Disney’s little critters might have had a short live animated series in the late 80s/early 90s, but they had a better long run with this game.
Overview
Back in the late 80s, Disney had a cable block of cartoon shows for young kids in the afternoons, which would feature revivals of their favorite lovable cartoons in modern day form. Chip n’ Dale was one of them and got an added title to put out with them, “Rescue Rangers”. During its brief stint, it was very popular. So much that Walt Disney came knocking on Capcom’s door to help produce a video game version of the lovable chipmunks’ adventures.
The story first revolves around finding a neighbor’s missing cat. After finishing up that, you find out a crew member of your team has been kidnap, the female mouse handy in making machines, named Gadget. One of their most known infamous bad guys, Fat Cat, is behind that ordeal. Now, its Chip and Dale to the rescue!!! Yes, but can they save the game?
Graphics 6/10
Chip and Dale don’t have that many differences other then there signature attire. Their stages are what you find in normal towns: An alley, a diner, trees, libraries, rooftops, toy stores, and whatnot. Yeah, the areas are generic, but seeing how small your player is, everything is their world is a dangerous road.
Even the little things like turning a water faucet off or fast moving fans showoff some nice detail and provide some sick twisted elements for you must pass them to reach the end. A few things that got to me was how some stages were setup in weird layouts and some outside places were nothing but one color in the background like black or blue.
Gameplay/Controls 7/10
Considering this was on the original NES, there would be little stuff to work with. The chipmunks didn’t really have special powers themselves, but hurling crates wasn’t too bad as a skill. They could also hide inside them to wait for the enemy to unwittingly hurt it. Although, I never understood the physics of how walking into a plain wooden box would result in flying out of the screen, it was a kids’ game, nothing needs to make sense. Several items like apples and various other square objects are able to be picked up as well for some different use of purpose.
Power-ups are scattered and hidden around the game. Capturing one hundred flowers boxes or ten stars boxes gave you an extra life, which can be view on how many you have by pressing select. Finding acorns to fill up one’s energy, it was all simple principal. Inside the special big boxes usually would be Zipper, a small fly that could instantly knock out all the enemies for you, making the player temporary untouchable and is really the only useful member in the game. If cheese is founded, Monterey Jack will appear in his hypnotic crack addict trance of smelling it, ripping openings for you to get to the next portion of the stage. Gadget also comes in during breaks to give out hints and tips as well as, sometimes, unneeded info you could have done without.
Each game is populated with many familiar baddies from the actual cartoon series episodes, like the metal robot dog or Fat Cat’s minions. The main bad guys, like the memorable pet grabbing machine, all have a reusable red solid ball for you to throw at them and that can be quite the test. All stages, some which have no bosses, end with a nice relaxing short bonus round to collect cool rewards. The controls are so fast to get use to, it’s not even funny. Button A is to jump and B was to pick up items and throw at the enemies. Of course, you will need to learn how to throw the items upward as many of the bosses will require you to do that to damage them.
Sound/Music 6/10
The sound bites in the game isn’t the big a list, but they were easy on the ear drums. The item throwing, getting hurt by the enemy, and clocking the enemy, is what you will most remember of the sound effects.
A license game cannot be without their theme song and this adaptation has it. After that, it’s all music playing for several seconds and looping back to play the same beat over again, which isn’t annoying. The boss theme is an alluring interesting track and really gets you into the heat of the fight. The very brief jingles, like when you die or complete a stage is sort of cool, too. The bonus round song is darn right catchy as well.
Replay Value 3/10
Unless you are still in elementary school and under ten years old, you won’t find it as hard to get through or wanting to try this game out again after you complete it. You can go back to it when you enter the two player mode just for the mere fact that both players can get in each others’ faces like pushing your teammate off a cliff, throwing crates at them, or using him as a catapult object. However, playing this when you are older you’ll realize it pretty quick to beat and finish.
Overall 3/10
When you hear “Chip n’ Dale” most people will think male dancers or a cartoon duo made by Disney. Kids of the later generation will think of them their days as “Rescue Rangers” and will know about video game that was made for it. Capcom did a great job putting this onto the 8-bit screen.
To get or rent this and still have a useable regular Nintendo system is to go back to it to get a quick whiff of nostalgia for old time sake. It helps if you were a fan of the afternoon cartoon show, but it also helps in you were the same young kid you were when you played it the first time.
- By Mr. Boombada
