Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow (SNES)
Donald Duck is a fairly flexible mascot for Disney to throw into new situations like his superhero stint as Paperinik, but for some reason in Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow, the game tries to avoid even mentioning he’s playing the role of protagonist. Seemingly this emerged from a Disney mandate where all video games made by Disney Interactive had to stem from a preexisting brand, but then for the U.S. release of the game to avoid even mentioning Donald Duck makes for a rather strange implementation of this requirement. For this Super Nintendo action platformer Donald Duck is essentially an actor portraying the character of Maui Mallard, a duck detective who washes up on a tropical island that is seemingly a mishmash of various Pacific Island cultures. The bonus levels are referred to as luaus, Maui ends up getting trained to be a Japanese ninja, the Muddrake natives evoke broad tribal stereotypes, and elements outside of island cultures like mojo and a witch doctor are thrown over top in this scattershot assemblage of ideas. Despite some of its odd choices and unfocused island setting though, Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow actually is brimming with effective ideas and surprising artistry.
Maui’s adventure on the island is one undertaken to avert certain disaster, the idol of the island’s guardian Shabuhm Shabuhm missing and its retrieval the only way of preventing an explosive end to the entire world. The detective sets out to find it, armed at first with just a gun that can fire special bugs with different properties. Alone this gun would actually be a fairly useful weapon, its shot strong enough to wear down most dangers without too much work unless they’re meant to be a trial and the weapon even coming with a few alternate ammo types to grab. An electric bug fires a split shot in front of Maui good for hitting foes that might be hard to point your pistol at but the fire shot is even more reliable, its burning bug homing in on a target to guarantee a hit. If you mix together the two bug types though an electric shot will now home in for greater damage, but most levels make sure to keep the special bug ammo in a decent but limited supply. You’ll get to use those unique shot types well enough but it won’t help you breeze through a stage, but in some like the one where you protect a floating jar as it moves up the tower, being able to let loose with the electric and fire bugs makes the protection mission far more feasible and entertaining.
After the game’s first level Maui will head to the ninja training grounds and take on the new persona of Cold Shadow. This blindfolded ninja duck wields a bo staff, and while you might think the warrior is stronger than the detective form, the staff swinging can sometimes come up a little short. This is partly because the levels introducing Cold Shadow rely a lot on black-feathered rival ninjas who also need to get in close to smack you with their staff and you don’t quite have a clear advantage over them in this skirmish. They take quite a few hits initially, but one unique facet of the ninja identity is the ability to increase its competency. Yin-Yang Coins can be found floating around the level or as a reward for interacting with certain objects or enemies, these progressing Cold Shadow up the belt color hierarchy and unlocking staff combos so he can start dishing out damage better. Once you do get a bit more power (which isn’t too hard to do) you can start to enjoy the unique aspects of playing as Cold Shadow like scaling large shafts by jamming your staff into the walls or swinging from special hook points. Some stages even allow you to switch between Maui Mallard and Cold Shadow as you please so you can tackle trials in whatever manner suits you one persona’s unique powers are required.
A somewhat unfortunate fact about controlling either form of the game’s duck protagonist is a slightly rough set of controls. Finagling the exact jump distance you desire can sometimes lead to undershooting it, and while at first the game has a little mercy, later stages do introduce instant death drops if you miss a platform. By then you will have at least likely acclimated to the quirk, but you also get other little moments like one level where you rid a platform up atop rising lava. You need to dodge the ceilings above to avoid being crushed but bumping into a wall while moving your platform will cause you to bounce off, something that’s likely to happen as you need to move fairly quickly to survive. Hitting latch points for a staff swing as Cold Shadow also demands precise positioning, but these are better spaced to rarely ever send you into trouble if it doesn’t work on your attempt. Mostly the roughness manifests in ways where you can quickly attempt the action again, and the game’s health, lives, continues, and checkpoints are pretty accommodating. Individual stages seem to have a pretty good sense for how much health to give you provided you scoop up the easily found level-specific upgrades to it, checkpoints in stages like that rising lava ride are abundant, and lives can be found both in normal stages and in each world’s bonus level.
Those minor issues in movement won’t undermine the surprising amount of imagination, variation, and quality found elsewhere in Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow. Of immediate note are the detailed animations and backgrounds, characters moving with interesting exaggerated fluidity that gives even something like a basic zombie some extra life. Maui does have an unfortunate whoosh sound effect whenever he looks left or right to emphasize the action that can get annoying if you’re trying to finagle a tough jump, but at other times he can be surprisingly reactive to the world as can the enemies. Smacking an enemy duck with your staff will make them stretch backwards as their teeth pop out comically as their eyes bulge out from under their blindfold, Maui’s panicked look as a jump boost sends him twirling through the air gives it more life than just a leg up, and you can shoot the loincloths off the little Muddrake islanders where they’ll cover themselves in embarrassment and shuffle off after. The musically is surprisingly catchy while also atmospheric, the silhouetted scenes between levels having a mysterious mood while the stages themselves can shift between ominous to moments of intriguing adventure based on the sound backing it. The level backgrounds can get impressively intricate as well, especially in later levels where the plunge into darker territory leans away from what might expect of a Disney duck game.
What is really surprising is how diverse the level types are. Worlds are split into smaller levels that can vary in length but can even be incredibly different in how they play. Already Maui and Cold Shadow had two different gameplay types the game could alternate between, but I’ve already mentioned the spirit protection stage which focuses on fighting back a constant ghost onslaught and the lava ride, while flawed in some ways, does ask you to move faster than most stage types. Head to an underwater shipwreck and you’ll need to swim by firing Maui’s gun for momentum, but over in the jungle you might find yourself bungee jumping down and around spiked structures. For a level type where you are prone to getting damaged like the bungee jumping ones you will really see how the game handled providing health boosts and opportunities to heal to match the danger ahead, the player not getting too frustrated even as they learn what the new gimmick at play is. The boss fights even show an impressive dedication to reinvention of how you can play. The first fight is fairly typical fare as you attack the boss with your pistol, but later combat can require you to instead turn the boss on a bunch of baddies or control an entirely unique means of movement to keep up with the boss’s screen filling shots. Sometimes those rough movement controls won’t even be a factor since the game has expanded out into a new type of play, and even if you do find yourself in a more typical platforming scenario the game continues to concoct interesting complications or throws strange new enemies at you so that you’re still excited to see what lies ahead.
A rather ingenious means of making you explore levels more exists as well, the luau bonus stage not so easy to get to. In the game’s normal stages there is plenty of treasure scattered around to collect, it playing a vital role in continuing your adventure. To play the bonus stage at the end of the world you must have collected a certain percentage of available treasure across all of its levels and the incentive to do so is pretty great. The bonus level has a small platforming challenge presented like it was on a theater stage, Maui bouncing up props shaped like cartoonish versions of stars, moons, and suns to try and find six fireworks to light up. If you activate them all you’ll get your password if you want to resume play from that point later, although this does mean if you can’t find all six in that two minute period you won’t have a password and need to continue on without that backup. It’s not too difficult though and the bonus stages often include a few extra lives and a continue to grab while doing it as well, shoring up your reserves that can you help you stick it out until the next password chance might arise. Treasure can be placed in a level to encourage risk taking and trying to get the goodie-filled bonus level may push you to do more than run to the end of a stage so that you can partake in more of its interesting challenges, this extra task thankfully never too demanding and often a good way to keep you invested in level designs as something more than obstacles blocking your way towards the end.
THE VERDICT: Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow could definitely do with some smoother movement controls as they hold back what is otherwise a remarkably creative SNES platformer. A lot of attention was given to making excellent music and appealing and detailed animations, but the level themes also delve into surprising territory as they introduce new gameplay types to contend with. Maui and Cold Shadow already approach their stages in different ways and can even be swapped between at times, but the game continues to innovate without abandoning a desire to iterate on the normal platforming, the game truly building an adventure that goes to strange and exciting places all while balancing its moments of difficulty with surprisingly savvy health pickups, checkpoints, and a treasure system that makes exploring even more rewarding.
And so, I give Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System…
A GOOD rating. If it had a better handle on the basics of its movement, Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow would be able to climb that bit higher on the rating scale without much issue. Swinging the staff and missing a latch point happens a bit too much even if the pressure is never too great in those moments, but falling in a pit because your jump was a bit fiddly is a sting that doesn’t add anything good to the experience. Luckily, so much of the adventure is about things beyond hopping over deadly drops, Maui Mallard’s basic bug gun already a fun tool for exploring a stage and yet the game keeps layering on new ideas. It’s not an overly long adventure but it is one that keeps impressing as it rarely settles into a single form, it actually reminding me a bit of Bonk’s Adventure in that it keeps thinking of new layouts for the regular play that keep that end of the experience suitably varied as well. Maui’s two identities are given room to evolve and face new trials but then you’ll get interesting moments where the rules change and learning what you’re supposed to do becomes part of the appeal. The balance it achieved in difficulty is also commendable, the game unafraid to put health upgrades, heals, and checkpoints in plenty of places without robbing the adventure of its edge. You will want to make it to the bonus stage and that puts you on the path to collecting more treasure which in turn helps you find interesting new side paths in stages that feel the right size for the ideas they offer. Some polishing in the controls and adjustments to some enemies so that they don’t drag if Cold Shadow isn’t powered up enough feels like all Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow really needs to truly realize its vision.
It’s a bit odd that even now Donald Duck’s presence is kept off the materials for this game as it gets rereleased on platforms like Steam and GOG. Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow is not a shameful product or a weak one, and while the PC port sounds like it might have some technical issues, the SNES original is an entertaining and creative platforming adventure that can still manage a compelling difficulty level despite those moments the incognito Donald Duck doesn’t quite move as well as he feel he should. A great deal of talent is on show in almost every part of this game, so while this didn’t take off as a new Disney sub-brand despite the optimistic promise that Maui will one day adventure again, the Maui Mallard concept at least provided one exciting adventure.