Much like that one Amazing Spider-Man game that never made it to the West, Disney's very own Donald Duck found his way exclusively onto the Japanese Super Famicom with Donald Duck no Mahō no Bōshi - or simply put in plain ol' English, Donald Duck & The Magical Hat.
Released in August 1995 by Epoch, the game saw the player controlling Donald on his quest to buy a hat for Daisy's birthday by the most obvious means: Hard, honest labour. You start the game by picking one of four odd jobs - including window washing or mail delivery - until you get those three, vital Benjamins to purchase said headgear.
That would have been a rather original video game pitch on its own, but of course the hat has already been sold by the time our duck hero arrives at the store, so Donald agrees to help a mysterious old man get rid of some ghosts by the clock-tower. He eventually discovers the old man is none other than (spoilers!) a magical hat himself, King of a land of magic where Donald finds himself soon afterwards and where the proper adventure begins - complete with all-new magical hat powers. As a neat aside, using Epoch's extremely popular Barcode Battle Reader you can unlock extra exclusive content.
The game was sadly never released in the West, a fate that also befell Capcom's lovely Magical Quest 3 Starring Mickey & Donald - a no-show on our side of the planet until its eventual Game Boy Advance re-release. This is a real shame because the game looks lovely, as you can see from the footage below.
You can now play the whole game in English thanks to the hacking efforts of Gorgyrip, Freedman and Nagato. Grab the patch from here and use it with your cartridge on a RetroN 5 or Retro Freak.
The things we do for love.
Comments 19
This looks to be a decent game, which is saying a lot considering how "awesome" all Disney games are nowadays that are not Disney Infinity and DuckTales Remastered.
i love this !!! ... i used to enjoy disney games on sega/SNES ! .. i never heard about this game
Wait, wasn't that the game infamous for featuring Donald blurting out "@o##ammit" upon either dying or getting a Game Over screen?
Hopefully now that there's a patch someone will make a repro cartridge so I can play this on my SNES.
This game reminds me about what the should do with Donald Duck: give him an open world 3D game set in Duckburg based on his comics where he has to do various jobs to earn money. I doubt they'd ever do that though, Donald Duck comics aren't very popular nowadays save for a few countries in Europe.
@Luffymcduck: Totally agree, that would be awesome!
I love those Donald comics you mentioned, as a child but also as an adult (at least the older ones). And I know others who also grew up with them and even collect them until today.
Here in Germany they were mostly published in the weekly "Micky Maus" magazine and - more importantly - in "Lustige Taschenbücher", which are called "Donald Duck pocket books" in English. But yeah, seems like they were more popular in Europe than anywhere else.
I still see those LTBs (the more recent ones, not the old issues) in every kiosk and supermarket though, so I assume they are still popular here.
I assume that ROM hacking is as legal/illegal as playing those old ROMs on an emulator, right? In that case I think I'll try it out, because Donald is still one of my all-time favourite fictional characters.
Epic Mickey was the last good Disney game that I played (except for Ducktales Remastered). Can't they do another game with Donald?
. ..ahh.. Domo arigatou gozaimasu...
@Luffymcduck Sadly you're probably right, but I'm definitely one of those North American fans who'd be all over this! I read the comic every month (which is mostly reprints of European stories these days), and I agree that it'd be cool to see the comic book Donald who does odd jobs get more love!
that looks nice, I would love to see more Remakes and re-releases of Capcom and Sega's Disney games
@World @shani @Luffymcduck I have thought about that maybe Kingdom Hearts could have a Duckburg world at least if not a full game featuring Duckburg, but do to Disney Town that we saw in Birth By Sleep I am not sure if it is logically possible to have Duckburg in Kingdom Hearts or at least as a part of Sora's story.
We could maybe get a Duckburg in a future Kingdom Hearts game maybe, but I think smaller mini-games are a likelier possibly if not something Disney license out.
I think right now I think our best hopes would be if the new Ducktales series catch on and is good, we might get a new Ducktales game if not exactly a Duckburg game :+). (The new Ducktales game doesn't necessarily have to relay on just Scrooge as a playable character though, but a lot of the Duckburg characters hopefully).
Also I will say that I am a Norwegian and read Donald Duck comics and pockets quite regularly and like them a lot :+).
@Kimite Yeah, I definitely agree with you! I'd play Kingdom Hearts if it featured Duckburg in some way.
For now, I'm hoping that Donald features a little more prominently in Disney Magical World 2. The boat in the trailers is his (he's at least on it), so it might lead to a bigger minigame than the fishing from the first one?
The comics are great! I'm glad they're being published here in North America again. (I've been reading Uncle Scrooge monthly too )
@World I would say play Kingdom Hearts regardless if it has Duckburg or not though, as they are such good games in my view . (I feel like Kingdom Hearts had made me a better person and apparently more people feel the same: http://kh13.com/forum/topic/86412-have-you-been-deeply-inspired-by-anything-from-kingdom-hearts/).
Anyway, I am thinking about getting Disney Magical World 2, but not sure yet as I am not sure how long the game can keep me invested, as I prefer more story based RPGs. Still it is nice to hear that Donald might get a bigger role in the new game ^^.
No, here it is literally Donald Duck comics featuring Donald mostly or at least his closets circle. I will say the quality varies a lot in the newer ones as they sometimes are just things that could happen in real life and are a bit boring, but some of them have amazing references like one not too long ago that had VR, a reference to Summer Wars and maybe Digimon if I understood that comic right and I was mindblown by that one as I never expected it .
Either way, I definitely like to read Donald Comic/Pockets when I can ^^. (Getting the new once because of habit kind of, but I don't mind it. Also my favorite Donald drawer is Don Rosa).
In any case, lets hope we get a new Duckburg or Donald and Co related game in the near future :+).
@Kimite: I don't know Kingdome Hearts, but... wait, what? "A crossover of various Disney settings based in a universe"? That sounds cool. I'll definitely look it up. It's a shame though that there's no PC (or Wii U) version. I can't install the Android version, it says my device is not compatible (although it's pretty recent). The web browser version is said to only work in Japan. And I just sold my N3DS a few days ago. :/
Also, thx for the link about the inspiration coming from KH. That was really interesting!
Oh btw, Don Rosa is also my favourite artist! I assume you know his "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" ("Skrues liv" in Norwegian) comic series then? Maybe that would also be a great fit for a story-driven game? I love Don Rosa's storytelling and how he constantly implements real world places and events into his comics.
@shani You don't have a PS3? All of the older Kingdom hearts games are there in one form or another, even if the DS games are just cutcences and text I would still say they are worth it :+). (If you are going to start playing Kingdom Hearts I say do Kingdom Hearts 1 first no matter what even if you are emulating it first just to see). This is the opening for the 3DS Kingdom Hearts game and I really recommend listing to it ^^. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZPsjy76TBo
Still too bad with you N3DS though and I hope you don't miss it too much . (Hope you kept the SD card at least).
Yup, read those Scrooge Mcduck stories a ton of times and I am set that book on my birthday wishlist as I love them so much ^^. And yeah, I 100% agree on that Don Rosa's stories could be made into excellent games or at least mini-games . (Actually a Don Rosa comic taught me that parchments are made out of animal skin and that papyrus is made out of reeds, as well as things about real life locations like you mentioned).
Actually I think Don Rosa could be the perfect story writer for the next Ducktales games maybe if you understand what I mean ;+).
In any case I guess we just have to wait and see ^^.
@Kimite: Nope, never had a Playstation. I had an Xbox360 for a few months, but sold it after I had finished the story of GTA V and Red Dead Redemption. Thanks for the intro video though!
Why is there no Wii U release of KH? It would be a perfect fit. Looks a bit like XCX (sorry, I'm not well versed with RPGs) with Disney characters.
Maybe I'll buy a cheap used 3DS one day, idk. I wanted to keep the microSD, but that's not necessary. You couldn't use it in another 3Ds anyway (unless you have both at the same time, then you can transfer it). I simply told Nintendo support to delete my NNID from that N3DS, so when I buy another 3DS one day, I can just redownload my games and apps from the eshop.
Yeah I actually got that book ("The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck", but the German version) a few years ago, but sadly it only contains 20 stories (12 main stories + 8 additional chapters).
There sare actually 32 issues in total, so 12 additional stories are not in the book.
@shani I see. Well the best would be if you bought either a (used?) cheap PlayStation 3 or 2, but if you don't have a PlayStation at all I am not going to say that you can't emulate it on a PC just to try the first game :+). (Probably best with a controller). Also no problem ^^.
I think the reason the Wii U didn't get any Kingdom Hearts games was because of the Wii U's sales, even though I am pretty sure a lot of hybrid Zelda and Kingdom Hearts fans would likely have bought a new Kingdom Hearts game as well as getting Kingdom Hearts fans to buy a Wii U. Still yes, Kingdom Hearts is a perfect fit for the Nintendo fans ;+). (Kingdom Hearts isn't really like Xenoblade Chronicles X at all though, but it is a RPG yes).
You can actually have a SD Card that let you put in a MicroSD Card as that's what I had I think in my old normal 3DS. It is up to you if you want to buy a new 3DS or not, but I kind of don't understand why you would sell your 3DS unless you lack money for other things in real life. (There are coming a lot of RPGs to the 3DS still though). Either way, I am glad you can hopefully get all of your games back ^^.
I don't have that book, but I have borrowed it from the library a number of time as I didn't know where to buy it back then. I think I have read most of the Don Rosa comic if not all of them as I have read a fair amount of them in normal Donald Comics as well as read them from some special Don Rosa collection books :+).
I don't think I will ever get truly tired of that duck or at least for many years now ^^. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k3e5b6KcF8
@Kimite: Well the two main reasons were that I rarely used my N3DS and yeah, the money. ^^ But I can still go back someday and buy another one. Doesn't have to be the N3DS again though, I think the old 3DS would be suffice and it's cheaper.
But to be honest I feel like playing on a handheld or mobile just isn't for me anymore (in contrast to the old Gameboy times). When I'm at home I somehow seem to prefer the bigger screen and when I'm traveling, I rarely play.
@shani I see :+). Well, as long as you have fun playing something I think that's the most important thing, and I hope you will enjoy the older 3DS as well ^^.
Well, I still live with someone and that person is usually the one who occupies the TV, so I personally prefer games I can play Off-TV to say :+). I don't mind playing mobile games, but they are very game-y mobile games or past dedicated gaming games such as "The World Ends With You". (It isn't as macabre as it might sound like, as it is a Square Enix game).
Anyway, I hope you find some good games to play and have fun, and hopefully in the end we will get Duckburg game ^^.
The 90's child in me would've been hooked on this
Tap here to load 19 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...