Disney’s Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers (NES)

Disney’s Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers is a platformer with one trick besides jumping: you can pick up and throw things. While this isn’t exactly an exciting or inventive concept, the branding from the Disney animated series doing the heavy lifting for drawing in an audience, it is actually a mechanic that works surprisingly well thanks to the creativity of the Capcom staff who designed this side-scrolling cartoon adventure.

 

The plot of Disney’s Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers also doesn’t exactly sound the most exciting either when you learn the chipmunk pair and their detective agency are setting out to save the lost kitten of a girl named Mandy. However, this is quickly revealed to be a ruse from the long time enemy of the Rescue Rangers, Fat Cat, the aptly named villain organizing his underlings so he can kidnap the team’s mechanic Gadget and try to take out the rest of the group while they try to save her. Because of their small size though, Chip and Dale find even relatively simple locations make for a long trek. An active faucet can be a danger if they don’t turn off its stream of water, ceiling fans can serve as platforms, and a toy store can be a danger to navigate as its toys run amok. Whether its climbing tree branches or needing to hop over glasses and bottles on a bar top, the ten levels of this side-scrolling adventure do a good job of not just shaking up where you’re exploring but making them an interesting sight to behold thanks to the miniature perspective of the game’s pipsqueak protagonists.

Disney’s Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers can be either played alone or with a second player, and having both Chip and Dale active can prove to be quite a boon since you can stand on top of the other player to gain some extra height or even pick them up and carry them, and while you might both want to be throwing the same object, there are usually enough scattered around that you shouldn’t run low when it is important to have something in hand. The enemies of Disney’s Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers are a varied bunch who do oppose your progress fairly well too. You’ll need to make good use of the throwing objects to take them out, but the enemy design and positioning means it won’t always be too easy. A pelican for example can swallow an object thrown at him from the front, a burly bird will punch any crates in his way at you, and even just finding the time to safely stand in front of Racquet Roo as it is unleashing a stream of tennis balls can be hard to manage. Even simple foes like mechanical rats and bulldogs are very quick or might jump in tricky ways, and while there are plenty of crates laying around, missing with a throw means you have to scramble to grab another one so you don’t want to get sloppy when under pressure.

 

Throwing boxes isn’t always as straightforward as hurling them forward either. Many stages have multiple layers to the space you find yourself in, and while this can make an enemy tough to approach, it might also mean you can slip past them or get beneath them and throw the box upwards to take them out safely. However, if an enemy is charging right towards you or unleashing a projectile attack, you can also just hunker down into the box with your eyes cutely poking through. The first hit you take while hiding does get rid of your cover, but if it was removed by an enemy touching it, they’ll go down, this proving a nice counter for some of the speedier baddies. This small bit of flexibility coupled with accommodating levels and a range of enemies that ask you to consider the best way to throw your boxes gives the action of Disney’s Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers a good bit of substance, the game not needing to be too gentle with you and designing a fair few spaces where you’ll want to take a second and figure out the best approach.

The item throwing is also put to good use across the game’s boss fights. For bosses you are given a single reusable ball to hurl repeatedly at your foe, be they a large robotic toy that flings balls around, a catfish that tries to zap you, or a cash-throwing cat at the casino. Some of them follow set patterns you need to quickly learn so you can find the safe spots to grab your ball and make your repeat throws, but some are more reactive and figuring out how to bait them into a mistake gives the fight an extra bit of challenge to overcome.  They are mostly one trick ponies ultimately, some kept alive by their behavior being influenced by yours but generally they work well enough as a trial to learn rather than a difficult barrier you need to break through. In fact, they feel like a fairly effective twist on the game’s usual focus on how to approach danger. The player usually presses forward with a box in hand and tries to figure out how to get past the dangers ahead, always knowing there’s a risk if they time things wrong.

 

While maybe having an extra trick could help the boss fights, they do work well considering dying in a level sets you back fairly far in it before you reach the boss, and running out of lives right as you get to the battle could disheartening. Luckily, there are some ways to earn extra resources in Disney’s Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers. While only some levels have boss battles, all of them culminate in a bonus stage where you can try to earn extra lives. Normally in a level you collect stars and flowers to work up towards 1-ups, but the bonus game has hidden items under crates which can include a free 1-Up in a surprisingly reliable spot. Healing acorns can be found in levels, often near a spot that was deliberately tricky or just introduced something dangerous for the first time, and there is even a potion you can find that lets you lift heavier objects to broaden your options a touch. Sometimes the level layouts can sort of trick you into a situation where you’re likely to take damage though, the path ahead sometimes hard to gauge while you can’t go back if you find yourself with little answer for the foe ahead. A few times Disney’s Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers also gives you the ability to stack grey boxes in a fairly plain way of building yourself a way up, but it’s a fairly harmless element in a game that otherwise has a strong understanding of how to make its simple crate tossing engaging and the world around it is built around it to keep it so.

THE VERDICT: Despite throwing boxes being the big idea the game’s platforming is built around, a good deal of creativity and intelligent design allows Disney’s Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers to be an appealing adventure where seeing the next level always comes with a bit of excitement. The environments being based around the heroes’ small size gives it a fun theme and some unique obstacles while enemies encourage thoughtful use of your throwing options, the bosses even being a good test of your ability to figure out the right way to approach a situation. Ideas like hiding in the box are a simple yet smart touch to expand your options, so while there are a few gotcha moments that throw off the balance, this platformer does some great work with its simple little heroes.

 

And so, I give Disney’s Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers for the Nintendo Entertainment System…

A GOOD rating. They may not have special moves, crazy power-ups, or even vehicle sections beyond a tame boat ride to spice things up, but Chip and Dale manage to get a lot of mileage out of the crates they grab, mostly because of what they run into. Your box carrying comes with three options but also often a built-in concern that you might not be able to grab another in time if you miss a throw, so foes in Disney’s Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers are built around it to make for interesting but brief engagements. The box punching bird may be a terror if he’s near a pile of crates, but you can sometimes take a high road and wait him out. Racquet Roo’s constant tennis volley can be ducked under until you find the safe moment to throw or even leap over him. More and more you come to figure out the foes you’re facing but the level also makes sure that won’t invalidate the danger, something as simple as a beetle that jumps around when you get close made far more dangerous in an area with a lot of layers it can bound around on. While the stages are visually laid out to evoke the idea of playing as very tiny chipmunks, the fact that also work as good hosts for the game’s action without slowing it down too much shows that the creativity goes beyond just what common household object has been made into a platform for the heroic pair. Disney’s Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers could pursue even more ideas like objects with specific effects when thrown or bosses that aren’t undone when you figure out their main trick, but the game did receive a sequel so theorizing how it could be made better might be better saved until after seeing how it was tried. The game as is mostly just has a few moments that can leave you in a rough bind since you can’t anticipate the danger enough in advance, but even those moments are offset by elements like the reliable bonus games ensuring you can make up a bit for those times you were forced into a hit.

 

Besides a few moments like having to run against the wind of fans where the execution is a slog rather than a cute touch, Disney’s Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers found it could create a fair few spaces that suit the animated show’s emphasis on small heroes getting things done despite their size. It took an abundance of conveniently placed crates here to make Chip and Dale capable combatants, but the quick encounters liven up the ten level journey, Disney’s Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers no doubt one of the quality Disney game adaptations by Capcom that gave them a reputation for enjoyable licensed titles during the NES era.