At this point, I'm just gonna pretend we've already gone over how awesome all the Capcom
Disney games were. Because frankly, we have. In, like, many reviews. I mean, for my tastes,
there may have never been a more fruitful partnership in gaming than that of Capcom,
the makers of Mega Man, and Disney, the makers of my childhood dreams.
And teenage flashbacks. And...adulthood, well, you get the idea.
I really like TaleSpin.
So here's the thing, though. In addition to doing some of the best NES games ever, Capcom
brought a lot of those games...to the Game Boy. And the impressive thing is just how
close the Game Boy versions are to those NES classics. I mean, seriously, check out our
reviews of the NES and Game Boy versions of Darkwing Duck. It's crazy. It's ridiculous
how much of the experience they were able to recreate on the Game Boy.
And it's the same story...with TaleSpin.
So you play as Baloo the Bear. And yes, for those unfamiliar with TaleSpin, that's the
same Baloo from the movie, The Jungle Book. See, back in the nineties, Disney did this
thing where they'd take a group of characters...and place them in a new setting, for a television
series. TaleSpin was one of those. And then Capcom made games based on them, so.
I mean, it was a win-win situation.
Anyway, in TaleSpin, Baloo is a pilot. And that's what Capcom used to make their TaleSpin
game...a different game, than their other Disney games. Where games like Rescue Rangers
and DuckTales and Darkwing Duck were platformers...TaleSpin is a flight game. I'd call it a shoot 'em
up, but...you kind of need more than one bullet to be a shoot 'em up.
That's part of the deal. If you want to shoot 'em up.
So here's how it works. You fly around, you collect stuff...you shoot stuff. But more
often than not, you really just avoid stuff. One of the defining elements of TaleSpin is...you
can only have one bullet on the screen at a given time. So once you shoot, you can't
shoot again until your prior shot hits something. Or goes off the screen.
And as infuriating as that can be...it does make the game feel unique. Thing is, much
as you might want to, you can't really play this like you would a traditional shoot 'em
up flight game.
Because it just isn't one.
Another unique thing about TaleSpin is that...the scrolling isn't automatic. Which is to say,
you can go backwards. And this was actually kind of groundbreaking for the time. You could
actually flip your plane upside down...and fly back the way you came. To the left. And
that was a stark contrast to most 2D flight games at the time, in which the screen was
scrolling to the right automatically. So...there was some interesting stuff happening in TaleSpin.
And actually, what I think is really cool about this game...is how, even though it's
a totally different genre than Capcom's previous Disney games, it still has the same feel.
The game's design has the same Mega Man-light blueprint, that defines its predecessors.
The enemies have that Mega Man look, and the levels progress basically the same way. You
have these individual areas, that eventually lead to a boss battle against some cool-looking
robot.
So despite playing totally differently, it still feels like a Capcom Disney game.
Even on the Game Boy.
And I guess that's the take-home lesson for a lot of Capcom's Disney games. They were
amazing...even on the Game Boy. Now, obviously, if you do have to choose...TaleSpin is a better
game on the NES. But it's a great Game Boy game, too. And you know, it's another testament
to its platform. Despite that awful puke-green screen, the Game Boy was an impressive piece
of hardware that could do some pretty cool things.
Even flying upside down.
It's TaleSpin, for the original Game Boy.
And a big thanks to our friend Uli from Germany for sending it in. Via airplane.
Hope it didn't fly upside down.