Suggested by Destroyer Battra is a powerful Kaiju, there’s no doubting that but he is up against one of the Keyblade masters in Mickey Mouse. Mickey has always gone above and beyond the call of duty to help his friends and that’s still the case. His speed means that dodging Battra’s attacks will be easy and then he can even follow this up with his magical abilities. Battra is much too big of a target to even hope to escape. Mickey Mouse wins.
Play Time 2h 12m
Tricks 64%
Mirrors 10/12
Bonus Item 41%
It’s time to look at a retro Mickey Mouse game. The moment you boot it
up the game has a nostalgic feeling to it as the graphics are the kind
that you could only find on GameCube. It just looks really hype, alas
there isn’t much gameplay to support that.
The game starts with Mickey going to sleep but then his ghost wakes up
before his body does. Seizing the opportunity, Mickey jumps out of bed
and heads to the world of the ghosts. Unfortunately, the mirror that
he used to leave his human world had been broken by some tricky
ghosts. He will now have to find all of the pieces before he can
leave…or will he?
This game actually had two endings which is pretty interesting. There
are 12 mirror fragments scattered throughout the mansion. Your
mission, should you choose to accept it is to find them all. That will
unlock the good ending. Alternatively you can find most of them,
enough to piece the part of the mirror together with a gap big enough
to jump through. Then you unlock the “bad” ending.
Naturally when I saw that the portal was open after getting most of
the pieces I jumped through. Keep in mind of course that at this point
you aren’t given any indication that the game will end if you do this.
The cutscene starts and you quickly realize that there is no turning
back. The ending is actually a little tragic, almost dark. As you head
through the portal, the ghost begs you not to go but you decide to
leave anyway, all the while wondering if maybe the ghost wasn’t so bad
and just wanted a friend. Either way it’s too late now as there is no
way back.
There isn’t much of a story but what we do get is pretty emotional I
suppose. The whole world is definitely creative as the house has a lot
personality. Think of any classic room you’d expect to have in a
mansion and this place has got it. The levels are fairly large. The
game is very short but the time can be extended a bit if you try to
100% the title. There isn’t much replay value though as beating the
game locks you out of it as a lot of older games used to do.
As I mentioned earlier the graphics are very solid. The art style is
on point and the game just pops out at you. It’s the kind of title
that you just can’t forget. There isn’t much of a soundtrack though so
the graphics have to hold the game up on its own but it is more than
ready to do so.
So this is all well and good, but what about the gameplay? Well,
that’s the part that sinks the game. It’s effectively an I-Spy game.
As a result you aren’t doing a whole lot of actual playing here. In
fact you can’t even move. You click on parts of the screen to try and
move there. Then you click on objects to interact with them. You get
trick points for scaring Mickey which you can then use to attack the
ghost and get a fragment. There are a few issues with this. The first
is that while at the start you will be able to remember which objects
you’ve already tried out, that will be very difficult by the end of
the game where there are a ton of them. This is a problem because the
object interactions never go away so each time is treated as the
first. Some objects have more than one resolution as well. Some need
specific items to activate but you don’t know which item or how to
find them.
The game has a lot of rooms to explore which is good as it shows that
the developers put some effort into making the game as big as
possible. On the other hand, this makes the game feel a lot slower
than it should have been. There is no way to quickly go from room to
room and you better memorize where each of the rooms are because if
you go through the wrong one there is a chance that you won’t be able
to turn back. Some doors only work one way which is definitely not
what you want to see.
I think ultimately what this game was lacking was quality of life
enhancements. 2 simple things that would have increased the game quite
a lot would have been to have added a map so you know where you’re
going and to remove interactions from items you’ve already done. That
way you know which items you’ve done already because they won’t give
you an option to click them. Put these two in and I think I’d give the
game another star. It’d be a lot easier to complete the game that’s
for sure. Difficulty isn’t a problem, but this is really more of a
developmental flaw than a difficulty issue. After all, you can
eventually beat the game, it’ll just take longer. Even if you have to
see the sad ending you’ll probably think it’s worth it to escape the
house of mirrors.
Overall, Mickey’s Mirrors is a pretty nice game. It’s definitely
something that would be easy to have a kid pick up and play. The
concept of I-Spy isn’t that hard after all. I do think kids would get
lost after a while though. I-Spy type gameplay can work pretty well,
but typically it would need to be for a horror esque game or something
like that. Likewise, visual novels work because it’s like you’re going
through a movie. However, you can’t go with this strategy if there
isn’t much of a story to follow. It’s not a bad game, but you can
barely call this a “game” because there is no movement or actions to
take. All you do is click a button and hope for the occasional mini
game to show up. If you can get a good price then go for it, but
otherwise this isn’t the platformer that you might have been
expecting.
Overall 5/10
It’s time to look at another Disney short! This time Mickey is back in the lead but he’ll have to deal with some pretty powerful opponents. You’ll probably feel bad for Mickey here because it seems to happen quite a lot that he has to go up against beings which aren’t quite human and have a lot of supernatural abilities. How is Mickey supposed to handle these beings? Well, he’ll certainly give his 100% into stopping such a threat.
The short starts off with Mickey finishing up a hard day of work and heading home. That’s when he notices that Minnie is baking a pie and asks if he can have some. She explains that he can only have some if he does all of the yard work for her. Mickey agrees and begins the task. Unfortunately just as he is finishing up a tornado appears and begins to try and sabotage all of his efforts. Mickey doesn’t know what it wants, but he’s got a pie to eat so the mouse tries to end this fight.
As you can probably imagine the majority of the special is about Mickey trying to capture the tornado. Mickey tries everything from tying it up to beating it into submission. Unfortunately nothing appears to work and the tornado even calls in a few of his buddies. At that point Mickey can’t even afford to worry about the pie as his life is in jeopardy. Unfortunately Minnie doesn’t notice any of this so you can probably guess who will get the blame once the town is leveled into the ground. I mean, Mickey doesn’t look like he’s quite that strong, but if it’s believable to Minnie then who am I to argue? Yeah…Minnie definitely had a pretty rough time of it in these last two specials.
The special can be a little tragic, but on the other hand Mickey does get his pie in a way. I suppose that beats not getting it at all right? The animation is on point here and the battle between Mickey and the tornado is on point. You can feel the emotions at play here as the fight gets brutal. I’d say that Mickey may have even had the edge by the end since the tornado had to call for backup. If Mickey had backup of his own like Donald then the whole situation may have turned out a little differently. Still, he didn’t back down.
Overall, This special was pretty fun. As all of these specials are all just a few minutes long it’s all about trying to squeeze in as much content as possible. You want to keep the audience engaged as much as possible and have a memorable ending. While the ending isn’t a happy one for Mickey it certainly could have been considerably worse. All in all he did all right for himself and I did think that this special was more interesting than the last one. I’d recommend checking it out. As long as you don’t mind seeing the heroes on the losing end here it makes for a pretty fun special.
Overall 7/10
It’s time to look at a very quick Disney short. Now, most of these old shorts were quite…short, but this one really takes the cake. It’s listed as 8 minutes online, but it seemed to only be about 2-3 minutes while watching it. Maybe the special was just that good, but it does seem like the shortest of all the Disney shorts and that is actually pretty impressive. There are really only 2 main characters here, Donald and Mickey. Naturally they are on opposing sides here as you might expect.
The film starts off with Mickey performing some tricks on stage. He is a magician and not simply one who uses parlor tricks to get by. Mickey knows real magic so I assume this is in the same continuity as that other special where Mickey was learning spells under the tutelage of that random magician. Unfortunately Donald isn’t a fan of Mickey’s act and decides to sabotage the mouse. Mickey doesn’t really like confrontation so he avoids Donald for a little while, but eventually he decides to put the duck in his place. Sparks fly and both characters really get into it. There is a winner here though as the special doesn’t end on a cop out.
It’s a fun enough short. I like seeing this more confident version of Mickey. He isn’t about to let Donald just get his way without a fight. Still, Mickey is a professional so he tries to end the situation in a way that is still entertaining to his captive audience. I have to admit that this is one of his best appearances in the various Disney shorts. Then we have Donald who is pretty fun as always. He is definitely the antagonist here, I don’t think there can be any doubt on that fact. Still, while Donald is unreasonable he is still entertaining as you would expect. He’ll definitely give you flashbacks to any hecklers you may have faced in showbiz. They can’t be pleased and they won’t be silenced. All you can do is listen to them and wait for an opening to use your next act. Of course once the heckler gets violent as Donald did then you can be all set to use your skills to wow the crowd and stop this disruption.
The animation looks pretty smooth as always. I like the character designs here and the stage looks pretty nice. There was definitely a lot of care that went into this. There isn’t much of a soundtrack, but I suppose you wouldn’t reasonably expect one here. On a technical level this special delivered just as well as it did with the writing and the characters. It’s a solid short from whatever angle you decide to look at it from.
Overall, Magician Mickey is a nice short to watch while you polishing off an afternoon snack. It’s the perfect amount of time for that and it’ll feel pretty nostalgic. There’s nothing wrong with the special and it only takes a few minutes to watch so why wouldn’t you take the plunge? Because it is so short I don’t think it will wind up being one of your favorites or anything like that, but I’ll still give the short some props for doing a good amount in its limited time frame. We’ll see if any upcoming short can hope to match this one.
Overall 7/10
It’s time to look at a classic Disney special. Moose Hunters is a team up adventure and those are usually pretty solid but Goofy ends up getting most of the screen time which was definitely not a great move. It ends up being one of the weaker specials I’m afraid but as always Donald is here to try and save it.
The adventure begins with the trio deciding to get some Moose. Goofy and Donald will act as the bait while Mickey loads the shotgun. Unfortunately for the mouse he gets pushed by the big moose on campus and ends up losing his shotgun. At this point it is all over for him. Mickey delays the inevitable by grabbing some grass big that’s basically it for him in the special. His subplot wasn’t bad though.
Goofy and Donald’s plot is the one that drags on. They decide to dress up as a female moose and do their best to distract the other one but since Mickey is out of the picture they are stuck in the role for a considerable amount of time. The same joke just keeps on going and going long after it has ceased to be amusing. While it is a parody of this kind of plot, I also never like the idea of using romance to trick the opponent into lowering his guard. For starters if should never work unless a character is extremely weak willed. It would have been nice if the Moose had just kicked these guys away. It would have sent a good message that he was not to be trifled with.
As always the animation is pretty solid. It’s all very fast paced and uses a lot of movement without getting sloppy. The character designs are on point and you do feel a certain level of tension throughout as you wonder if the heroes have what it takes to win this fight. There isn’t really anything in the way of music here but seeing as how the special is only a few minutes long there wasn’t much time to throw it in.
Overall, Moose Hunting is definitely not going to be remembered in the same way as most of the other shorts. It’s just not nearly as captivating or intense, but I will give it some points for effort. If you just really want to see the old gang in a new adventure then by all means check it out but I would sooner advise just about any of the other specials for a better time. This one’s plot just wasn’t good from the start which hurt it. After all, how can we root for the main characters when they’re hunters? It’s a very morally dubious career choice and one that can be a debate all on its own. Long story short though, I was rooting for the moose here so when the main characters got wrecked I was pretty satisfied. They had to beat a hasty retreat so the right side won.
Overall 4/10
It’s time for the next Disney short which is another Pluto special. Unfortunately it wasn’t very good like the last one. It’s a shame because this special was going reasonably well until the very mean spirited ending. Definitely not the way you want to end any special.
The story begins with Mickey sending Pluto to the deli in order to grab his lunch. Mickey has been growing old over the years so of course he wouldn’t go grab it himself. Pluto has no problems with the plan since securing his own lunch will make it taste even better. Unfortunately, one of the alley dogs decides to try and steal the meat. Pluto is in for quite a fight!
It’s a classic story of two dogs fighting it out for the same lunch. Obviously Pluto is in the right here as it’s his lunch which he paid for fair and square. The other dog is just another in a long line of villains who would like to stop Pluto but he shall fall like the rest. At least that’s what you would think. Unfortunately the special actually ends with the dog winning and in one of the worst ways possible.
Pluto had made it home but then Mickey snatches the lunch away and gives it to the other dog. That was one of the biggest betrayals that I’ve seen in quite a while and Pluto doesn’t get a happy ending of any kind. Being forced to share it would be one thing, but losing it altogether? Yeah that’s not really a good idea.
The whole thing also makes Mickey look very bad and out of character. He seems completely oblivious to everything when I like to think that he is more on the cunning side and always ready for what is to come. He would have realized that having Pluto go grab his usual lunch would lead to the assumption that it was his. He should have told Pluto straight up what was going on instead of all this zigzag. At least tell him to buy 2 since then the implication would also be clear. Not saying it until the end just isn’t a nice or fair approach.
The animation is smooth as always. Disney is still consistent in that area and that won’t change for quite a while. It’s easy to forget just how old the specials are since they look so bright and vibrant. You would be forgiven for thinking that the special is a lot newer than it actually is.
Overall, this special is one that you will probably want to skip. Dread it, Run from it, but the Pluto specials will always find a way to break the mold of Disney successes and make some kind of mistake. At least if these two specials are a good indication of the group. There’s just no reason to watch a Pluto special when you can watch one about any other character. He’s simply not ready for the big time.
Overall 5/10
It’s time for what is the weakest Disney short so far. I don’t really think it would be right to blame it on Pluto here, but at the same time I have always suspected that he isn’t quite ready for the big time. He’s better as a supporting character than in the lead role. This special just isn’t all that fun and reminds me why dog shows like this one are more sketchy than anything.
Mickey brings Pluto to a dog show to show that high society aren’t the only ones with fashionable dogs around here. It’s a noble sentiment but seeing as how the judge is one of them I suspect there is already some bias in the equation. There’s no time to think about that though as a big fire starts and Pluto has to quickly turn into the hero that he always knew he could be. It’s a pretty emotional climax there and the special would have been better if it had started with the fire and abandoned the intro.
The scene that is the most drawn out is when the appraiser is messing with Pluto. Pluto tries to grin and bear with it, but the whole thing is pretty unreasonable so I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had tackled the guy right from the get go. Mickey shouldn’t have brought him here in the first place either. Pluto wasn’t having any fun and so it wasn’t fun to see him have to put up with all of this either. The special isn’t very long so it’s not as if any scene goes on for too long either, but the slapstick and comedy just wasn’t all that fun this time around. If a comedy special isn’t too fun…then what hope does it have of being all that solid?
As always the animation is pretty smooth and fluid though. The fire scene is impressive because of how fast everything is going and you just know that the artists must have had to draw a considerable amount to bring all of these scenes to life. Disney really got big through their animation and inventing such colorful and memorable characters really sealed the deal. It’s a visual masterpiece even if the actual special isn’t really the best one that they’ve put out.
Overall, I don’t think Society is ready for a dog show. Stick to the Puppy Bowl if anything since there they all follow the rules and don’t have to worry about bias judges. The second half of the special at least brings in a sense of danger and a lot of tension, but it isn’t enough to totally eliminate the first half. I’d say that if you are in the mood to check out a Disney special, watch one for one of the other characters. If you want to see Pluto then choose a Mickey Mouse special instead of a Pluto one. That is the optimal strategy here.
Overall 5/10
It’s been a while since I’ve seen one of the old Disney shorts. The Donald ones are typically the best but the team up ones are right up there as well since who doesn’t like an ensemble cast? Mickey and Donald have enlisted the aid of Goofy to travel somewhere far away. I assume they are going somewhere to deliver supplies or something. Goofy assures them that he can get the duo there in one piece and so begins their adventure. The Trailer is rather high tech as the click of a button can transform the rooms into just about anything. Of course, this can also be dangerous as Donald finds out the hard way. You could be relaxing as you finish off your dinner only for the table to suddenly turn into a bathtub instead of vice versa. Perhaps the tech has simply gone too far in this case.
On the other hand, some tech could have been useful later on when the trailer is unlatched from the car and the heroes go flying. If they had an electronic lock perhaps they would have been okay. I think it’s safe to say that Mickey played the biggest role in causing this to happen though. He forgot that Goofy was driving the car and later on Mickey was also the one who kicked the trailer away by mistake. The heroes probably shouldn’t have made lunch so early either though so that was on them. Of course the driver would want a bite to eat as well. At least wait until a lunch break or something. Goofy didn’t ask for this and he still managed to drive them safely back to base. Now that’s what I call a top notch driver.
Mickey’s role is a little small next to the others but we do get to see his solid soccer skills in time for the Word Cup. He kicked the Corn with precision and power into the pot. Meanwhile Donald does his best to cope with this place but it’s rough since nothing seems to work right for him. Donald never gives up though. Goofy is the one to feel bad for since the whole thing is hardly his fault. After all, why would you serve breakfast when you know that the journey is still on?
The animation is smooth and consistent as Disney always was back in the day. Everything is very clear and the character models are on point. Everything moves very quickly so I can only imagine how many frames it probably took to make. A lot of effort was put into this one for sure.
Overall, This was a pretty fun special. Naturally there is only so much that you can do in a few minutes but it’s an entertaining experience. Goofy gets a happy ending which is happy for his fans since that seems to be a rather rare occurrence for him. Driving the trailer for so long is definitely tough so he earned this one. If you like the classic Disney specials or just enjoy a light hearted comedy then you’ll enjoy this one. Either way it is only an investment of a few minutes.
Overall 7/10
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