The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2 a.k.a Mickey Mouse?!

Just when you thought that Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle couldn’t get any worse, Kemco proves us wrong by releasing its successor. Two years after the original Game Boy game that was a port of a NES game that was a rebranding/port of a Famicom game, The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2 was… never released in Europe. Or, at least, not in Bugs fashion. Instead, here, it’s called Mickey Mouse. Wait, what?

If you’re as confused as I was, no worries, Game Boy Essentials has you covered, digging into the history of one of the weirdest rebranding of rebranding ever released. As for what the Crazy Castle series is about, and how the first one played, refer to the review of the first GB game for more context and a brief background. In short, Crazy Castle 2 is the US name that in Japan was Mickey Mouse II and in Europe was Mickey Mouse or Hugo. That’s right, Mickey Mouse II is the same as Mickey Mouse. You can’t make that stuff up (but Kemco could). Craziness fitting for the series’ general theme.

Speaking of theme, at the start of Crazy Castle 2, we’re finally treated with a bit of an intro sequence in which we learn that Bugs’ favourite other Bunny is somehow captured and held hostage in a castle—where have I heard that before; I think it was in another Game Boy title? In its predecessor, we’re simply dropped into stages that go on and on and on, while in this entry, at least we know why we’re in a castle. Additionally, the pixel artists made an effort to have the tile set reflect that: the first levels in, you’ll be climbing ladders of castle walls.

I was excited to see a welcome change: finally a bit of variation and detail. The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2 starts off strong(er) but unfortunately falls flat on its face almost as quickly. The two biggest reasons for that are irritating gameplay tweaks and the atrocious performance bordering on the unplayable.

For the former, the biggest gameplay tweak is that Bugs now has to find eight keys (instead of carrots) not just spread around in the levels themselves, but by entering doors, which completely breaks the flow and unnecessarily prolongs everything. Luckily, once a door has been opened, the door stays open, giving you a visual cue as to which one still to inspect. Some doors lead to useless carrots that eventually lead to a 1-up. I’d rather just see the key lying on the floor. If this is a cheap Lode Runner rip-off, putting the treasure behind a door is a big mood killer. After collecting the last key, you’ll still have to make it to another door acting as the exit. In the first game, collecting eight carrots immediately ended the level.

For the latter, as soon as you hit level 10, the scope of the levels start increasing up to the point that the frame rate simply can’t handle the amount of sprits currently on screen. Not that there’s a lot of action on screen; it could just as well be the size of the level or the crappy way in which everything was implemented. The game starts stuttering and slowing down so much that you’re almost watching a slide-show. In short, depending on the level, it sometimes becomes unplayable¹.

Crazy Castle 2 tries to do introduce more new trinkets to spice up the mundane gameplay of its predecessor: you can now encounter blocks that can be broken with a sledgehammer and blocks that can be climbed upon with a pickaxe. Both of these items can be found—you guessed it—in one of the many doors. These enable more intricate level designs where pipe entrances are blocked until you find the right tool.

The problem is again that these tweaks lead to bigger levels, which lead to more unplayable stuttering. At this point, I was ready to throw in the towel—and I did: this game is twice as long as the first, which with its 80 levels was already more than Crazy enough for me.

If you really like Lode Runner copycat gameplay wrapped in a sleazy Looney Tunes towel, I suggest to dip a toe into the Crazy waters with the first game, and if that feels pleasant enough, try out the third game instead, which is basically v2 with the fixed frame rate and additional environmental variation (review upcoming).

Let’s just pretend Crazy Castle 2 never existed.