Donald Duck No Mahou No Boushi (
Donald Duck and the Magical Hat) is a
Platform Game released for the
Super Famicom in 1995 by Epoch,
exclusively on Japan. It begins as a rather mundane adventure, with Donald doing odd jobs so he can later buy a hat as a gift for Daisy. When he finds the hat
already sold out, things take a turn for the fantastic as he ends up helping a king who has been turned into a hat to take back his kingdom from the villainous Pete.
Tropes striken down by diving headbutts include:
- Background Boss: Pete's second form.
- Big Bad: Pete is here as an antagonist to Donald instead of Mickey, like in Quackshot.
- Bonus Feature Failure: This game is compatible with the Barcode Battler II minigame, but there are no known bonuses or unlockables for it. All scanning barcodes will net you is level skips from the Password screen
, which is redundant. - Bottomless Pits
- The Cameo: Characters like Mickey and Scrooge have minor cameos.
- Convection, Schmonvection: The rising sea of flames in one of the final levels actually burns platforms some time before it engulfs them, so you must keep hurrying to the next ones.
- Crystal Landscape: The Crystal Cave level.
- Death Mountain: The High Up in the Mountains level.
- Game-Over Man: A sad Donald on a black screen, accompained by whining nephews.
- Gimmick Level: Some levels revolve around an odd gimmick, such as riding a bike or rotating the level when walkling on slopes.
- Goomba Stomp: Donald's main means of offense, though one should always use the headbutt instead.
- Hat of Power: Donald can cover himself with the king-turned-hat to become invincible but also immobile.
- Leitmotif: Donald is given a rather cute and serene theme.
- The Lost Woods: The Forest of Angles level. Its main gimmick revolved around rotating the level when walking on slopes, and generally had a somewhat creepy vibe.
- Luck-Based Mission: The hammer-wielding boss seems to become vulnerable at random, which is a problem because he eventually destroys the arena with his attacks, killing Donald in the process.
- Marathon Level: Most levels in the game are short enough for the final one to be this by comparison.
- The Maze: The cave level features a maze of mirror portals.
- Mirror Boss: The green ghost mirrors Donald's movements, even moving downwards whenever Donald jumps. As it is invincible to Donald's attacks, it must instead be positioned below falling stalactites.
- Rise to the Challenge: Near the end Donald must climb over platforms to escape from rising flames. The catch is that there's two platform groups divided by a wall. The player must pay attention because when Donald jumps on a colored platform, he's teleported to its equivalent on the opposite side.
- Sequential Boss: The battle against Pete has two phases.
- Shout-Out: The game uses slope physics that on occasion allow Donald to run up walls and the goal of one stage is to beat a Mascot with Attitude-esque rabbit in a race. While speed powerups were always oddly common in Donald Duck games, this game is straight-up channeling Sonic the Hedgehog. On the SNES, to boot.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Racing in the Snow level.
- Surprisingly Creepy Moment: The Forest of Angles level. Nearly all levels before it (maybe except Haunted Clockwork) were brightly colored, light-hearted, and generally upbeat. When you arrived at the Forest of Angles, however, the music suddenly began to sound creepy and menacing. The level was so tight it induced a vague claustrophobia. And there were those weird trees whose eyes kept rotating...
- Timed Mission: The obstacle race in the circus.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: The game starts with several minigames until Donald can save up enough money to buy a cute hat for Daisy, but after that it becomes a fairly standard platformer. However even the second half of the game has different elements into its levels: on one you have to travel through a rotating maze, on another you can jump between two planes and so on.
- Use Your Head: Hold Down while jumping and Donald will radically turn upside-down. This does double damage, so it is essential against bosses. Rather odd that just this single game features the attack he uses most frequently in cartoons and comics.
- Victory Pose: A series of triumphant jumps. "YATTA!", he says. After the final battle, Donald's voice even echoes.
