Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Consoles: Nintendo Entertainment System
Three Capcom titles in one week? Sorry, but I've gotta say that The Little Mermaid is one of my all-time favorite Disney movies. So how could I not review the game? Well, sadly, I shouldn't have played this one. Not as a kid, and not again as an adult to refresh my memory.
The graphics are pretty good for 1991 NES graphics, but that may be the only thing "good" about this title. It's not the worst game I've ever played, but it's probably in the bottom 20% or so. The game starts out over halfway into the movie - Ariel has already met Eric, and they fall in love, and they plan on getting married. That's when Flounder and Sebastian come to shit all over their plans and tell Ariel that Ursula is "controlling all the fish" or something stupid. So then Ariel tells Eric - that's right, SHE FUCKING TALKS TO HIM - that she's a mermaid, and needs to go save some fish. Being the selfish douche that he is, he pretty much tells her those fish can fuck themselves and that she should stay with him. She declines, and uses HER OWN MAGIC TO TURN HERSELF BACK INTO A MERMAID TO SAVE THE SEA. Wow.
So yeah, you play as the mermaid and swim around through the sea, with the almighty bubble that you shit out of your tail as a weapon. Intimidating. You have to hit every fish twice unless you upgrade your bubbles with orbs found in treasure chests, which are unlocked with sea shells. That makes sense. Apparently I can find forks and pipes at the bottom of the ocean, but keys do NOT exist. Oh, and did I mention YOU DON'T EVEN GET TO START WITH FULL HEALTH?! What a load of shit.
The bosses aren't hard in this game, either, though most of them are characters from the movie; the shark in the sunken ship, Flotsam and Jetsam, and Ursula, while others I don't really know why they're there, like a musical conductor fish that controls cannons that shoot fish out, or a walrus that gives you ammo to use against him. It's pretty dumb.
Also, can't forget the stages - and what's a video game without the typical stages found in most games? It's harder underwater, so there's no sky or forest stages, but there are a few points in the sunken ship that causes Ariel to leave water and flop around on land. That's funny. Also, surprise surprise, there's an ice level that causes the mermaid to slip around when she hits land. Of course, ice level. But what about fire? How could there possibly be a fire level in a game that takes place in nothing but water? AN UNDERWATER VOLCANO! THAT'S RIGHT, HOW COULD I FORGET THAT?!
I think what makes the game so bad is how poorly the story is done, the swimming controls are kinda stiff, hitboxes are too big, the weapon sucks, and the bosses are too easy. I lost lives to shrimp and angry fish than the bosses. The final fight with Ursula is a joke, Flotsam and Jetsam were harder. And when you finally do beat the game, Ariel cries like a little girl because she can't be human again. Apparently, she only has magic to turn herself into a mermaid and not back into a human. So King Triton, being the Father of the Year that he is, zaps the shit out of her with his trident to give her legs, and then it literally says:
This game took me 20 minutes to beat, while not even trying hard. I believe the speed run is 7 minutes and 26 seconds. If I paid $50 in 1991 for a seven to twenty minute game, I would've been pissed. DuckTales was amazing. Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers was fantastic. Why did the Little Mermaid suck so bad? Why? WHY?!!
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