The Little Mermaid

"It's games like this that make the NES so great."

This is the only game ever based on the Disney movie. And it sure is fun. This game is pretty aweasome, and dives (no pun intended) into a colorful experience that will have you diving back for more. I remeber as a little kid always renting this game over and over because I enjoyed it so much.

Gameplay
This game is fun to play. It really is. It is pretty easy, though. Just flip your fins to shoot out bubbles and hurl them at enemies. Some levels can be slightly hard, like the Volcano level but hey--it's pretty easy overall. You can probally breeze through this sucker in about 15 minutes. The bosses are very original, however. But there is more to it than meets the eye. For one, you flip your fins and a bubble shoots out. When the bubble strikes an enemy twice, they are trapped inside it. You can use this to kill other enemies. However, if you find treasure chests which can be opened by using a seashell, you can upgrade your power, and shoot larger and more powerful bubbles that trap people in one shot or less, and also you can find power-ups that boost up your Range and make the attacks go father. You can also use the Seashells as a weapon. They kill enemies almost instantly. Heck, you can find a seahell, hold it in front of you, and be invinicble until you reach the next part of the stage, as enemeis die when they hit the shell.

Story
The story has it's own twist to the movie. The game dumps you off about 2/3 the way into the movie, however, it doesn't really matter. The entire game is spent controlling Ariel as a mermaid, not a human. That's a good thing. What could the human do? Chop off the fish with her fork? And then there'd be a time limit for air....but the Story is pretty based on the movie. Urusula, the over-sized octopus, wants to control the sea. You are after her. She creates all these dangers to stop you, including freezing the sea in which you swim in, make you venture through a volcano, and even battle her eels and fierce enemies including a shark, and even a relly big seahorse......then when it all comes down to it, you face the big lug herself......

Audio/Video
The graphics are pretty decent for a NES game. The shark boss looks EXACTLY like the one from the movie. Urusla looks kinda radioactive, though. The eels look the same, only fatter. The music is very catchy and very true to the movie. You can hear Under the Sea in the intro and somewhere else (which is a secret) and the level music is very catchy and sounds like the game. The boss music is chilling, and the final boss music makes you panic because it makes you feel like you have to beat Urusla like the big lug that she is....

Replayability
Once you beat this game, is that it? Not really. It's really fun to go back and find everything you missed. You can find hidden treasure everywhere, and in fact, it's pretty fun to play it over to see how fast you can beat it, or even see how high a score you can get. There is lots of replay value in this little cartridge.

To buy or to rent?
Oh come on, like this really matters? You can find this game for CHEAP now. I've seen it on Ebay for barely a penny now. And even if you hate this game, you got it for cheap, so why are you complaning?

Overall
This game is worth a shot. So what are you waiting for?

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/10/00, Updated 12/10/00