Disney's Magical Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse (known in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 as: Mickey Mouse no Fushigi no Kagami ミッキーマウスの不思議な鏡) is a Disney

The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...

 adventure

Adventure game

An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...

 video game developed by Capcom

Capcom

is a Japanese developer and publisher of video games, known for creating multi-million-selling franchises such as Devil May Cry, Chaos Legion, Street Fighter, Mega Man and Resident Evil. Capcom developed and published Bionic Commando, Lost Planet and Dark Void too, but they are less known. Its...

, published by Nintendo

Nintendo

is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....

 and distributed by: Disney Interactive Studios for the Nintendo GameCube

Nintendo GameCube

The , officially abbreviated to NGC in Japan and GCN in other regions, is a sixth generation video game console released by Nintendo on September 15, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia...

.

Gameplay

The game uses a simple point-and-click mechanic which involves using a cursor to guide Mickey Mouse to various locations. Mickey will react to what the player does and what he encounters in the game by expressing curiosity, getting mad, falling down, running away, standing his ground, or other actions. At certain points, the player is able to have Mickey perform a special move that generally involves having him stomp on an onscreen enemy.

Mini-games, such as having Mickey fly an airplane or ski down a mountain, are available throughout the game. Special souvenirs may be uncovered as well, which are displayed in Mickey's room at the end of the game, such as Pluto's collar or Minnie's bow.

Plot

One night, a mischievous ghost traps a sleep-walking Mickey Mouse inside a magic mirror. Stuck in an alternate universe that strangely resembles his own house, Mickey yearns to get back through the mirror to his own house and his own bed. The player must direct Mickey to outwit enemies and pull gags in order to get past enemies and the aforementioned ghost and recover the broken mirror pieces he needs to go home again.

Development

At Nintendo

Nintendo

is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....

's Space World 2001 show, where it was just beginning to show more Nintendo Gamecube titles, A Disney title was announced which showed some screenshots of this game, which was assumed to be a platformer like much the vein of Disney's Magical Quest

Disney's Magical Quest

Disney's Magical Quest, known in Japan as , is a Disney platform game series released by Capcom. The games star Mickey Mouse and, depending on the game version, either Minnie Mouse or Donald Duck, who must defeat an evil villain, always played by Peg-Leg Pete...

 on the Super Nintendo. But when Nintendo finally announced the product at the 2002 Electronic Entertainment Expo, This was proved that it was a completely different game, instead.

This game's plot was based on "Thru the Mirror

Thru the Mirror

Thru the Mirror is a Mickey Mouse cartoon short film produced by Walt Disney Productions, released by United Artists in 1936. In this cartoon short, Mickey has a Through the Looking-Glass-type dream that he travels through his mirror and enter a topsy-turvy world where everything is alive...

", a 1936 Mickey Mouse cartoon. The opening sequence also plays out similar to the beginning of the cartoon, even perfectly replicating Mickey's "walk through the mirror" animation. One part later in the game, where Mickey grows to a tremendous size then shrinks to a minuscule size, was also replicated exactly as in the cartoon.

Reception

The game was generally given poor review scores. For the most part, the player is given no instructions and cut scenes are limited to watching Mickey get chased or falling through to the next area. The game was also criticized because the controls are unreasonably unresponsive as Mickey will just wander off on his own even if players tell him otherwise.