Overlooked, Underplayed: M.C. Kids

Welcome to the first entry in Overlooked, Underplayed, a series in which various Damage Control writers and contributors bring to light some of the best games you’ve never played. If you HAVE played the games we feature, good show; you’re pretty awesome.

Ducktales isn’t the NES’s only good licensed game, but somehow Virgin’s own gem of a platformer M.C. Kids was never championed like Capcom’s. It’s mostly fallen by the wayside, falling as far as to be panned by some video reviewers. Don’t take their word for it.

Setting the scene

All you really need to know.

So, the Hamburglar stole a magic bag, and now Ronald McDonald grabs two kids, Mick and Mack, to go out into the world to be mauled by bears and fall off cliffs.

Birdie the Early Bird might have a clue to where the Hamburglar’s trail leads, but Ronald won’t tell you where she is unless you bring him four puzzle cards because… because.

I guess this is what happened when NaNoWriMo only required 50 words instead of 50,000. But we’re here for the game, not the throwaway exposition. Save the princess, save McDonaldland, whatever.

The year is 1992. With the Big N having moved its platformer pedigree on to the SNES, M.C. Kids ably helped fill the void left on the NES. Though the timing is wrong M.C. Kids feels like it is the missing link between Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988) and Super Mario World (1990), with its own unique gameplay wrinkles and each world introducing new forms of interaction. And that makes for a wonderful game.

Evolutionary steps

M.C. Kids takes the world map level selection found in Mario 3 and adds in SMW‘s repeatable levels and interconnected world maps.

A 1-Up bonus game is available at the end of levels, like SMW, but instead of earning your right at the goal, you do it when you collect 100 coins golden arches (careful not to get hit, you’ll drop a few). But don’t worry, you still get a bonus for hitting the target on the goal line. Just what you get will have to wait for later…

A special world containing a small set of hidden challenge levels awaits players astute and skillful enough to find the secrets that unlock it.

Here thar be spoilers!

Its own style

Everything is blocks
Your primary interaction with the world in M.C. Kids is with blocks. You use them to defeat enemies, travel, and regain life if you’re lucky or skilled enough to pull a combo-kill off.

The goal is not the goal
Getting to the end is not enough. Each level has one or two of the game’s MacGuffins, puzzle cards. While finishing a level allows you to move on to the next, only by collecting the cards can you advance to the next world. Each card requires you to explore off the beaten path or use the gameplay tricks to retrieve. While the levels themselves can get somewhat difficult, collecting these cards is where the game brings the real challenge.

Your power is your own
While I draw many parallels to the Mario series here, one thing you wont find is power ups. There will be no invincibility, no flying and infinite fireballs to help you here. To survive M.C. Kids you have nothing but your wits, your reflexes and what tools the level leaves for you. Bring your “A”-game.

The wrinkles

M.C. Kids‘ first level is a bit of a sandbox. Several of its most common gameplay tricks can be found with only three enemies in your way Learn what you can here, you’ll be seeing these tools often, and mastering them are crucial.

While the zippers (M.C. Kids‘ version of Mario’s pipes, vines and pink note blocks) are iconic of the game, the one set piece that is most iconic of M.C. Kids would have to be the spinners. A rarely-seen mechanic, some of the craziest platforming to be found in the game will be done upside down, with the formerly harmless sky now a gapping bottomless pit.

As you go through the game you’ll be bombarded by all sorts of new elements with nearly every level. None of them are one-off gimmicks, so count on seeing them over and over. Some are standard fare, like moving or plummeting platforms. But as you go on, you’ll be searching for floats for water and lava, digging past fossils, making tricky jumps past phony finishes and maneuvering tredmill-powered carts past falling debris… upsidedown.

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Missing pieces

Now, I don’t want to downplay a couple of sticking points. One aspect of the game that is frequently panned by those who bother to play through it is that not every puzzle card can be found in its own world.

Most players will never run into a problem with this, as each world’s levels contain enough matching cards to open the next world… until you get to Hamburglar’s Hideout. The last world is also the only world in which you MUST find all six cards… and three of them are in levels you’ve already played.

The problem is exasperated by the fact that the game will give you no indication which levels contain more than one card, or which levels you have not found all the cards in. While this lack of information was not out of place in the game’s day, it is a sorely outmoded practice now. If you get to that final world and you haven’t already picked up three cards, go hit the internet to find out where you went wrong. Just remember that little-kid me had to do all this all on his own, and he pulled through. Like Castlevania II, It’s not impossible no matter how much the people of today call bull.

Just play the game. Sure, it’s hard, but weren’t you core gamers complaining about grandma getting too cocky with a wiimote? M.C. Kids is challenging for the right reasons. It’s tough, but fair. The controls work, the game gives you the tools you need to succeed but never holds you hand and gives away its secrets. The final world will give even the biggest platform fiend a run for their skills, and the secret Puzzle World has some crafty, clever theme levels to tax your knowledge of the gameplay.

Sure, the story is total kids fare, but outside of 10-second cut scenes the only intrusion the license will make is overuse of the letter M. Don’t overlook this underplayed gem.

Check out Damage Control’s YouTube channel for bonus gameplay videos! An edited 100% run (78 minutes) and fail compilation (not unlike an abridged episode of Game Center CX) will be uploaded later this week.