🧜♀️ Written: June 4th-7th, 2023 🧜♀️
(As played on Super Game Boy)
Year: 1991, 1992 | Developed by: CapcomPublished by: Nintendo
Hello, gamers and readers alike, welcome to my blog and thank you for taking the time to tune in today, I really appreciate it. 😃
In the 19th century there was a Danish author by the name of Hans Christian Andersen who in life (born in 1805 and died in 1875) wrote poetry, novels, plays, travelogues, and became most famous for his literary fairy tales, of which there were 156 stories across nine volumes. Appealing to both children and older readers alike with lessons of resilience and virtue in the face of adversity, some of his most famous works comprised of "The Ugly Duckling", "Thumbelina", "The Snow Queen", "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Princess and the Pea", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", and especially "The Little Mermaid" (which was partly influenced by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué's novella Undine).
Image of Edmund Dulac's "The Little Mermaid" illustration from Wikipedia
Written in 1837 as part of his fairy tale collection, Den lille havfrue centered around a teenaged mermaid who in her journey gives up her life as a sea creature in order to attain a human soul and to live among them. Fascinated by the human world, one day she saves a human prince following a deadly storm and takes him to shore, but to her dismay he didn't realize she was his savior. Desperate for a human soul and to be with her prince, the mermaid visits the sea witch and asks that she turn her into a human to which she is given a pair of legs in exchange for her voice but is warned that once she becomes a human she can never go back to the sea. After her heart breaks once the prince professes his love to another, she is given a dagger by her sisters for a chance to kill him and let his blood drip at her feet to return back to the life of a mermaid. She cannot bring herself to do it, however, for she throws herself and the dagger off the ship and dissolves into sea foam. She doesn't cease to exist, however, for she has become a spirit of the air for striving with all her heart to attain a human soul and is rewarded for her selflessness a chance to earn her own soul by helping humankind with good deeds for the next three-hundred years."The Little Mermaid" established Andersen's international reputation and has become so well-regarded that there has been a bronze statue in Copenhagen, Denmark sculpted by Edvard Eriksen, and over the years has been adapted to musical theatre, ballet, opera, anime, and numerous film adaptations.
* Taking into account the combined initial release where it earned $84.4 million at the domestic box office and 1997 theatrical rerelease where it earned an additional $27.2 million with it earning $123 million outside of North America
** After the movie came out there would be a prequel TV animated series in 1992 that lasted three seasons at 31 episodes, a brief Sebastian spinoff taking place after the end of the movie that was a part of Disney's short-lived animated adaptation of André Franquin's Marsupilami, a made for TV sequel in 2000 (The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea) that received video game adaptations of its own, a gorgeously animated made for TV prequel in 2008 (The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning), the underwater environment and characters from the movie would appear prominently as part of Square's Disney-themed action-oriented RPG franchise Kingdom Hearts, and garnered different video game adaptations over the years
Images from GameFAQs
July 19th, 1991 would see the release of its first video game adaptation produced by Stephan L. Butler and developed by Capcom for the Famicom in Japan as Little Mermaid: Ningyo Hime (the subtitle of which literally translates to "The Little Mermaid") which would also come out for the North American NES that same month as Disney's The Little Mermaid.
Image from GameFAQs
Like most Disney Capcom licenses that originally came out on the Nintendo 8-bit console this game would also be converted to the handheld Game Boy format, coming out in European shores in 1992 followed by a North American release in February 1993. After Disney's The Little Mermaid ended up selling a million units, Nintendo would reissue it under their Players Choice label in 1997 with the familiar golden "Million Seller" ribbon plastered at the front; this is the version of the game that I own and that which will be covered.
Left: Sea of Coral | Right: It's a snarfblatt
In Disney's The Little Mermaid you play as the eponymous Princess Ariel of Atlantica whom you can swim around in any of the eight directions so long as you're underwater. Pressing the A button* will have her flip her fishtail to produce a bubble which will cause any enemy fish to be encased in a bubble which you can grab by moving towards it and keep held until you press the A button again to launch the encased enemy bubble above you, across from you straight or diagonally, or below you, and by holding down the B button* you can make Ariel swim at a slightly faster rate.* B and Y respectively on the Nintendo 16-bit controller with the alternate Type A control scheme selected when played on the Super Game Boy
Left: Flip that shell towards the chest to open it up | Right: Beware the octopi and their projectiles 🐙
On occasion you might swim up to the surface where you can have her jump out of the water by pressing A as you're on the surface in position or as you move left and right, and if you jump up to a platform you must flop your way through until you dive back into the water. Over the course of the game are treasure chests which contain dark pearls to slightly augment Ariel's bubble power or light pearls to give your bubble attacks a bit more range, and the only way to open them up is to toss a shell at them or to push a heavy rock off a sea platform or to push a rolling barrel with her fishtail (provided you got some power in advance).
Left: Swimming through the corals | Right: It's raining starfish
There are also items to gather should you toss a bubbled fish or shell towards a small square gap, or flip Ariel's tail on the sand to potentially dig up (even a shell), like a small heart to refill one heart of your health, a big heart to replenish two hearts (for which you begin the game with three but can go up to a capacity of five hearts), a dinglehopper (fork) or a snarfblatt (pipe) for points, and placed behind certain heavy obstacles a mermaid figurine to garner another life. Each stage will culminate in a boss fight for which after you defeat them you must swim to the bottle lowering itself to you to gain access to the subsequent stage.
Left: Shark attack 🦈 | Right: Sometimes there are shells that must be dug up from the sand
The visuals are very solid given the monochromatic nature of the Game Boy for the art team gave it the Disney Capcom touch and added just enough flair to augment Disney's The Little Mermaid's visual sense of depth. Sea of Coral starts the game off nicely with the use of gradient coloring across the horizon with the coral that you swim across, Sunken Ship is appropriately decrepit-looking with the decayed wood and large cracks of the shipwreck, Sea of Ice is very frigid as you swim across an icy cave and occasionally must jump on and slide across frozen glaciers on the surface,
Left: "OoOoOoOoh, I'm a ghoOoOost fish, bewaAaAare, oOoOoOoOoOoh!" | Right: Oh, that poor oblivious crab doesn't know what's coming
Undersea Volcano has got a cool volcanic backdrop in a hot environment, and Ursula's Castle has got a mysterious décor and creepy-looking face doors that you must enter through culminating in the battle against Ursula preceded by the entrance littered with merfolk turned into sea polyps that stretch their neck in place. I love how the final battle against Ursula as a giant looming over you transpires in a pitch black area with the two seaweeds giving you a hint at which direction the sea witch is controlling the currents with her newly gained power of the trident.
Left: Push the barrel with what might you've gained to access that mermaid figurine | Right: Jumping above the surface for the first time in the game
Ariel is designed well in-game with her hair flowing as she remains in position and animates nicely as she swims at a moderate or fast pace, jumps above the water surface, and generates bubbles with her fishtail. Among the types of fish you'll contend with are evil-eyed fish, giant octopi, raining starfish that spin on their way down, fish with a sheet concealing their bodies amusingly pretending to be ghosts, crabs that skitter along with their pinchers, the Citharichthys fish that blend in with and pop out of the sand when approached, big-eyed shrimp, and tiny fish especially the Cymathoa exigua that emerge from inside the mouth of a big fish, most of whom react incredulously upon being encased inside Ariel's bubble attack.
Left: Flop across | Right: That rock is strong enough to break open that chest
The bosses are well-designed and animate decently, like the shark, Ursula's faithful moray eel duo Flotsam and Jetsam (both voiced by the late Paddi Edwards*, RIP), and this game really captured the imposing yet fabulous essence of Ursula (especially as she towers over you with an ominous smile). There are even a couple bosses created exclusively for this game, the walrus in Sea of Ice and a seahorse acting as captain in Undersea Volcano.
* Fun fact about Paddi Edwards, she also dubbed over Slavitza Jovan as the voice of Gozer in the late Ivan Reitman's 1984 movie classic Ghostbusters, amazing! 👻 I never knew that until very recently
Left: *gasp* It was an ordinary fish all along! | Right: Wait for the crabs to move to then encase them in bubbles so you can toss them towards Flotsam and Jetsam
At the beginning, ending, and in-between stages are well-drawn cutscenes which do a good job of advancing the story (static though the images may be) and capture the essence of both Ariel and Eric,
the tropical fish and Ariel's best friend Flounder (voiced by Jason Marin), the Jamaican crab Horatio Thelonious Ignatius Crustaceous Sebastian (voiced and sung by the late Samuel E. Wright, RIP), the seagull Scuttle (who only appears once, voiced by the late Buddy Hackett, RIP), Ursula, and during the ending King Triton. The title screen even does a good job at recreating the late John Alvin's iconic mermaid silhouette sitting on a rock in front of the moon design featured in the movie's 1989 theatrical poster.
Left: Sea of Ice | Right: Swimming inside a frigid cavern, Ariel must be freezing right now 🥶
The movie's music was composed by Alan Menken with the songs written by the late Howard Ashman, both of whom were hired by Disney following the success of Little Shop of Horrors, featuring classic songs like "Part of Your World", "Under the Sea", "Poor Unfortunate Souls", and "Kiss the Girl". Disney's The Little Mermaid won two Academy Awards, one for Best Original Score (deservedly so, it is iconic and memorable) and the other for Best Original Song "Under the Sea" sung by Wright (though I personally always liked "Part of Your World" more, I can't deny that "Under the Sea" is super catchy and upbeat). Ashman played a vital part as both the film's producer and songwriter and was highly instrumental to the movie's contemporary success, for he was the man who gave the mermaid her voice and a genie his friend. He would also write songs for Beauty and the Beast and Disney's Aladdin but sadly passed away in 1991 at the age of 40 before either film was released. 😔 Rest in peace, legend.
Converting Yasuaki's music to Game Boy format, however, was Hitoshi Sakimoto who also composed music for Opera House's Game Boy port of ERE Informatique's Bubble Ghost and their Sega 16-bit port of Data East's Midnight Resistance, the Super Famicom's first turn-based RPG in the form of Jorudan's licensed Gdleen, Quest's Magical Chase as well as their Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre franchise, Square's Final Fantasy Tactics franchise, Treasure's Radiant Silvergun, Prokion's Legaia 2: Duel Saga, and Eighting's Tekken Advance, et al.
Left: A helpful chest situated inside a secret alcove | Right: Just found a dinglehopper
The Game Boy soundtrack, while different than Alan Menken's musical stylings, is endearing in its own right and complements the different parts of the sea that you swim through very well suiting their atmosphere. Sea of Coral's theme at the beginning of the game has got a bouncy and energetic melody, Sunken Ship's theme is fun-sounding in terms of how atmospheric it is, Sea of Ice's theme is likably fast-paced and occasionally soothing, Undersea Volcano's theme has got a very nice melody, and Ursula's Castle's theme has got a fun beat while also subtly foreshadowing your encounter with the sea witch. The normal boss theme sounds relentlessly hectic and the final boss theme as you face off against a gigantic Ursula is appropriately intense.
Left: On top of jumping across the platform when outside the water, you must slide across should the ground be icy | Right: Carrying a shell that could potentially be flipped on the other side of that wall
The only song lifted from the movie is "Under the Sea" which is used during the title and ending which sounds fine, but Sakimoto's rendition has got an uncharacteristically slower tempo, sounds incomplete and loops itself at the start of the chorus portion. I'm not sure what happened, it's noticeably different compared to Yasuaki Fujita's rendition on the Nintendo console version where he at least captured the upbeat tempo and converted the whole song. The sound effects are well-selected, like the brush sound for when Ariel flips her fishtail on the sand, the sound for when enemy fish get encased inside a bubble, and I even recognized the life gain sound effect from Capcom's Rockman/Mega Man franchise for when Ariel gathers the mermaid figurine.
Screengrabbed while watching World of Longplays' Disney's Ariel: The Little Mermaid MegaDrive gameplay video on YouTube
Sega fans and gamers were not left out when it came to Disney's animated classic, for Sega would release Disney's Ariel the Little Mermaid in 1992 on the MegaDrive/Genesis console and Game Gear with the Sega Master System version released in South America by Tec Toy. Developed by BlueSky Software of Ninja Golf and VectorMan fame, this game had you play as either Ariel or King Triton as you must search for and liberate all the merfolk that had been turned into sea polyps by Ursula using her voice or his powerful trident to do so as well subduing any obstacle in their path in a maze-like structure. Unlike Capcom's Nintendo adaptation, the Sega take was largely met with mixed to poor reviews with it being unfavorably likened to Novotrade's Ecco the Dolphin with the eight-way underwater controls minus the solid gameplay, difficulty, and sense of intrigue that gave the aforementioned franchise its appeal.
Screengrabbed while watching World of Longplays' The Little Mermaid NES gameplay video on YouTube
One time during the Summer of 1998* when my family and I were visiting relatives in the New England region I played on the NES console at my cousin Kara's house, whom I remembered had Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. (making it my first time playing that game in its native 8-bit format after my introduction to the portly plumber's classic console entries via Nintendo's Super Mario All-Stars on the SNES). Another game I played was Disney's The Little Mermaid, I liked the movie growing up and what handful of episodes I watched of the series on VHS, and I recall only making it up to the early part of the second stage--either it was getting late and it was time to go or I lost my last life and decided to try another NES game, but either way, that was the farthest I remember getting when I played it as a seven year-old child. It was the only time I played the Nintendo console version.* I can only approximate that that was when I played it because the Game Boy copy I own has got Nintendo's Players Choice ribbon on the cart sticker (and that edition came out in 1997, though I'm not sure what part of 1997 which is why I hesitate to say I played it that year)
Left: Kind of odd that you must battle a walrus, but hey, it's a fun battle anyway | Right: Careful not to get touched by the undersea volcano's heated activity
That same Summer my family and I went to a retail store one time and over by the game section I saw Disney's The Little Mermaid for the Game Boy, I asked my parents if I could have it and they said "yes". I didn't own an NES console at the time, but I did own a Game Boy handheld system which me and all my cousins grew up on (even those who owned the Sega Genesis console), so this was perfect as I would get to play the game on the go. Thinking back on it, though, the Disney's The Little Mermaid video game was my earliest exposure to all things Capcom. As a child my experience with Capcom games was limited at best, only when I became a teenager onward would I catch up with more Capcom fare.
Left: Citharichthys | Right: 🦐
Disney's The Little Mermaid is a likable video game license on the Game Boy, I think Capcom did the movie license proud even with the liberties they have taken with it (adding an icy environment with a walrus battle and an undersea volcano with a captain seahorse to contend with), and of course the ability to swim around in any inch of the water is fun. There is a nuanced gameplay design which I've grown to appreciate over time, with Ariel starting off with the weakest bubble attack that doesn't go very far to gradually accruing a better sense of potency and range with her fishtail attack (and should you lose your last heart at any point, you're back at square one).
Left: A hermit crab hiding underneath a knight's helmet | Right: Captain Seahorse
Even if the difficulty is generally very easy, it is fun to swim through these areas and I like that Capcom cobbled up a collection of secrets inside particular square gaps if you tossed a bubbled fish or shell towards it, and I like how grainy the sand looks especially as flipping Ariel's fishtail while on top of it might reveal a helpful item or a shell. It's not completely mandatory, but I do appreciate that it is there as it adds a bit of a replay value to the proceedings. There is the occasional enemy respawn if you scrolled a bit to one side and then scrolled back to where you swam from, but you could use that to your advantage to bubble in another fish to toss it toward a gap you haven't thrown it at yet.
Left: Cymathoa exigua | Right: Enter the door and emerge at a different part of the castle
I like this game's variety of scenarios and different obstacles to overcome, like carefully maneuvering yourself and cautiously swimming around raining starfish, waiting for the crabs to move so you can encase them in a bubble that way you can toss them at Flotsam and Jetsam should they emerge from inside the crack of the ship, jumping on and flopping yourself across a slippery ice platform, waiting for the shell to drop down so you can flip it towards the walrus, being careful with your surroundings regarding the Citharichthys popping up from within the sand, and going through a series of doors that will take you to different parts of Ursula's castle where only by taking the right one will you be taken to her.
Left: Swimming up to a spot occupied by seahorses | Right: Polyps
At approximately twenty to twenty-five minutes, though, Disney's The Little Mermaid is among the shortest Disney games that Capcom developed (not that Disney Capcom games are generally long anyway, but this was shorter than usual). When I was younger I was disappointed by the sheer brevity, and while it would have been nice if it was a bit longer, I've grown to appreciate its stronger aspects over time and overall consider it a fun Disney game to play once in a while, I even concede that because of its brevity it makes it easy to go back to whenever I've got a brief window of time. I grew up with a lot of Disney games on the Game Boy, and of the monochromatic Game Boy Disney games I played as a child, Disney's The Little Mermaid was among the stronger ones in terms of quality.
Left: 🎵 Poor unfortunate soul 🎵 | Right: "You poor insignificant fool!"
If you can overlook how short the game is, Disney's The Little Mermaid is fun to play while it lasts and if you're curious how Capcom handled the license to the 1989 film I do recommend checking it out on the Game Boy (or base Nintendo 8-bit console format) should you own the handheld system whether you're a fan and/or enthusiast of the film or if you'd like to play a Disney Capcom game. It's nicely breezy fun when you feel like taking a break from more challenging games and Capcom's charm shines through, and now that I've gotten older and learned to appreciate the nuances of this game, I wouldn't have it any other way.
My Personal Score: 7.0/10
● I originally reviewed this game on my blog back in September 2013 and gave it a 6.5 out of 10, no link to that review however because I recently purged it (and it's not the only old review that I've deleted as I've taken off several recently), and to be honest, I feel it's better off this way. I do genuinely apologize if there were people who liked that review, but there was a low number of screenshots and wasn't tightly focused and I don't feel I articulated my feelings on the game well enough then (what I'm saying is: present day me could not look at it, my old reviews do not hold up), something I hope I rectified with this review.
● It's scary to think that the majority of the cast that lent their voice talents to the 1989 movie have since passed away (including Ben Wright pre-movie release, René Auberjonois, and frequent Don Bluth collaborator Will Ryan, RIP). 😟 Even scarier is learning that there was a point in production when "Part of Your World" was going to be cut from the movie after not appealing to the first test audience. 😲 I'm so glad they kept the song, I could not possibly imagine the movie without it.
● During the weekend while it was free to watch on YouTube I got to watch John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness, the third and last film in the director's "Apocalypse Trilogy" which also comprised of The Thing (which I've seen) and Prince of Darkness (which I've not seen, though I'd like to watch it someday). I was gripped from beginning to end, it was very unsettling in terms of its themes (specifically how everyone has got a different perception of reality and how certain individuals' realities shape up how the world becomes, by which I mean there's a lot of insanity involved, or how a horror author's books hold enough power to render the reader insane), the movie oozed with creepy atmosphere made even more effective by Carpenter's and Jim Lang's music as well as the late Gary B. Kibbe's strong cinematography, ILM's special effects still hold up for 1994, it was great to see late screen legends David Warner and Charlton Heston, Hayden Christensen debuted here as a child, I read that it first made its debut in Italy (yay, Italy!), and Sam Neill (arguably) gave one of the most committed performances of his career which as a result made the movie compulsively watchable despite the disturbing story as he makes the gradual descent into madness (that final scene is so haunting). 😨 Real Lovecraftian horror, and one that makes you think. I think Neill is a great actor, I love his Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park/Jurassic World franchise and I did enjoy his villainous performance as Jenkins in Carpenter's Memoirs of an Invisible Man (he was likably unlikable but played it with such charisma) when I watched it last month. Of the three Carpenter flicks I caught up with on YouTube in the span of a month, my ranking is 3) Memoirs, 2) this movie, and 1) Starman.
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Thank you for reading my review, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think (neither spam nor NSFW is allowed); hope you have a great day, be a nice human, and take care! 🙂
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