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VGR: Disney's TaleSpin
From Capcom
Played on Nes
Also available on Game Boy
Type SHMUP
Not dissing the show, but adapting TaleSpin was when Capcom started reaching out for further game based on Disney proprieties.
This Nes title is based around the now cult popular TaleSpin cartoon, starring a bunch of Jungle Book characters in the world of aviation and old aircrafts.
The cartoon only ran for a season (from 1990-1991), it was... fairly decent even it originally wasn't as popular as the duck-starring shows.
It came logically after both previous fantastic Disney/Capcom collaborations that were Chip 'n' Dale and DuckTales. That's a lot to live up right there.
Don't mistake this one for Sega's adaptation of the show on their own systems.
TaleSpin stars Baloo - a bear - as an airplane pilot, and several other cartoon animals.
It takes place in Cape Suzette.
The cartoon usually revolves around these various harbors.
Baloo has a small business, "Baloo's Air Service". He works for for Rebecca Cunningham who sends him to these various missions to pay the bill.
He is helped along by his sidekick Kit Cloudkicker.
They usually end up fighting against other aircrafts.
And the series seems taking place in 1930s.
For some reason the game doesn't follow the above all that much.
Baloo is tasked to deliver some cargoes all over the world.
Forget the harbors and flights over canyons.
Instead the levels will take Baloo from the usual harbor city to a stadium (!), the clouds, a giant haunted house (!?), a city, a creepy cave (?), a jungle and finally a snowy mountain top.
The enemies are mostly composed of Don Karnage and his air pirates, as well as other minions of the evil Shere Khan.
Oh, and for some reason, lots of robots. Loads of 'em. And most boss battles are against giant mechanical machines and other mechas.
The game plays like an old school shmup (aka a Shoot 'em up).
But it's not your typical R-Type clone, sort of closer to the old Fantasy Zone titles from Sega, only more linear.
The screen is constantly moving.
You play as Baloo in his chibi-ified plane. You can shoot with one button.
The other is used to "spin it"!
That's right, Baloo will reverse is plane backwards - literally.
They didn't even bother making a little animation of the plan spinning and then having a sprite looking to the left. The plane is simply turned over a 180° degrees backward. Upside-down.
Which is the main gameplay element.
You are able that way to avoid getting killed outside the screen or stuck somewhere in-between elements.
But then the screen starts moving backwards.
So getting around narrow path is a real piece of work sometimes...
There's also some hit detections problems. It's not as tight and precise as you'd expect from a shmup.
The game is no doubt still running on the same Mega-Man engine as most 8-bit games from Capcom.
Which wasn't really made for non-platformer games.
But the problem lies with the fact that Capcom probably rushed this game to tie-in with the show (who ended shortly after its release) and that they aren't shmup experts to begin with.
They didn't make many of those. (unlike, say, Namco or Sega)
The game seems to take various scrapped elements from past titles.
Take the giant haunted house for example... Isn't that some leftover from one of the Chip'N'Dale games?
And all those giant robotic bosses, aren't they from Mega Man?
There's also some segments that seem more appropriate had this been a platformer on foot and not a flying shooter...
The game has this big impression of wanting to be a TaleSpin game running on spare parts...
Bonus Stages can be found around each level.
You can actually shoot all over the place and invisible items will usually appear. And if you find the very secret places where to hit right - usually near the beginning or before the boss - a door will open up.
There you play as Kit flying on his airfoil. Just collecting balloons filled with more items.
The perfect way to obtain more lives.
In-between levels you can buy upgrades from Wildcat.
Faster shots, a faster plane, more lives and continues,...
The game is about 8 stages long.
The levels aren't that long either, and even the bosses don't take that many hits (about a dozen~).
But the game's hard, yo!
Like, really difficult.
The problem is that there's often loads of enemies, firing all over the screen.
And I played some "real shmups".
But the gameplay here...
The whole spinning the plane is difficult to master. And the screen scrolling isn't really cooperative.
Sometimes the plane doesn't react instantaneously leading to many deaths...
I advise buying the rapid shot quickly, the engine and then focusing on lives.
You'll need plenty of those!
The game has a lot of annoying little segments where you might get stuck.
The bosses aren't that hard to hit... but it's harder to survive the coming onslaught of their various simultaneous patterns.
And checkpoints usually are only found mid-way, not before the boss zones.
Overall, my main problem with this one is how randomly put together it seems.
The game is actually quite decent.
It starts...okay, later levels are quite lovely looking actually.
The music is actually pretty damn' good.
Typical 8-bit Capcom. Meaning sometimes the games or levels might not be as fun, but you can always count on the music.
Composed here by Minae Fujii (Mega Man 4, 10, DuckTales 2 & Captain Commando).
The gameplay could certainly be a bit better.
It doesn't react well, it' below most generic shmups of the time.
If it wasn't a TaleSpin tie-in I doubt any people would have liked it...
But like I said, the game as an overall feel like it was left unfinished, unpolished.
The game is actually quite decent.
It starts...okay, later levels are quite lovely looking actually.
The music is actually pretty damn' good.
Typical 8-bit Capcom. Meaning sometimes the games or levels might not be as fun, but you can always count on the music.
Composed here by Minae Fujii (Mega Man 4, 10, DuckTales 2 & Captain Commando).
The gameplay could certainly be a bit better.
It doesn't react well, it' below most generic shmups of the time.
If it wasn't a TaleSpin tie-in I doubt any people would have liked it...
But like I said, the game as an overall feel like it was left unfinished, unpolished.
I give it:
I never really liked this game. It reminded me of that Super Mario Land stage with plane but lamer.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the moving screen is a real pain in the *** to manage...
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