Mappy-Land (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
325A playthrough of Taxan's 1989 action-platformer for the NES, Mappy-Land.
Mappy-Land is the second sequel to the old Namco arcade game Mappy which featured the titular mouse/policeman recovering stolen items from a gang of cats.
This NES-exclusive follow-up expands on the original Mappy while retaining the core gameplay conceits that made the original such a classic. You can still feel the Pac-Man influence quite well.
Mappy is still going after Goro's gang of Meowkies, but the gameplay is no longer confined to a single building. This time, each of the four stages are made up of eight unique substages. You always begin at a train station, and then move on to the wild west, a tropical island, the jungle village, a pirate ship, a haunted church, a shop-lined street, and finally, the Meowkies' castle hideout.
In each of these substages you have to collect the stolen objects while avoiding the cats. There are plenty of opportunities to distract or dispatch the relentless Meowkies as you leap about each area on trampolines, and there are several hidden bonus stages that you can access to restock your weapons and lives.
The gameplay is simple, but the different areas give Mappy Land way more variety than the original had - the focus on jumping in Tropical World and the flying bit in Ghost World are good examples. The game also benefits a great deal from the variety in graphics and music that these levels provide.
Though Mappy-Land was released for the Famicom in 1986, it still looked surprisingly fresh when it made its way stateside in 1989. The bold colors and clean lines of the artwork aged extremely well - more than thirty years later, it still manages to be a good looking game.
The rest of the game has aged about as well, too. The challenge is reasonable, the controls are smooth (save for a few cases involving jumping), and there's enough depth to the gameplay to keep you playing until the end.
It's a tasteful update to an early 80s classic which ended up becoming something of a classic itself. If you have an NES, you'd do well to grab yourself a copy.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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