Pap the Disney
Gamer Highlights:
Chip N’ Dale Rescue Rangers
Developed by:
Capcom
System:
Nintendo Entertainment System

The name “Capcom”
carries a lot of weight in the
video game industry. The
Japanese company is known for
creating some of the most famous
franchises in history, such as
Mega Man,
Resident Evil and
Street Fighter, among
others. For Disney fans, though,
they are known for producing
some of the best Disney based
games ever released on Nintendo
systems. Whether they were based
on a movie or a TV show, the
quality of the game was very
high. Today I will talk about
one of my favorites:
Chip N’ Dale: Rescue Rangers.
The TV show was
one of the first series to be
featured on the Disney
Afternoon, a very beloved
afternoon block that featured
series such as
Talespin and
Darkwing Duck. It took
the classic Disney characters,
Chip N’ Dale, and turned
them into small detectives. They
were joined by burly cheese
addict
Monterey Jack, his friend
Zipper the Fly and Gadget, the
crew’s inventor. They would take
on larger than life cases, often
involving Fat Cat, the series’
main baddie. Rescue Rangers was
a very fun show that brought
back classic characters in a
captivating manner and features
some very cleverly written
stories.

It was popular
enough that a video game was
created based on it. Back then,
it was seen as a licensed game.
Today, it is regarded as a
classic of the NES era.
Rescue Rangers
the game follows the plot of the
TV show closely. Gadget has been
kidnapped by Fat Cat and thus
Chip and Dale must rescue
her. The game is a
side-scrolling platforming game
where you control either
character. You can pick up items
such as apples and boxes and
throw them at enemies. Best of
all, if you have a friend you
can play as the other chipmunk
and either co-operate in beating
the level or just annoying the
stuffing out of each other.
This mechanic
alone proved to be one of the
most popular as players would
have great memories of either
playing together or throwing
boxes at each other (I am guilty
of this myself!). Rescue Rangers
also featured the appearances of
the other characters. Zipper the
Fly was a power up that would
destroy the enemies when picked
up, making your character
invincible for a brief period of
time. In some levels you can
pick up a block of cheese. Doing
so will cause Monterey Jack to
appear and destroy a wall.
Gameplay wise,
it was rock solid. While it
wasn’t as feature rich as
Nintendo’s
Super Mario series, the
level design was creative,
making the player feel like they
were small rodents in a giant’s
world. Not only that, you could
fight many creatures from the TV
show, including the robot dogs
from one of the show’s episodes.

The music is
perhaps one of the most notable
aspects of the game. Capcom is
known for creating some of the
best NES soundtracks, and Rescue
Rangers is one of their greats.
The melodies are extremely
catchy, and of course the
unforgettable
theme song is present and
accounted for.
In the
video game world,
licensed games carry a negative
stigma. This is because the
games would often be rushed to
market in order to coincide with
the release of a product (movie,
TV show, toy line etc.), making
it a game of poor quality.
Capcom proved that a great
licensed game could happen, and
Chip N’ Dale Rescue Rangers is
just one of the many games that
were fun to play and captured
the magic of the Disney legacy
in any of its facets.