As one of the earliest animated characters dating back to the silent film era, the popularity of Felix the Cat has waxed and waned over the decades. Its charm, however, continues even after its centenary. He may be the only cartoon mascot older than Mickey Mouse to also dabble in the Super Mario Bros. formula. in a side-scrolling platformer.
Originally published by Hudson Software in 1992, Felix’s foray into video games came relatively late in the life of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), along with a heavily condensed port on the Game Boy. The titles are well remembered by those who played them, but fell into relative oblivion and are now fetching dizzying sums on the second-hand market.
You are tasked with guiding a grinning black cat through nine worlds and multiple stages in an attempt to rescue Kitty, a damsel in distress, from a maniacal mad scientist, the Professor, and his minions, all characters from Television show 1958-60 who also appeared in the 1991 direct-to-video film on which the game is based.
As a preservation boon, both the console and handheld versions of Felix the Cat came to the Switch as a collection developed by Limited Run Games and published by Konami, the current owners of Hudson and its IP. Equipped with save state and rewind features, this is the ultimate way to revisit these games. But with a ticket price of $24.99 MSRP, it’s a tough sell.
Hindsight also shows that Felix the Cat did not reach the vaunted heights of his inspirations. It heavily incorporates elements from the Super Mario Bros. series, but lacks the platforming finesse, and is overshadowed by Kirby’s 1993 adventure, with both games built around beginner-friendly accessibility and the fun of discovering character transformations.
With a bag of tricks in hand, Felix can conjure up vehicles like tanks, planes and submarines, and even ride a dolphin. The levels take place on land, some in the air, and others on or under water. Despite the shaky gameplay mechanics that such different environments usually entail, each of Felix the Cat’s levels feels relatively similar and recycled.
Felix’s movement is far from desired and can be imprecise in certain vehicles. The level designs and boss fights are rarely repetitive with little added challenges or smarter enemy behavior as you progress. Some levels offer verticality with balloon-battle-style controls that require you to press the jump button to maneuver and stay afloat.
As a game mainly aimed at children, it offers particularly low difficulty, even in the last half. You can easily get rid of the chef enemy with one punch of the spring-loaded boxing glove. Hearts appear when Felix collects ten generously awarded coins emblazoned with his face throughout the stages, boosting his abilities for a limited time.
In his most basic form, Felix has a limited range and can lose a life with a single touch from an enemy. But with a heart, he puts on the top hat and scatters the deadly glare in all directions. Further hearts put him in a vehicle that changes depending on the stage, providing more attack range. Any enemy contact results in Felix reverting to his previous form and his ability.
Collecting a hundred Felix faces gives you an extra life, and the bag of tricks itself serves as a replacement for the green warp tubes that take you to hidden loot rooms. Despite changing environments, abilities and maneuvering methods, Felix the Cat somehow manages to offer only more of the same throughout his short and breezy campaign.
While it was serviceable from start to finish, the lack of inventiveness in the level design, lack of serious challenge, and repetitive gameplay started to bite around the halfway point. Still, the NES campaign can be beaten in an hour, while the Game Boy version plays like what it is: a simplistic monochromatic plug-in with more than half the levels cut.
To its credit, the colorful 8-bit environments and clear attention to detail — the titular cat falling asleep if the controller is left idle in one area — are cuddly There’s a clear respect for the source material that shines through, and this pack’s handy rewind feature undoes a fatal jump or enemy encounter and saves you any unnecessary frustration.
Holding down the ‘ZL’ trigger takes the game back with a black and white overlay in a thoughtful nod to Felix’s pioneering animations from the 1920s. Game progress can be saved on the fly from the pause menu, although there is only one save state per title at a time. There is an additional yellow border and no others to choose from.
Conclusion
NES enthusiasts, parents looking for an affordable retro game for their kids, and anyone with nostalgic feelings for Felix the Cat will find something to enjoy here – all the better if it’s on sale. This relatively sparse package only boasts two versions of the same hour-long, three-decade-old game, making it hard to justify its full price tag.
