The game starts off with you controlling Mickey, and Minnie tagging along behind you. You aren’t given any specific story or goal, but, as there’s a door in front of you with the word “Key” and an arrow pointing towards it, and you can’t go through it, one would quickly figure out your first goal probably has something to do with finding a key for that door. Hey, it’s a start. At the very beginning you’ll have no way to attack enemies, so, for a moment you’ll just have to avoid them as you make your way along. Shortly thereafter you’ll come across a star hidden in a treasure chest, which will now allow you to shoot stars that defeat the enemies, which makes things much easier. As you move, you control Mickey, and Minnie follows along behind you. Minnie doesn’t actually do anything, other than serve as a bit of an annoyance. Since your controls affect both Mickey and Minnie, and Minnie is behind you, you’ll have more than a few instances where you’ll start to climb a ladder and Minnie won’t have been in the right place to follow you, and so she’s left on the floor below and you’ll have to go back down and try again. You can’t progress to the next screen without Minnie close behind you, so, you’ll have to keep her along. There is an enemy you’ll come across who will steal Minnie away, hiding her in a room, which actually makes things easier for a bit, but since you need her before you can exit one level and proceed to the next, you’ll have to find her eventually.
In any event, you as Mickey, with Minnie tagging along behind or stuck in a room somewhere, start to make your way through the house that you find yourself in. You’ll be attacked by a variety of enemies, who you can fend off with your shooting stars. You’ll also find a number of candle holders which you can shoot with your stars, which will then disappear and sometimes leave behind cake or something to give you health. Also hidden in the rooms will be random spots, with no particular indication to them, that if you shoot them will also yield hidden bonuses. As you make your way through the house, you’ll pass through a number of rooms in a maze-like manner, and eventually come across a boss guarding a treasure chest. After defeating it, you’ll find the chest, which contains the key to the door you saw at the beginning. Heading back there, and finding Minnie if you lost her, you can then pass through the door and make your way to the next level. The levels are fairly well-designed and with good variety to them, not just flat walls but wood paneling and windows and sky with clouds and such, and there are a number of interesting enemies you’ll come across as well. The music isn’t anything too special, but it’s decent enough.
There are five levels in all, and they all play basically similar to that. Find stuff, avoid or kill enemies, and make your way through the levels, while not letting Minnie get too lost. Some levels focus more on maze aspects, while others just on more normal platforming aspects, jumping and shooting. It’s not a very deep game, you can easily beat it in around an hour. While you can die if you get hit too much, there’s usually enough hidden health around for that to not really be all that much of an issue. It’s not that it’s too easy, just that it’s not that much of a challenge. Still though, it’s a pretty fun game, and there are actually quite a number of little hidden things around, so, even once you beat it, there still might have missed a few things here and there.
The main problem with the game would be Minnie. It just really seems like she’s tacked in there, as if they really had no use for her but were under directions to include her in the action or something. She doesn’t really serve any purpose, and gets in the way more than anything else. A better option would seem to be to have a two-player mode where the second player could control Minnie, and not to include her otherwise. Or, at least to have her shoot or give health or do anything useful at all. As it is, you’ll just spend your time making sure she goes where she’s supposed to, and when she gets captured, finding her again.
While the game’s not too long or challenging, it’s still fun to wander around, shoot stuff and see if you missed anything, or just play around. There isn’t really much new or challenging to do once you beat the game. You get points for killing enemies, so, if you want you can try to get a higher score, or see how far you can go without dying, or whatever. That’s about it though, basically it’s just the same game every time through. Nonetheless though, it still is pretty fun to just sit down and play through the game, no matter how many times you’ve beat it.
If you’re just looking for an interesting game starring Mickey, as well as Minnie and a number of other characters from the world of Disney, it has that of course. While there were a number of areas it could’ve improved in, it still ends up being fun. It’s not exactly a complex game by any means, nor is it full of deep gameplay, but still, it has enough interesting stuff to do, and a decent enough core to it, that even if one isn’t all that interested in watching Mickey and Minnie run around, it’s still a fairly good game in its own right.
Gameplay: 7/10
Graphics/Sound: 6/10
Length/Replay: 5/10
Overall: 6/10