Tried to play through Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers for Game Boy Color in Mesen. Stopped after staying up late, got cranky, found I never wanted to play it again.
After a bad story to explain why the levels have no connection to each other, involving the guy whose name is NOT pronounced like a Greek sandwich, you start in a forest, which seems pleasant enough. Eventually you are groped by purple tentacles that come out of the ground, and run to death by a cute squirrel. From this point the game is devoid of joy.
DD:GQ uses the platforming engine Ubisoft Milan (earlier I forgot and stupidly guessed this game was made by Ubisoft Montreal, for which I apologize to Ubisoft Montreal) developed for Rayman 2 GBC--which was kind of a big hit for them--and reused in a number of later games; but--at least as seen emulated in Mesen--it runs poorly, has a crummy 2D camera, and by 2/3rds of the way through hadn't demonstrated a single boss fight against an actual free moving, interactive boss character.
Duckburg is a slum.
Inverted walking-on-the-ceiling stages are bad enough, but for some reason these are not just ceilings, but SLIPPY-SLIDEY ceilings.
Nebulous platforming with unclear edges and remarkably poorly defined powerup items.
Becomes extreme breadcrumbing: get the powerup that lets Donald blow through doors for ~5 seconds. Blow through door. Get next blue coin thing. Backtrack until you find what it changed. Go that way. Repeat.
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