Never finished it because the last level was bullshit filled beyond reasons, but my god if I played this game over and over, especially the first two levels, the jungle and submarine one. It's just filled with charm and it has an atmosphere completely out of DIsney comfort zone. I always remember that in the mid/late 90s they were daring to try something to appeal teens, but this sadly never became something much bigger (you know, TV series, comics and all that).

I'm confused by Backloggd description: 40 HOURS?! That's a JRPG or nowadays length, surely not of a 1995 platform. I guess they meant 4 because I wouldn't explain it otherwise.

Absolutamente maravilhoso, em todos os sentidos. A arte é perfeitamente Disney dos anos 90, tudo é lindo e bem polido, tudo esbanja personalidade. As animações do Donald são tão perfeitinhas, você mira pra cima e ele tremendo tentando manter a estabilidade da arma, as animações de idle, ele olhando em volta, é tudo tão desnecessário mas claramente feito com carinho. A trilha sonora desse jogo é insanamente boa e grudenta, estou literalmente há uns 20 anos com ela presa na minha cabeça.

A jogabilidade é super variada, com fases com ritmos e propostas bem diferentes. Pro final do jogo elas começam a ficar muito malucas e algumas sofrem um pouco pra manter a experiência justa. Se movimentar na água tem uma mecânica interessante mas é bem frustrante quando você precisa ser muito rápido. Apesar disso essa é minha fase favorita tanto em estética quanto na música que é simplesmente perfeita.

No geral o saldo é extremamente positivo, tão bom quanto eu lembrava.

Donald in Maui Mallard es uno de los últimos juegos de Donald en 16-bits. Salió en 1995 para la Mega Drive (MD) solo en Europa y un año más tarde en USA para la SNES bajo el nombre de Maui in Cold Shadow.
Este juego es una mezcla curiosa que ha salido bien y mal al mismo tiempo. Para empezar ya de por si es lioso que tenga dos títulos dependiendo de la región y que en uno se haga referencia a Donald y en el otro no. El juego va de un investigador llamado Maui Mallard, que antes de dedicarse al oficio policial fue entrenado como ninja, y del cas que tiene que resolver mientras se encuentra de vacaciones en Hawái. La idea original debía de ser que el jugador fuese consciente de que era el pato Donald quien interpretaba este personaje, o que esto era una historia que ocurría en un mundo paralelo en el que Donald ni siquiera se llama Donald… Pero el caso es que cuando se lanzó el juego en USA los planes cambiaron y se eliminaron las referencias a Donald, salvo en los sprites, que esos ya estaban hechos y eran más difíciles de cambiar. Esto crea la rara situación de no saber si el personaje es verdaderamente Donald o no.
Siguiendo con el gameplay (yo he jugad la versión de MD). El diseño de niveles es original, pero no siempre tiene un buen acabado. Por ejemplo, en los primeros niveles de la mansión y el templo de entrenamiento, hay varios momentos en los que no se distinguen las plataformas sobre las que hay que saltar del fondo. Lo interesante del juego es que puedes ir alternando entre Maui o Maui Ninja (llamado Cold Shadow en la versión de USA) y cada uno tiene gampleays bastante distintos.
Maui anda a velocidad normal y usa una pistola de escarabajos que puede disparar hasta 4 tipos de escarabajos (pero no podremos disparar nada si no encontramos escarabajos que usar de munición). Cada escarabajo tiene efectos distintos: uno es un disparo normal, otro persigue a los enemigos, otro hace el triple de daño y el último explota. Además, es posible combinar hasta 3 escarabajos en un solo disparo, de manera que sus efectos se suman. Maui Ninja por su parte corre más rápido, puede hacer sprints, puede balancearse sobre anillas e incluso puede escalar paredes estrechas con su bastón. Para atacar usa ataques cuerpo a cuerpo con su largo bastón, que es bastante fuerte. Por desgracia tendremos un temporizador para ser Maui Ninja, ya que un brujo nos ha maldito y necesitaremos monedas yin-yang para mantenernos transformados. Esta dualidad permite mezclar los dos tipos de gameplays en un solo nivel o también limitarlo por zonas y los desarrolladores nos presentan ideas originales y divertidas. Especialmente me han gustado los niveles de la lava, la jungla (nos zarandeamos en lianas) y el nivel del inframundo. Este último es el culmen de todo el juego, donde pondremos a prueba lo aprendido en los niveles anteriores.
Por otra parte, los niveles del templo de entrenamiento y el del agua no me han gustado mucho. Principalmente por que el juego falla a la hora de explicarte los controles o mecánicas de esos niveles. Es cierto que en el manual de instrucciones explican como escalar dos paredes con el bastón, pero estas paredes en ocasiones se confunden con el fondo. Además, ni siquiera el manual te explica en ningún momento como hacer el sprint (que es bastante necesario para completar el nivel, si no se hace una odisea) y en el nivel del agua no hay nada que te sugiera que se nada solo hacia a tras (gracias a la fuerza de retroceso de la pistola). Tener que parar un juego para buscar una guía por falta de conocimiento de los controles ensombrece las buenas ideas que presenta el juego.
En apartado artístico en cambio, es de muy alto nivel en todo momento. Los animadores de Disney han vuelto a meter mano en el asunto y creo que puedo decir que es el juego de Donald de 16-bits mejor animado, solo ligeramente por detrás de Mickey Mania.
Pero en el apartado sonoro volvemos a tener inconsistencias. Mientras que los temas por si solos están muy bien y si que tienen esos “vives” hawaianos, en ocasiones no terminan de encajar con el nivel, creo que a veces son demasiado relajados para lo que ocurren en pantalla.
Donald in Maui Mallard pese a ser una experiencia atípica (con un par de momentos de frustración que creo que no tienen perdón), admito que ha sido una experiencia que he acabado disfrutando. No es un juego para todo el mundo, es un plataformas con buen nivel de dificultad, buenas ideas y arte sobresaliente… pero que en ocasiones no se deja jugar y vas a tener que poner ganas activamente para superar esos momentos. Me da mucha pena que sea así, lo veo como una ocasión perdida. Si no tuviese esos momentos de desconexión con el jugador, seguro que mucha más gente disfrutaría del juego. Mi recomendación si lo vas a jugar, es que antes de hacerlo (a pesar de que sean spoilers) te veas un poco de gameplay del nivel del templo de entrenamiento y del nivel del agua, y también que busques en internet como realizar el sprint (que en MD es manteniendo pulsado el botón de transformación mientras pulsas dos veces una dirección en la cruceta de direcciones).

The video game I credit as my first, and still one of my all-time favorites. A lot of that is nostalgia, but I really do think this is a hidden gem of a title. Far and away the best video game to come out of Disney in my opinion, and I'll accept no substitutes (though I'll understand if you're a Kingdom Hearts die-hard).

Before we get into it, because there's potential for confusion - the main character of this game is technically Donald Duck, but he's not called that. He is an actor here, in-character for the entirety of this game as an anachronistic Magnum P.I. parody named "Maui Mallard". You can consider him an AU Donald if you want, since the manual makes a joke about Maui wanting to give up his private investigator thing and become a sailor. But he's called "Maui". At least until he transforms into a ninja. While he's a ninja, he takes on the alter ego of "Cold Shadow". Cold Shadow was originally an ancient master ninja (a Hawaiian ninja... just roll with it), but these days is little more than a spirit that lends its power to Maui. Maui becomes Cold Shadow, but he still retains Maui's identity. So Donald in Maui Mallard features Donald as Maui Mallard and Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow is Maui Mallard and not Cold Shadow but he is Cold Shadow and not Donald Duck in Donald in Cold Shadow.

Make sense? :P

Maui Mallard (the game) would have been one of the last 2D platformers to come out of the genre's golden age, right before Crash Bandicoot and Super Mario 64 (and Bubsy 3D) changed the world. Visually, the game has learned every lesson it can from this era and put together some of the strongest pixel art out there. You'd be understood for thinking it's done by Disney animators, the way Virgin Interactive's Disney games borrowed Disney animators, but I believe this is actually the same animation team behind Earthworm Jim. Combining Disney-grade model sheets with Earthworm Jim-grade animation timing is a real showcase for what could be done by the medium, both from a comedic standpoint (the smooth transition between the ninja's bō flourish and him dancing the hula. With a bō staff. How do you even) and - as the situation calls for - a horror standpoint (I love love love how the zombies decompose the more you shoot them until their flesh parts from their bones and they return to the earth - surprisingly graphic for a Disney game). Even deliberately undercooked animation contributes something - the mostly-nonexistent animation to the Giant Metal Spider or... whatever the magma skull guy is in (the Genesis/PC versions of) "Sacrifice of Maui" add to their creepiness factor. Especially with the latter, where the only thing moving is its spiting magma and its pulsating brain. Even the environments are richly detailed, too - I love the overgrown and crumbling ruins (depicting Carl Barksian scenes of ducks beating the stuffing out of each other) in "Ninja Training Grounds", the dripping flow of magma in "Sacrifice of Maui", the cascading waterfall in "Test of Duckhood", the bloodshot eye and drifting mists in "Realm of the Dead"...

And the music! I don't think there's a single track I dislike. The PC version is what I started with, so I'm fondest of that one's offerings. Helps that it's filled to bursting with CD-grade instrumentation and vocals. I love the varied percussion and the brass that comes to play as the soundtrack evolves. There's a sense of the soundtrack going for the vibe of the classic Disney shorts, with modernized instruments joining in the big band compositions. There was an effort to strike that tone in general - that's why Maui (1) packs heat and (2) is specifically wielding a 30s-style handgun - which helps give the game a timeless atmosphere. I'm less fond of the Genesis and SNES versions, though the PC version had the benefit of coming afterwards, specifically refining the Genesis's compositions. There's some good synth instrumentation on the SNES version, too.

Really quickly, since I mentioned vocals, I love the use of voice clips in the Genesis/PC versions. Maui making angry Donald noises when he gets damaged is great fun, as is the foley for so many other enemies - the masks hocking loogies, the zombies moaning as they chase after you, the weird fire spirits' belching, etc. The very best is those horrible, horrible, horrible squeaky shrieks and screams of the Muddrakes. Like, yes, they're easy stereotypes, but the childish voices in particular help make the whole thing read less like some sort of broad racial statement and more like these guys in particular are little brats. They're your clients, yet you have to earn their respect over and over. I love them so much.

Alright, so it's a solid spectacle piece, but how's it play? I love it myself, but I think this is going to be the main hurdle people run into if they're playing the game new these days. It's a technical spectacle platformer, something that was deceptively hard to pull off well this era. Something the player will need to adapt to is how big Maui's sprite is compared to the rest of the screen, given that a lot of platforming and acrobatic feats are required - timing those jewel swings and wall-climbs as the ninja can be tricky if you're not used to it. It's easy for a novice player to throw themselves at enemies and obstacles and burn through their health and lives.

But the game is very much aware of itself and what it's asking. The shift from Maui to the Ninja is a pretty sharp swerve, so the game lets the player ease into it with a whole training level where you can safely test out different moves. Every system to the game feels like it has that careful level of design, from how it challenges players to how it rewards their caution and exploration with pick-ups. The health system comes to mind - like Earthworm Jim, Maui starts with 100 hit pounds, and loses health at varying increments depending on what's damaging him (usually the range is between 5 and 15 damage). You have your usual suite of health recovery pick-ups, but there are also bags of Zombie Powder, which increases Maui's maximum hit points by 50. These are hidden around in most levels and are well worth your trouble to seek out, since (1) the game puts such an emphasis on combat that even a little extra health would go a long way, (2) some levels contain multiple bags, and (3) the Zombie Powder lasts until your next Continue, making Lives and Continues separately valuable commodities. It's on top of THIS level of design that the developers build their electronic playground, and boy do they have fun. Without giving anything away, there's a sequence where the game stuffs Maui full of Zombie Powder and throws him face-first into danger, and it's an easy highlight.

As I said at the start, I consider this game the first one I played. But it wasn't just me playing it - my father, sister, and brother all got in on it (my mother's never been much of a gamer, but she'd watch from time to time). Whenever one of us ended up on a good run, we'd all want to see it. In that way, even though there are only eight levels, each of them felt huge. I vividly remember the first time I beat level 4, "Sacrifice of Maui" - basically any run that got to that level was worth getting everyone's attention. You had a double-whammy in that level with both the stage boss (the aforementioned magma skull guy) and the volcano escape sequence, one of the best damn escape sequences in all of gaming no exaggeration. So many runs ended in the rising magma... but somehow, everything game together that run, and I got to see the end-of-level animation of Maui kicking back on a folding chair, to a round of cheers from my family. For the first time, we all got to see the lush green jungle backdrop of "Test of Duckhood".

I ran out of lives and opted not to continue out of some misplaced sense of honor. My father sent me to my room for being a dummy. Still a favorite memory.

But every level clear felt like a small victory. I remember proudly beating levels 5 and 6 on a family vacation, then discovering the game's SNES version years later and finally - in preparation for a class project in which I wanted to show it off - finally getting good enough to beat levels 7 and 8. And then, years later, I finally got the chance to play the PC port again after years of trying and failing to run it on modern computers. That was this playthrough; I was so proud to finally say I'd finally put a childhood game - as I knew it - back to bed.

Of this game's four versions, I like the PC version best, but Genesis is an acceptable alternative, and SNES is a fun case study for where it differs. I have not played the GameBoy version as of this writing, but from what I've seen, that one's safe to skip. For the others, though - if you have the chance to play Maui Mallard, by all means, I hope you do so.