"Like most Mickey Mouse games..."

Mickey's Ultimate Challenge is one of quite a few games for the GameBoy starring Mickey Mouse and some of his companions. Like many games starring Mickey Mouse for various systems, this one is pretty enjoyable for even people that aren't six years old.

You can play as either Mickey or Minnie; however, we'll just assume that you are playing as Mickey from here on out. This game starts off in Mickey's bedroom when he is reading himself to sleep. He is reading a wonderful fantasy book about huge castles. He thinks to himself how wonderful it would be to live in a world such as the ones he reads about in these books. The next thing he knows, he is asleep and falling into a dream world that just happens to be on top of a castle. A friendly guard greets Mickey with a heavy accent on the top of the castle. Suddenly, the earth shakes and Mickey finds out that these earthquakes happen often and for no reason. Mickey decides that he should find out how to end these tremors and so the ultimate challenge begins!

In order for Mickey to find out the cause of these tremors, he needs to get some help from his friends located throughout the castle and surrounding town. Each of Mickey's friends will give you a task to complete first, and then they will give you an item to help you in your cause. This game is more of a puzzle game more than an action game, since there aren't too many enemies in this game, and the whole game includes solving various puzzles in order to complete the game.

Graphics
The graphics in this game were pretty impressive. The graphics start good from the title screen. The title screen is very well drawn and has some fancy text and a nicely detailed castle in the background. The intro to the game where Mickey is sitting in a bed is also very detailed and looks great. The actual game play part of the game is good graphically also. Everything is shaded very accurately and animations are great. One of the more impressive points of the game graphically is the fact that Mickey's mouth actually moves when he talks, which is rare in GameBoy games.

Sounds
I found the sounds to be just average. There were hardly any sound effects at all and the music was just all right. The music went well with the medieval setting of the game. There really isn't a whole lot to say about the audio in this game.

Storyline
Sure, the storyline I described above isn't too enticing, but it's well portrayed which is rare in GameBoy games. The intro in the beginning was very well done and did a good short job giving a little overview of the game and what it's about.

Controls
Navigating Mickey throughout the game is pretty much flawless. You really can't accidentally fall off the screen or die in any way as Mickey will not allow you, but this makes the game a little more enjoyable. The only thing I didn't like was that the A and B buttons were used for jumps of different heights, which is a little excessive for me.

Game Play/Replay Value
Though this game was designed for young children, and the puzzles are more geared towards them, this game is still pretty fun even for older people. The game is very straight forward and has solid, fun game play like most games starring Mickey Mouse. The one thing I didn't like is that you couldn't save at all, meaning that if you don't complete the game, you must start all over. I must admit that this game doesn't have very high replay value. Once I beat the game, I didn't really find it worth going back to.

Final Words
Though this game was designed for children, I believe that it can be enjoyed by people of all ages. The game play is solid and the puzzles are simple, yet enjoyable. The graphics were splendid and the story was well portrayed, but the sounds were lack luster. This is a pretty enjoyable, but you probably won't play it more than once or twice.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/07/06