Completion Time: 4h:54m:00s
Rating: 2/10

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An Utter Slog

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Just gonna come out and say, I was surprisingly not a fan of this game. I'll get more into the details later, of course, I just had to get that out there immediately. But even still, that's why I like this little project of mine, and why I appreciate the site's bounty system so much. I would've never endured a game like this otherwise. But I've done worse, especially in the licensed category. It isn't as if that Dora title was super pleasant either. So at any rate, time to get into Disney's foray into the stealth genre! Kinda...

Yabba Dabba Doo!

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Sneakers... for Sneaking!

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So get this: Mickey and Minnie are on a hike hunting for mushrooms, and they come across a giant mushroom that just so happens to be a neutrally-aligned mushroom alien that got beaned in the head by a comet and crashed to Earth. It proceeds to accidentally kidnap Minnie (or Mickey, depending on who you choose to play as), and sprinkles villainous UFO blobs all over the place that you need to sneak past in order to reach your partner and end the game. Got all that? Good, because that's the story and the game is hellbent on sticking to it. It's pretty bizarre, but the mushroom was a misunderstood alien critter the whole time, so now we can all be friends or something. Love it!

Hey, now that we're friends: remember that one time you pummeled me? That was kinda messed up

Except no, I don't really love it. The biggest issue with this game is that it equates "stealth" as a mechanic to slow and tedious. The default movement option is to creep along, so that you can avoid the entities floating around the forest and museum and things, and you press B to run. But the actual sneaking isn't well thought out in the slightest. Just stay behind them as you creep along and you'll be fine. There are hiding spots such as inside urns and on top of boxes, but you'll almost never need to use any of those. The name of the game is to creep around, regardless of whether you're Mickey or Minnie. At least, that's what I thought at first. You see, you getting caught by enemies thankfully isn't the end of the world, or less dramatically, a restart of the stage. Instead, the mechanic is so poorly thought out, you can just run basically everywhere and when the enemies sense you, they might just chase you a little bit until you exit the room or can jump on a box or something. No consequences other than worrying about buggy hitboxes. And sure, other games that prioritize sneaking around usually treat that as an option and will allow you to go in guns blazing if you wish. But that isn't this game, this is "sneak around and solve puzzles" the game. And without sneaking, what is it? Just a puzzle game, really.

I sure hope he doesn't turn around and see me meandering behind him!

Speaking of puzzles, there's no real common thread between them. In the first level of three (yes, three levels), the warehouse, there's a puzzle you reach where you need to pull levers in a certain order to maneuver hooks around that you can use to swing to the next portion of the level. The game even has a little mini-tutorial to teach you this concept. After this puzzle, do you ever pull another lever again? Nope. That applies to the rest of them too. There's no variation on an existing puzzle concept but more complex, they're all one and done, drag and drop ideas. Because there was an awareness here that they were grasping at straws when it came to designing the game. And that doesn't even account for the final "puzzle", which is a static screen in front of your partner and the mushroom (named Lu-Lu) while you play three rounds of Simon Says. Boring and pointless.

What a riveting final boss that I had to do four times (I'll get to that)

If there's anything that the game almost has going for it, it's the special tricks you can perform. Now, it isn't something that Mickey and Minnie can do whenever they want, you have to be at a designated point in an area with a varying amount of stars to perform it (oh yeah, you collect stars to perform special actions in the game). These are special acts that kickoff a small cutscene while they perform these death-defying acts of daring do to defeat an enemy or make their way across a gap or whatever it may be. And there's fun ideas here, Mickey gets to be angry and conniving in a way he wasn't allowed to be for a very long while. The problem is just that there's very few of these, and aside from shaking things up a bit with a short video, it isn't like they're introducing any extra gameplay or puzzles or anything. Just neat little concepts that don't go anywhere. Also, sidebar for that topic before showing off some images of these tricks, this game treats Minnie as a hapless klutz that can't accomplish anything unless she hallucinates Mickey telling her she can. Is that a proper characterization? I not claiming Minnie was a super proactive character or anything, but it still feels wrong. She just trips and falls her way through everything. There is a bit where she starts dancing at the end and I'm like "yeah, that's more like the Minnie I know!"... what am I even talking about at this point?

Seriously, look at how sinister he is here!

In spite of everything, I am happy that Minnie gets to dance

Mickey pilots a barrel gundam...

...while Minnie envisions a pile of garbage as her shining knight

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Completing the Game

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I ended up playing through the entirety of this game four times. FOUR! Only one is necessary for beating the game, either as Mickey or Minnie, as mentioned earlier. But if you want to complete things, that's a different matter altogether. I mentioned those special attacks earlier, and whenever you perform one, it plays a little cutscene for that action. Well, back in the Extras menu, there's a section for the videos that you've unlocked. Yep, these filter into that menu whenever you perform one of those special tricks. Therefore, it acts as a collectable. But some of those tricks, secret as they are, can be easily missed. And there's no level select or anything like that, so unless you know exactly what each action to act on and when, your first playthrough is foobar.

I know, stop it! I've played this three times now!

Luckily, if you're aware of this beforehand, you can learn what all is needed in your playthrough as the other character, because their special actions occur in the exact same locations (even if the cutscenes play out differently). Me, however? I played Mickey and then Minnie back to back before I was even aware that the videos were a thing. So yeah, I had to go through Mickey twice and Minnie twice. No level select, no skipping cutscenes, no bypassing the tutorial, no ANYTHING! And that was truly miserable. But hey, I bring it on myself, in a way.

Another benefit of these blogs: long-lasting proof that I bring all of this on myself

Don't play this, as if I need to tell anyone that. There's nothing to be gained from the experience, and I'm happy that it's now out of my bucket of things to play and write about it.

This is another entry in a series where I go through and complete every GameCube game, as it is the largest part of my video game collection. GameCube Games: 52/652