Wii U is great, I prefer the originals as the level design is amazing and Kremlins make the perfect enemies.

Now I'm going to go see if I can find something more nutritious than Irn-Bru and cheese flavoured crisps ... where oh where did I put those vouchers for Domino's Pizza??? 

Day 41 of 100 Happy Gaming Days: Aladdin SNES

The SNES version of Aladdin was often overshadowed by its immensely popular Mega Drive/Genesis counterpart, thanks to its gorgeous cel animations crafted by Disney animators, but the SNES release had an undeniable charm that made it such a joy to play. Apparently Disney had planned to release the MD version on all platforms, but Capcom held the rights to produce all Disney related games on Nintendo systems at the time, so SNES owners were treated to a unique game of their own.

Capcom followed the source material very closely and produced a beautiful 16 bit recreation of the Aladdin universe. Whether you were leaping from the rooftops of Agrabah, uncovering the secrets of the Cave of Wonders or beating up Grand Vizier's attempting to muscle in on your woman, it was superbly realised on SNES. Capcom even managed to incorporate the famous 'A Whole New World' scene (surprisingly it's absent from the MD release), developing it into a bonus stage allowing you to collect power ups and extra lives.

The only level that was totally improvised was the 'You've Never Had A Friend Like Me' scene, where Aladdin meets the Genie. Capcom let their imaginations run wild as they created a strange dreamlike world, set in the clouds, where almost every platform/object resembles the Genie in some way (arguably far more entertaining than the MD version). 

So which game do you prefer? Do you favour the superbly animated, sword wielding antics of the Mega Drive/Genesis release? Or the smooth platforming and beautifully detailed charm of the SNES release? Let me know in the comments.

Day 29 of 100 Happy Gaming Days: Fix It Felix Jr.

Wreck It Ralph is naturally one of my most favourite movies of all time. The script was fantastic, the amount of fan service across so many different genres and franchises was astounding and the movie's soundtrack was nothing short of awesome...but what was the tie-in game like?

I saw the game that Activision shoved onto consoles via trailers and Let's Plays, and to be honest I have never again seen such an abysmal pile of crap. It seemed like such a wasted opportunity considering the movie was about video games, but all hope was not lost because in a surprising turn of events the mobile game proves to be the better offering.

The Wreck It Ralph game is actually made up of five titles based on various scenes in the movie and they're all great fun to play, but I'm going to focus on Fix It Felix Jr as this is clearly the centerpiece of the bundle.


Fix It Felix Jr. manages to not only capture the spirit of the movie but also of 1980's arcade games. It's simple, addictive and fun. Your job is to navigate Felix around an apartment building and repair whatever Ralph destroys. The further you progress the more difficult the game becomes with additional obstacles like birds, flower boxes and shutters being thrown into the mix. There is only one power-up in the form of a pie that will grant Felix invincibility for a few seconds, which can be invaluable during later levels.

The gameplay is accompanied by a charming 8-bit soundtrack, along with some great sound effects, and you even get treated to cutscenes of Ralph being thrown from the building into the mud below. I play the game on an iPhone 4 and the controls are very responsive and they don't clutter up the screen too much.

Fix It Felix Jr. is a brilliant mobile-game and proof that movie tie-in games don't always end up being terrible. I certainly hope we haven't seen the last of Felix and Ralph, here's hoping there'll be a worthwhile sequel before too long. ^_^

Day 18 out of 100 Happy Gaming Days: World of Illusion

I'm a bit late with this one. I was extremely busy yesterday and to be honest writing a blog a day was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, but that just means there's going to be a double post today!

World of Illusion was one of the greatest Disney platformer's of the 16 bit era. It featured some beautiful graphics for the time based on Disney's animation style, with levels taking inspiration from classic Disney movies and cartoons such as The Little Mermaid, Mickey and the Beanstalk and Alice in Wonderland.

The story begins with Mickey and Donald rehearsing their act for a big magic show, and while they're rehearsing they discover an unusual wooden box carved to look like a face with a velvet curtain across its mouth. All of a sudden they both fall into the box and are transported to the World of Magic, where an evil Sorceror explains he will show them the way home, as long as they can find him and defeat him in a magic duel.


The game is pretty easy to complete, however there is a lot of replay value as you can play as Mickey or Donald, and in co-op mode with a friend. Depending on which character you've chosen you'll encounter different routes and levels, for instance with Donald having a bigger backside than Mickey he can't squeeze the through smaller spaces like Mickey can, so he needs to find an alternative route to proceed.

The co-op mode was also very inventive with players being encouraged to help one another, otherwise they stood no chance of completing the game. Some sections involved giving each other a boost to higher ledges and then throwing a rope down for the person left behind, or jumping in sequence to move a rail cart across a level.

There's a lot of great Disney games for the Mega Drive but World of Illusion stands out for it's great design and multiplayer, and with Castle of Illusion recently getting an HD remake some are expecting World of Illusion to get the same treatment. If they keep the same design values that encourage true cooperative gameplay, I'll be happy... and maybe some bonus content too! :P