Previous Next

Such is the low intelligence of cartoon characters, when Mickey and Minnie decide to go to the circus and it isn't there as expected they figure there's a mystery to be found somewhere. It doesn't occur to them that the intro sequence shows Mickey apologising for being so late and that it could have just moved on. Oh no, there's a fiendish reason behinds its disappearance somewhere deduces Minnie.

Thus, a-leaping and a-running, Mickey and Minnie traverse Capcom's platformfest, changing into an assortment of designer outfits left to aid their sleuthing and bouncing on more bosses than a company secretary at an office Christmas party. Our greatest mystery about circuses, though, is what do teenage girls find so fascinating about the blokes who work on the bumper cars? I mean, sleeveless T-shirts and armpit hair down to their toes is hardly the stuff Mills 'n Boon write about is it...

Blah, blah, blah, 65 year-old rodent, guffaw, blah, blah, you know all this already, blah.

Work out why the circus has gone. Apparently.

Punctuating the levels are a series of marked blocks. These act for the most part as platforms, but others have other useful properties. In the time-honoured tradition, these include:

1. Grey Blocks:
   Yer basic, run-of-the-mill, ordinary platforms.
2. Gold Blocks:
   Climb on 'em or throw 'em - the decision is yours.
3. Red Blocks:
   Same as the gold ones, but reappear after use.
4. Swing Blocks:
   Use these to... yes, swing, to a higher plane.
5. Time Blocks:
   Freeze the timer, funnily enough.
6. Star Blocks:
   When thrown, these zing around the screen for ages, killing all in their path.
7. Arrow Blocks:
   Moves in the direction of the arrow.
8. Treasure Boxes:
   Goodies galore when the ring is pulled. Young man!

Mick and Min bump into a few of their equally-old cartoon chums along the way, and are offered a variety of costumes to help them on their way. The collected outfits can be worn at any time, and the rodent duo modestly change behind a handy curtain - thankfully, as I'd hate to think what a pensionable mouse's bum looks like, and here we have our models wearing...

1. Sweeper
   From the Donald Duck collection, this beautifully tailored blue suit comes with a handy vacuum cleaner which is handy for sucking up bad guys. Extra batteries line the route for maximum fashion efficiency.
2. Safari
   Safari, so goodie as Christopher Biggins used to say. When he was working and not allegedly nicking batteries. With hooks attached to the lovely khaki cuffs, these make climbing vertical inclines and swinging from conveniently-placed circlets a cinch.
3. Western
   Including a full hobby-horse and pop gun ensemble, these crucial cowboy clobbers also endow our heroes with fast-paced running skills - also known as 'The Desperado Dash'. Well, we did warn them about the beans...

As Disney things are a licence to print money, everyone wants a slice of the action. This rubs shoulders with Mickey Mania, and the Legend Of Illusion games, and Hi-tech plan to bring out Mickey's Ultimate adventure here too. But a company like Capcom could be expected to provide a more stimulating offering than they do here.

The Great Circus Mystery is very much a retread of the Magical Quest game: beautiful graphics, relatively easy action and Mickey put through a variety of costume guises, Mr. Benn-stylee.

It all adds up to less than a purse of kippers when copared to the radical platform antics of Earthworm Jim and co. I know, we mention them in just about every platform game evaluation, but lets face it, they are now the standard. This isn't, however, pleasant, anything to shake up the platform consensus.

My, the platform game has come a long way in the past year or so. Whilst we now take the likes of Earthworm Jim for granted in terms of state-of-the-art animation and content, it is only when mediocre efforts such as The Great Circus Mystery come along that we truly appreciate how lucky we are. In all honesty, there's nowt massively wrong with Mickey and Minnie's latest outing, but Mickey Mania does it all so much better making this look very tired and derivative.

The Great Circus Mystery has some great ideas in it (the hook swings and costume changes, for example), but it is very formulaic and patterns tend to emerge very quickly for disposing of bosses - and it uses burst scrolling which is unforgivable.

The Megadrive is swamped with decent platformers, and with Earthworm Jim and The Lion King at the top of most people's buy lists, I doubt if Mickey's latest escapade will appear on many shelves.

Graphics 79%
P. Attractive sprites and backdrops, and a wide variety of colourful and detailed bosses and backdrops.
N. The use of burst scrolling.

Sound 65%
P. Twiddly-diddly-biddly tunes.
N. Extremely farty effects.

Playability 72%
P. Getting to grips with the costumes is fun, and there are some neat level twists and hidden bonuses.
N. The controls are often a bit clunky.

Lastability 70%
P. Moderately taxing, and three difficulty levels.

Value For Money 68%
N. Uh-uh. Sorry, but there are dozens of better platformers than this.

Overall 66%
Two years ago this would have been fine. Nowadays it looks as creaky and dated as Michael Mouse himself. A senile old fart of a platformer.