After many very good and a single bad 2D Mickey platformer of the 16-bit era, we end with one of the best looking and animated games of the 16-bit generation.

Mickey Mania takes Mickey on a platforming journey through his most iconic episodes such as Steamboat Willy, The Giant Beanstalk, The Mad Doctor etc. All the stages and sprites feel like that came right out of the cartoons as this is some of the best animations on a 16-bit device period.

With most other Mickey platfomers being a great Mario/Ducktales type of fun arcadey platformer, Mickey Mania takes a different approach of trying to be something more of a "cinematic" platformer. Something along the lines of SNES Dragon's Lair, Prince of Persia, Heart of Darkness, Another world etc. While I do think the idea is neat for a game about Mickey's classical episodes, the execution is not great.

The game is just not fun to play and is absurdly hard relying on a lot of trial and error moments, bad enemy placement, bad hitboxes, bad platform collision in the sense where you will sometimes be falling through the floor even though you clearly landed on the platform, and enemies you can barley see. So many bad and frustrating design choices that it just sucked any enjoyment I wanted to have with this game as I loved the premise and visuals.

After getting through a chuck of many trial and error moments, just shredding lives and continues to get through most of the game, the game has the gull of letting you know that this game actually does NOT give you infinite continues despite being based around trial and error. Normally I don't have an issue with finite continues, but the game doesn't tell you and whenever you are on the continue screen there is no counter of any sort. So you have a game that really wants you to die and try again but also forces you to start all the way from the begging if you do die. Really bad design and I won't be continuing this one.

This game is really fucking hard, especially the final boss, but I honest to god thoroughly enjoyed myself. Maybe after Battletoads two weeks ago I'm just numb.

Honestly though, the difficulty and sometimes enemy placement are the only real problems. I for one think the good far outweighs the bad here, it's wonderful to look at, it's super impressive for the time, runs really well, etc. It's just a fascinating game to me I suppose, and I had a good time in spite of the difficulty. If that kind of thing doesn't bother you too much, definitely try this one.

Getting the game looking this good on the Mega Drive must've been actual witchcraft, especially when its this smooth. Unfortunately despite this visual flourish the gameplay is not as polished as you'd hope, especially coming off other SEGA Disney games like Castle of Illusion. You get hit from off-screen more than you'd like and collision detection can be pretty iffy to put it lightly. It's real rough around the edges but it sure is pretty to look at, its at least worth a save state play-through just to look at the pretty visuals.

That was abysmal

I really don't have anything good to say about this game it’s truly terrible and it's a shame because the game looks great.

What made this so bad?

Very simple. Terrible level design and unfair gameplay. Each level somehow gets worse and worse and more unfair to the point where I didn’t know how they would somehow make it worse but I was proven wrong every time. For example, there is a level where you have to jump from platform to platform very similar to the minecart level in DK Country. You have to be extremely precise with each jump because if you miss by even a split second you will die and yes this is one of those “you start from the beginning of the game if you lose all continues.”. This becomes even more of an issue as the levels progress to become even more fair having many enemies throw projectiles and many stage hazards really making it extremely annoying to progress through each level. This game never once felt fun to me and I am glad it's over because this was truly one of the worst games I have played in recent times.


Also the final boss sucked.

Eu na verdade joguei esse no PS1, mas não tem essa opção aqui no site...

De qualquer forma, a diferença dele pro cartucho é mais as músicas com som mais limpo e adição de vozes em alguns momentos. Mickey Mania é um jogo charmoso com a intenção de contar a história do personagem na forma de jogo, desde Steamboat Willie.

Uma pena que o gameplay não ajude nisso :/

Mickey Mania é um dos jogos mais injustamente difíceis que já joguei. A primeira fase já começa com ideias um pouco confusas, mas até vai depois de umas tentativas. A segunda fase mesmo é que não quer saber. Vários obstáculos são jogados pra cima de você sem padrão nem aviso, e junto deles, esqueletos te atacam com os ossos, e mesmo depois de quebrar eles, os ossos que voam deles te machucam também!
Na tentativa e erro eu consegui ir longe na fase, mas eventualmente as vidas acabaram e eu desisti.

Como eu disse, é um jogo muito bonito graficamente, mas nem um pouco amigável.

you would assume this game would be a total pile of shit but its actually impressive how it isnt

the animation is fluid enough to look like animation was was pixelated then the other way around

the only real problem is it has that 1990s platformer syndrome where its fun, short, and hard as FUCK like INCREDIBLY unforgiving but that doesnt make it bad

Growing up, I watched just as many "classic" cartoons as I did new stuff. I was well fed on a diet of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, and of course there was plenty of Disney shorts on my plate, too. I occasionally throw on compilations of old Looney Tunes and Disney cartoons, and in particular I like checking out wartime shorts. It's interesting to go back and see how blatant the propagandizing was. You gotta buy war bonds, the most important thing is you buy war bonds... unless you're a Commie! Uh, also if you sign up for service in the military you will totally be able to afford a house and retire young, trust me on this.

Different times.

As a 7-year-old, the concept of a game that adapts Mickey Mouse's most famous cartoons was appealing to me because I was so into the material. As an adult who has a more "time capsule" approach to enjoying them, I think the way Traveller's Tales presents these olds cartoons is engaging and well executed, and I believe it holds up. Yeah, I said it. Ya'll out here giving this a 3.0 average, but I'm about to mess the whole thing up by bringing it to a 3.1!

Each level represents a different Mickey Mouse cartoon, starting with Steamboat Willy and ending with The Prince and the Pauper, which was (I believe) the most current Mickey Mouse featurette at the time. Gameplay is primarily focused on platforming, though it is often interspersed with set pieces that are used to convey key moments from each cartoon. One particular stand out is the moose chase sequence, which features Mickey running towards the screen and dodging obstacles, with the ground animating in such a way that it creates a convincing illusion of being a 3D cylindrical object. I swear to God I've seen this pop up in more than one Sonic ROM hack, of all things. For good reason too, because it is impressively done, but that's also something you could just expect from a Traveller's Tales game. Those guys knew how to push the Genesis' hardware, even if they weren't exactly the best at designing games that are actually fun to play. Thankfully, Mickey Mania's stage design, its set pieces, and its controls all feel satisfying to interact with, and there's a lot of charm in its visual and sound design. I do, however, find it a little weird that Traveller's Tales (whether by mandate or their own volition) mostly picked cartoons from the 1930s to adapt, and outside of a stray 40s featurette ("Lonesome Ghosts"), Mania totally skips over cartoons from the 1950s through 80s.

This game has also earned a reputation for being hard, and while I certainly would've agreed when I was a child, nowadays I think it's just challenging enough to be engaging without being needlessly difficult. At least until the last level. Pete's castle is a mess, man. Sloppy enemy placement and extremely tight platforming pretty much ruin any momentum the rest of the game builds, and the final boss somehow manages to feel bullshit and boring simultaneously, but I feel like the pacing up to that point is solid. That said, it's no cakewalk like Magical Quest, Great Circus Mystery, or the Illusion series. Mickey Mania is one of those games that beat me down as a kid, but I can come back to it endlessly as an adult. Truly it is a Timeless adventure. Or maybe I'm a sicko. I don't know, I feel at this point it really could be either or.

Obviously, I think this is a game well worth checking out, though I do question whether having played this a ridiculous amount in the 90s plays a factor in how much I enjoy it now. I am also unsure how much mileage someone would get out of this game if they don't have any familiarity or appreciation for the cartoons the game is referencing. Maybe that's just me putting a big fat asterisk on a game I'm giving a 4.5/5 so I can avoid any backlash over undue praise, but it's that kind of next level thinking that's going to get my head put in a cryogenic capsule so my genius can be preserved for the benefit of future generations.

Classic, classic example of a game being designed art first, gameplay distant second. Incredible visuals - truly looks like you're playing a cartoon - but it's instantly frustrating because the hitboxes for Mickey, the enemies, the hazards, the powerups, and everything else are just laid over all this elaborate animation without much consideration given to how that's actually going to play. And how it plays is bad! Levels are short, maddening gauntlets where you feel like you're just desperately trying to survive until the next screen. Not sure that's what they were going for with this ostensibly cute, fun retrospective of Mickey's history. It's a shame, though; it's a great concept and it looks spectacular! It's even got some convincing faux-3D in there. But it's not worth the struggle.

Mickey Mania has gorgeous visuals for its time, in fact I can vividly remember almost every level from here. The music also has some callbacks from the older Mickey Mouse cartoons (so do the levels). The main issue the game has are a little bit of the controls, and the platforming.
Actually I would say the controls and platforming are fine, but it's more like the hit detection alot of the time don't make sense, and makes the game really fricken hard! Some platforms you think you got the landing but instead you go through them sometimes. Same with enemies where you think you jumped on them or avoided them only to be hit in the strangest way.
If you can get used to the hit detection then you have a serviceable platformer that have amazing sprite work. Just be wary that it may take alot of time to get over the frustrating parts.

Pros: Beautiful looking game, essentially hand-drawn 2D classic Disney animation. That's the star, for sure. But it also has a very fun gimmick that keeps you wanting to see what comes next, as each stage is a different Mickey cartoon short, starting with the oldest (Steamboat Willie), and ending with the newest (at the time, Prince and the Pauper). It's a great motivator to keep you trucking along to the closing credits. And, after you beat the game you're rewarded with a message of (spoilers, heh) there being a new Mickey Mouse short in development! That short ended up being Runaway Brain, a highly entertaining and well animated Mickey short where it begins with Mickey himself playing a video game (perhaps a small nod to Mania!)

Cons: Level design isn't the best, not the worst, but it has enough annoying moments... Hit detection also isn't great, and sometimes the extra frames of animation make that even more difficult, in a not-a-good way. The SNES version also is missing an entire stage, which is a bummer. And it's missing some effects that the other console versions contain. Also... this game has loading screens... On SNES... C'mon.

What it means to me: As a little baby (yeah, I'm goin' all the way back) Mickey Mouse was my first obsession, for some reason I just loved the little rodent, maybe it's what started my interest in cartoons and animation that I still have a passion for to this day. Anyway, this game was an easy sell, and it was an easy like.