Mickey Mousecapade/ Joust/ Millipede/ DK Classics retrospective: Slip ’em a Mickey | NES Works

[@duckofalltrades]

I am always blown away by your care, craftsmanship, knowledge and professionalism in creating your videos. You actually know what you are talking about. By far the BEST NES series ever on KZbin. You care, and it shows. Thank you so much for your hard work!

[@davidwebb3407]

Ah Donkey Kong Classics. The game that six year old me chose to get with my NES, probably based solely on my love of monkeys. Good times.

[@Launchpad05]

When I was A kid, I wanted the Colecovision 'Donkey Kong', but we wouldn't get A game console until we got The NES for my birthday.

[@ScottALowe]

Only ever played this at other peoples' houses, but I didn't realize that Mickey Mousecapade even had a stage 2.

[@oaf-77]

Who even saw it?

[@MrJWTH]

@@oaf-77 Anyone who read the instruction manual since it had level select codes.

[@trufreedom]

​@@oaf-77 I've got 5 copies of this game (I had sisters) and I never knew it had an ending, let alone a level 2... 😅

[@Bargadiel]

Fun fact: Mickey Mouscapade's US release has a hidden Mickey head directly on the circuit board. And oddly enough, also Bandai Golf.

[@jorymil]

Okay... that's a reason to buy it for the $5 it probably costs!

[@kraeman]

You didn't give Daffy Duck equal screen time. Warner Bros. is going to get you.

[@Launchpad05]

'You're Despicable!'

[@heatherkramer3139]

The second player can actually take the other controller at any point any take mostly full control of Minnie. This makes level difficulty trivial, if you have a friend who can control the invincible Minnie, especially the pirate ship. I'm actually shocked that no one seems to realize the second player is available, much like Sonic 2.

[@ginormousaurus8394]

Also similar to how a second player can control the ducks in Duck Hunt's Game A mode.

[@TheKonamiMan]

Had Mickey Mousecapade as a kid and just never understood the game back then. I've been waiting to try it again recently to see if the game was any good at all. I did end up liking Adventure Island and Milan's Secret Castle more as an adult when I understood the games more.

[@timallenbrown]

"I don't want RELIGION in MY game," etc Much like Jeremy, I remember thinking "this is a bad game" when I played Mickey Mousecapade back in the day. I wonder what this would be like if it went through a DuckTales-style remaster

[@Grogeous_Maximus]

The Duck Tales remaster (for Steam, at least) isn't much of an improvement, sadly.

[@timallenbrown]

@@Grogeous_Maximus I had fun with it! Until the race at the end that I just couldn't beat - way harder than in the original

[@docsigma]

@@Grogeous_Maximus which is fine, as the original didn’t need improvements

[@trufreedom]

They remade Shaq-Fu so anything's possible... 😑🥴

[@duckofalltrades]

I LOVED Mickey Mousecapades! I rented it when I was 8 or 9 and somehow beat it without help or a guide in two weekends. Made me feel like the man. Bless my mom, she went out and bought me the game shortly after as she was so proud I beat it. Talk about an awesome mom :).

[@timmckernan8135]

OH boy what a great episode, this was one of my very first love hate games. I couldnt understand why a game would be so cruel and let you go on with out Minnie's stars.

[@Mer.Saloon]

The DK Classics was a way to minimize the amount of chips circulated on games I recall seeing somewhere. Because of the chip shortage of 88, it made more sense to package two games into one cart if they could fit in.

[@superleviathan]

The SMB/Duck Hunt cart basically served the same purpose, as it allowed Nintendo to discontinue ROB, Gyromite and the Deluxe set.

[@renewagain6956]

I had Micky Mousecapade as a lad... It always felt like it was almost good. Just a little more time in the oven for polish and balancing and they could have had a winner on their hands.

[@Sixfortyfive]

One oddity that I noticed about Donkey Kong Classics that stuck with me for some reason was that Super Smash Bros 4 explicitly listed that version of Donkey Kong as Mario's "debut" title... despite the fact that it was published after not only Super Mario Bros, but after all of Mario's original arcade appearances. Doubly strange when paired with the fact that Smash 4 correctly lists Luigi's debut as the Mario Bros 1983 arcade game. Always wondered if this discrepancy was some weird byproduct of the fallout between Nintendo and Ikegami Tsushinki, where Nintendo basically refused to acknowledge the arcade version's existence for several years.

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

To be fair, those are always weird. Smash Bros 64 list as Mario's notable appearances as "Super Mario Bros", "Super Mario Kart" and "Mario Kart 64".

[@DaneeBound]

Surprised Jeremy didn’t name-drop Hudson’s Famicom Doraemon game here.

[@Launchpad05]

Byyyyyyyy Hadison!

[@RabbitEarsCh]

Having covered technically five games in one episode, is this the current record for most games in a single NES Works?

[@jodymcdougle8810]

I 💕 Mickey's Mousecapade!! A couple of bits on the game not commonly shared: the actual game cartridge has a Mickey Mouse logo inside on the games cartridge. The Famicom version is Alice In Wonderland themed and is just as brilliant as the NES version. Rather than facing Maleficent, you go up against the Queen of Hearts. Which should explain the Alice ending on both ports.

[@TehBlue1]

Hey Jeremy. I really love your channel. I feel like we are kindred spirits. Thanks for doing what you do.

[@Larry]

Makes you wonder if Return of Donkey Kong laid the groundwork for Donkey Kong Country a few years later, or even if it was a pitch from Rare even back then?

[@XanthinZarda]

I wonder if it was the project that became Donkey Kong 94.

[@TacoDiceCosas]

I'm very nostalgic for Mickey Mouscapade, even when I'd never managed to complete the second stage as a kid.

[@trufreedom]

Same, cool to see other people had a similar experience 😎

[@ValkyrieTiara]

It's kindof amazing how Mickey Mousecapades just FEELS like a Hudson game. Also I was thinking about how "Joust and Millipede would feel a lot better, given their vintage, if they were on one cart. Throw Defender II in there as well! Oh well, maybe cart space requirements weren't quite there yet." And then, bam. Donkey Kong Classics lol

[@LorenHelgeson]

I can see it now. Hal Classics. Maybe they could have also thrown in a prototype of their unreleased version of Kangaroo as well.

[@FloatingSunfish]

Loved Mickey Mousecapade as a kid despite its difficulty. Was surprised it had graphical differences between the US and JP version! We had the JP version and I believe it uses more Disney characters if I recall correctly, which was weird since Disney is US-based.

[@JeremyParish]

Japan adores the everloving shit outta Disney, man

[@dagossYT]

Please reset the "Days since Tower of Druaga Reference" counter

[@bfish89ryuhayabusa]

Yeah, I'm surprised he hasn't used that gag for Druaga since he started it, considering that Druaga was the original "mentioned in nearly every episode" game for this channel.

[@Timberwolf0952]

I’m glad you called out that Return of Donkey Kong blurb. I didn’t know if anyone else noticed or remembered that.

[@punk51984]

Here for the "Gawrsh"

[@jedgrahek1426]

I have a very specific memory of getting this as a birthday present when I was a little kid... for some reason I was certain that I was getting SMB2, and so I actually yelled excitedly "Yay Mario 2!!!!" as I opened the wrapping paper only to discover this game instead, lol. I feel bad for my parents every time I remember that lol... to be fair to me though, this game wasn't exactly a masterpiece of the genre. And damn did I try to enjoy it... I could just never get very far and it became frustrating doing the same first stages over and over. It's fascinating to see all the other stages and enemies that I never even knew were in the game... and to top it off you literally rescue Alice at the end?! I'm a little inspired to boot up an emulator and cheats and see the whole thing as an adult, now. Thanks for doing what you do.

[@ajpiskel]

As a small child I managed to beat Mickey Mouscapade after much practice and memorization. It was that, SMB/Duck Hunt and Deadly Towers was all we had on NES for a while so-- probably explains a lot about the NES games I like even today. XD

[@RndStranger]

A weird thing about the Famicom version is that it was the first of three consecutive Famicom releases that had players controlling two characters simultaneously with the second one on a delay. I have no idea why three separate companies decided to go with the same terrible design decision simultaneously...

[@Poever]

Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me? J-e-r-e-m-y P-a-r-i-s-h! Hey there, hi there, ho there, you’re as welcome as can be! J-e-r-e-m-y P-a-r-i-s-h!

[@crithon]

oh my, Iwata doing Joust before Balloon Fight. interesting. Good video.

[@ghostHackd]

We had this at my grandma's house! Played this for years

[@carolinaeric8500]

I love this game! I remember playing it as a kid virtually nonstop at a friend’s one summer…this and Duck Tales are great, so is Darkwing Duck!

[@absolutezeronow7928]

Ah, Mickey Mousecapade, a game that I played when I was younger. Only made it to stage 4. The pirate ship was something I didn't know how to get past. And I definitely like the teaser of an upcoming return to the Atari 7800.

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

All ways a must watch, Jeremy. Great work.

[@darktetsuya]

I remember finding out in recent years that mickey mousecapades was actually a hudson joint. actually finally acquired a copy of it in the last year or so.... definitely about as hard as I remember! I do think the milon's secret castle meets adventure island comparison is on point. Joust I got for christmas one year, had no idea those came about because of the remnants of the atari deal, but it makes sense. never got around to millipede but it seems like it'd be way too busy for me, centipede was tough enough! I'd love to find a copy of DK classics but the last time I saw it in the wild the store wanted *$50* for one of the two or three loose copies... I like donkey kong but not $50 like it!

[@thecunninlynguist]

Lots of memories with mickey mousecapades. I always hated when they took minnie if you uncovered the wrong secret. But it was a fairly easy game. I don't remember how I learned about the stage select...probably nintendo Power.

[@renewagain6956]

Fairly easy?... Dunno if I agree with that one. You must have been quite the player if that game was on the easy side of things for you.

[@thecunninlynguist]

@@renewagain6956 which part was hard? I'm an okay gamer at best but never really had trouble with MM, other than when minnie gets kidnapped

[@SatoshiMatrix1]

When I was a kid, I got new NES games only about once a year or so. As such, the vast majority of games I played came from rentals and none of these games were good enough to ask for as my annual NES game. I always saw Donkey Kong Classics as maybe the very first Player's Choices/Greatest Hits titles. Much like how late in the NES library they re-issued Zelda 1, Zelda 2 in standard gray carts, Punch-Out came out without Mike Tyson and Metroid got that beuaitful yellow label.

[@ArnoldOldSchool]

We had Mickey on the farm in 89-90ish and even as 7 year olds we thought it was lame! Your analysis is spot on.... yet stuff like Wrestlemania still entertained us for hours.

[@joshfacio9379]

this game was brutal, but after many hours back in the day i beat it and learned to use minnie to destroy anything on the upper levels getting her on the ladder just right and putting her up there to shoot away, worked well since minnie was invincible.

[@HPRshredder]

Hudson continue to be the ultimate trolls of the NES era. Veeeerrrry sneaky, Hudson.

[@aaronsacks9262]

DK Classics was my version, that orange gives me the heaviest nostalgia

[@DavetheTurnip]

I never get tired of your knowledge and insight when it comes to these videos 😃

[@bryanjensen2614]

When I was younger I figured there wasn't enough space to fit DK3 or Mario Bros on the cartridge but now after seeing this we were ripped off.

[@Fluoride_Jones]

+Bryan Jensen And, to this day, Nintendo is STILL ripping us off!

[@jasonblalock4429]

Hah, funny, I was also so put off by Mickey Mousecapade that it kept me away from Capcom's later Disney games for awhile. For that matter, I wasn't a huge fan of Capcom in general. Most of their early releases were mediocre enough that, as a kid, I didn't think they were anything special. Not until I played Mega Man 2 a couple years later, anyway.

[@danhester4408]

I kind of like the way then when Mickey and Minnie take damage, they turn to face directly towards the player, breaking the 4th wall and do a little syncronized pain display animation. True love!

[@picc9000]

Thank you for mentioning the incredibly obscure Return of Donkey Kong. It's such an intriguing mystery to me. I played Mickey Mousecapade a lot but never made it past the woods as a kid. I sold it off as I outgrew it. The pull of nostalgia was too strong though and I re-bought it this past weekend at a con.

[@mcorivervsaf]

Nice video. The only minor change in Donkey Kong Classics, from my observation, is that in the Donkey Kong port, Mario has a lower pitched sound effect when jumping. Other than that, it’s the same as it’s standalone release.

[@palmsk123]

Dame that Mario on the thumbnail is like he’s holding a gun

[@ArcaneAzmadi]

Your observation about how back in the NES era you could look at the games that were coming out and see generational leaps unfolding before your eyes, and how that's not something you can ever see any more today, struck a chord with me. Kids these days don't know how unlucky they are, growing up in a gaming industry where "next gen" means "marginally more polygons that you really won't notice and marginally improved lighting effects that only affects gams with hyper-realistic graphics anyway". They'll never understand what it was like watching the generations turning and gaming evolving before our eyes, from NES to SNES to N64 to Gamecube to Wii and beyond (and that's only a single company!). No matter how much more advanced modern tech is, today's gaming will just never be even a fraction as _exciting_ as it was when I was a boy.

[@SlyBeast]

TMNT? Child's play. Ninja Gaiden? Easy. Mickey Mousecapade here is the toughest game on the NES, bar none.

[@Syntox]

Where else have I heard the music in the Mickey Mouse game???? Someone tell me, it's gonna torture me for all my days

[@NoxiousLynx]

i played mickey mousecapede back in the day as a kid and i remember enjoying it, probably never got too far but it was ok

[@keness4768]

Mousecapade was great. One of my first games for the system back in the day, as it was reccomended by a friend.

[@changkwangoh]

When we made it to the ocean it was a cause for celebration!

[@user-xo4qy1jm7m]

My dad picked up DK Classics at Venture since he liked the arcade game. I honestly knew very few people who had an original DK or DK Jr cartridge, so I think for quite a few of us this was a "new" game that had more obvious value to it. I was excited as a kid to get two games and the box art was cute. I had Mickey Mousecapades and me and my friends always got frustrated with the forest "maze". It's not that hard, but I just hate stuff like that in any game. Honestly, most of my memories of that game were us messing with each other because the second controller also worked in it.

[@jorymil]

Venture! I miss zebra-colored stores :-)

[@dendroleon]

i can't believe i'm feeling nostalgic for mickey mousecapade. i guess it's because *you're* playing, and not me.

[@burner9147]

I love your videos man I was so happy as kid and these send me right back

[@rameybutler6555]

btw the who framer roger rabbit clip is right before donald call daffy duck a very innapropiate word.

[@Fluoride_Jones]

Mr. Parrish, I love your videos. They hit me right in the feels. I'll be purchasing your new book, and the re-release(s) of the older volumes. By the time I discovered your channel, they were sold out, so I'm very happy to see they'll be available again. Also, I love your cheesy puns. :D

[@jbanks979]

Was a fan of Mickey Mousecapades (never owned but friends had and rented from blockbuster) It was easy enough for 7 year old me to beat, but I can distinctly remember calling the Nintendo power hotline to get through the insane third stage

[@SpadesNoir]

Great vid as always! Donkey Kong Classics is one of those games I'd like to have on my shelf if only because of how weird its existance is.

[@MissAshley42]

Oh, the music in Mickey Mousecapade makes much more sense knowing it's from Hudson. Also, I should pick up a copy of NES Millipede sometime since I rarely see the arcade in the wild compared to Centipede.

[@baardbi]

I'm guessing Disney wasn't too happy about the Mickey sprites, since Mickey Mouse is always supposed to be drawn with both ears visible at all times.

[@PaulSoth]

The history of home ports of Donkey Kong is quite the ride.

[@RewindArcade]

Great video!! I knew about the differences between the US and JP versions, but was not aware it was published in Japan by Hudson. The Japanese title, Adventures in Wonderland, I guess sort of hinted at Alice’s inclusion in the game.

[@CalaveraCandy]

The localization differences in this game have been a baffling mystery to me since downloading the Japanese rom over 20 years ago. Peter Pan's Capt. Hook is replaced by Pete. But then Alice's Dodo is replaced by Peter Pan's crocodile? Almost every Disney character was replaced with a different Disney character. It's a question of why that has confused me for years because I seem to be the only one who is interested.

[@wayner396]

Mom bought this for me when i was little. It was really hard but for some crazy reason i enjoyed it and eventually brute forced my way to the end after months of playing.

[@Adamwinters]

Kingdom Hearts Zero Mission (it even has those giant keys)

[@shenanitims4006]

Hell, I watched this video specifically for Mickey Mouscapade! I loved that game whenever my cousins would rent it. (I think they rented it twice. Don’t remember if I actually finished it, but I’m rather convinced that I did.)

[@houseofmeditation8945]

An excellent informative series that I just stumbled upon today. You sir, have earned my sub!

[@johnleecooper8520]

joust has a very cool aesthetic and interesting player controller

[@leecorrigan8394]

I remember renting Mickey Mousecapade when I was like 5 or 6, good times, I remember it being super hard

[@leecorrigan8394]

I also had a 42 combo cartridge that had a lot of these arcade ports, joust was super fun and I spent hours playing battle city and b-wings, no idea where my dad found that cartridge. It was super weird, it was a double cartridge that attached in the middle and had a blue ribbon so when you took it out of the nes it didn't come apart

[@Toad64]

Oh, interesting to see that Joust did actually play better on 7800. I've always thought that version was better than the NES, but I just chalked it up to being the one I had as a kid so it was the one I was used to!

[@Dark.Shingo]

Thanks to modders for reinstating the cement factory stage in the NES game!

[@chaseman94]

I had bought Mickey Mousecapade for B-Day back in June 1989 two months after I got my NES and I hated it. So much so I buried the cartridge in the snow when winter came around. All summer I tried to give it a chance even with the stage select codes provided in the instruction manual ( Thank you Capcom for that) but I said to hell with this game. I think I traded that game to someone in middle school for something else once I dug it out of the snow and it still worked. I was staying with my dad that summer he bought me Donkey Kong Classics, Super Mario Bros. 2 , and he was trying to convince me to buy Adventures of Bayou Billy but I chose Zelda 2 instead. I got frustrated with Zelda 2 because my 11 year old self couldn't attack Iron Knuckle because he kept blocking me with his shield in the 1st palace so I told my dad I didn't want this anymore so he returned it back to Sears where he worked at. Later that year I ended up renting Adventures of Bayou Bill and well we all know by now how Konami turned up the difficulty compared to the Famicom version of this game.

[@JetstreamGW]

"... The Return of Donkey Kong... never materialized..." I mean, you _could_ argue that Rare eventually delivered for them with the _Donkey Kong Country_ series.

[@MiguelPaulettePerez-bj8ml]

I'm one of those weirdos that has only played the 7800 version of Joust....

[@juicybear1986]

I actually really liked Mickey Mousecapade as a kid. I remember thinking it was awesome. That opinion has changed but i do still enjoy the game.

[@staguar]

I remember renting the Mickey Mouse game and getting stuck on the first level. It's up there with Rocket Ranger for disappointing rental experiences

[@TanookiSuit]

So so true about DK Classics and I've always disliked it never had DK3 included, it's such a great game, but given the space sure they being stingy I don't think would have done the proper DK release that came way late, but they could have at least stuffed in DK Jr Math just to have all 4 NES Kong's in the space.

[@wolf397]

"Mickey Mouse?"

[@jeffcox6539]

When I was a kid I my dad rented this from the video store and my brother thought I was playing two players by myself. Never could beat Pete.

[@Dystnine]

I like how the Japanese version of Mousecapades had an Alice in Wonderland theme. The other kept the Disney characters like TikTok Croc. Unsure Capcom's odd ball choice. So I guess seeing Pete as a boss made sense, since Pete and Mickey are rivals. Japan also had a ton of Disney games by Kemco where one became Kid Clown. Dunno how the Country Bears were a threat to the duo though lol. Maybe mad because their animatronic show was closed down around that time?

[@Choralone422]

I remember renting Mickey Mousecapade shortly after it was released and thinking to myself "Why is a Disney game so darn hard!?" Thankfully it didn't turn me off to future Capcom Disney games on the NES as I really enjoyed Duck Tales, Rescue Rangers and so on. Also, even as a kid I noticed how the NES went through multiple generations of games during its life. It's fairly unique in how it evolved so much. Pretty much every game console has games that look & sound better later in it's life or are more complex, usually due to increases in ROM storage. But the NES went through a number of paradigm shifts during it's time on the market. Looking back now it's easy to overlook those evolutions and interpret the early NES/Famicom games as being primitive w/o realizing that sans mapper chips and other enhancements those early games were pushing the system as hard as they could.

[@jorymil]

We really got two or three different console generations with the NES as newer mappers came out. SMB vs. Zelda vs. Mario 3 were all huge shifts. And there was even better stuff that I missed out on, like the later Dragon Warrior games, Lagrange Point, and Earthbound Beginnings.

[@chaospoet]

I picked up Mickey Mousecapades 5 or 6 years ago for I believe $3. It was the famicom version. I actually didn't know, until a little while after, that there was a NES version. I thought it was some Japanese only Capcom Disney game. So I bought it thinking it was going to be awesome. Yeah. I got to level 2 and those jumps made me quit and I haven't returned to it. When you see Capcom and Disney and think stuff like Ducktales, Chip and Dale, and Darkwing Duck and that is what you're expecting it makes for a massive disappointment.

[@EriChanTheRetroGamerNerd]

Mickey Mousecapade was the first video game I ever beat. Because of that, for a long time I thought (the US version at least) was easy. Also because of it and Ducktales for a long time I associated Capcom with kid's games... Then Street Fighter II came out.

[@MattHall]

I played Mousecapade so much as a child. Never made it past stage three.

[@dumpnchase]

I have Donkey Kong with the cement factory level on my 3DS. I got it as a bonus when I bought another game (Don’t remember which game might have been a professor Layton title).

[@JeremyParish]

Yeah, they put that version together for an exclusive for some specific preloaded Wii console bundle, then as a very limited preorder on 3DS.

[@dumpnchase]

@@JeremyParish I bought whatever game it was specifically for the cement factory.

[@demonpugo]

I think I’m crazy for defender II on nes being my favorite version. I never liked the arcades button thrusters. I never did like the normal d-pad for it either. I used to play this with the advantage knock off quickshot. I’ve never been able to get those break neck direction changes without some kind of joystick.

[@jeremiahthomas8140]

There are a lot of good ports of Joust out there. In addition to the NES and 7800 ports, I think the 5200, Lynx, and yes the 2600 ports are all great.

[@oaf-77]

2:21 I forgot Disney even had a Witch Hazel. I just remember the Looney Tunes Character

[@ginormousaurus8394]

Both Witch Hazels were voiced by June Foray.

[@oaf-77]

@@ginormousaurus8394 june foray was one of the greats

[@zachadams4310]

I broke out NES Joust for the first time since probably 1995 (when Digital Eclipse did their first PC release of Williams games and I could just play the arcade version) and it's a much worse port than I remember. It's missing all the "special" waves except the Egg Wave (no Survival Waves, Teamwork Waves or Pterodactyl Waves), the "hold B for Turbo Flap" might as well be called the Suicide Button, and it's just WEIRD. I played the hell out of it as a kid and teen because it was the only version I had access to of my favorite old arcade game, but today I'd probably be happier with the 2600 or Gsme Boy versions because at least they're different enough to feel "new" instead of "wrong"

[@ginormousaurus8394]

Nintendo could have included Donkey Kong 3 in Donkey Kong Classics, but it was always the odd one out of the series. It wasn't as commercially successful as the previous two games, Mario wasn't in it, and it played more like a shoot 'em up than a platformer.

[@videogameobsession]

Joust is good, but once my brother and I started playing BALLOON FIGHT, in 1986, we rarely went back to playing Joust.

[@JeremyParish]

Some people get real, real mad if you say this, but it's correct.

[@Launchpad05]

Actually, the US version of 'Mickey Mousecapade' replaces The Queen Of Hearts with Maleficent.

[@Wair18]

I really liked this game as a kid. I actually beat it too.

[@MrMegaManFan]

(Insert obligatory Game Grumps reference here.)

[@Sonikkua]

I had this game as a kid and while objectively it's average at best, I'll always have a soft nostalgic spot for it. Play it maybe once a year.

[@2yoyoyo1Unplugged]

Oi, don’t talk mess about Kingdom Hearts. It’s OUR incoherent trainwreck.

[@jeromeellsworth1320]

Was "Minnie Game" a deliberate pun? If so, excellent work

[@rodneylives]

Good job as always!