Kid Klown in Night Mayor World ・ミッキーマウスIII 夢ふうせん
Developed & Published by: Kemco
Release date: September 30, 1992 (JP) | April 1, 1993 (NA)
He’s a kid! He’s a klown! He’s Kid Klown! Never heard of Kid Klown? Lemme give you the lowdown.
Believe it or not, this frumpy little dude’s got some history behind him. Kemco developed and released Mickey Mouse III: Dream Balloon for the Famicom in 1992. When it came time to bring their efforts over to the west, all Disney characters had to be scrubbed from the game due to Capcom holding the exclusive rights to Disney games in the US at that time.
It was thanks to this legal bottlenecking that Kemco concocted a new mascot; Kid Klown, a lovable lil’ bastard that would go on to star in six more games throughout the 90’s. He’d get cuter in subsequent titles, but…it’s hard to forget that first design. He looks like a guy you’d see skulking around in a Walmart parking lot at 3 AM.
But damn it all, there’s no time to be prattling on about legalities and poor aesthetic choices! Kid Klown’s family has been KLOWN-NAPPED by the evil Night Mayor!
FUCK!!!
Kid Klown must run and jump through six levels to save his family and defeat the dastardly Night Mayor (get it? nightmare? my god). Aside from the the fact that they had to dump all the Disney stuff, Kid Klown is identical to Mickey Mouse III. The graphics are lovely, as was standard for most NES games released after 1991, and the controls are nice and responsive as well. Also of note is that my wife is crazy about the game’s cute music. She straight-up threatened me if I badmouthed this soundtrack. Luckily, I dig it too (and I promise this wasn’t influenced by the gun being pressed to my temples).
All great video game heroes have an iconic weapon. Kid Klown’s is a bunch of balloons. But these balloons are used for so much more than defeating enemies, oh yes! Kid Klown uses them to jump extra high, hover in the air like Tanooki Mario, and even scale waterfalls that flow upwards (it’s a dream world, don’t think too hard about it). However…the level design doesn’t make use of the balloon’s potential for some potential fancy platforming. Each of Kid Klown’s levels tend to only have one or two jumps that incorporate the balloons, leaving them feeling sorely underutilized.
It’s not just the levels that are simple; the entire game is shockingly easy. Here’s why: throughout the regular platforming levels, you pick up strawberries that are used as tokens to participate in the bonus round. It’s not uncommon to collect 10 or more of these tokens without even trying, which means 10 or more chances to easily snag a bevvy of extra lives and health refills at the end of a stage. With all the handouts, you’d have to be pretty horrendous at platformers to not handily breeze through Kid Klown in an afternoon.
This may be because they wanted to keep the Mickey Mouse original basic for younger audiences, but people will fondly remember a trickier game with genuine thought and care put into its design, a la Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse on the Genesis, before they’ll remember something that was just competent and nothing more – like the aggressively average Mickey Mousecapade.
In other words, well behaved mice and/or clowns rarely make history.
There’s not too much else to say about Kid Klown. It’s a decent little romp with nice graphics, cute music and solid controls. However, it’s basic-ness holds it back from being truly special; if you’ve played just about any other NES platformer, you’ve played this one, too. It’s worth a try…but only if you’re not above cracking out the emulators and flash carts to play it. As of this writing, a legitimate Kid Klown cartridge will set you back a hefty $500 USD. Very few things in this life are $500 fun, and this day at the circus is no exception. Hasta la vista, babey!
Final Rating:
NESJunk 