Felix the Cat (AKA Felix the Cat 3) is a 1998 unlicensed NES video game, developed by Dragon Co. and starring Felix the Cat.
The story is loosely based on the 1936 Felix cartoon The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg—Captain Kidd, an old foe of Felix, has kidnapped Goldie the Goose again, and Felix has to go off and rescue her.
The gameplay is a side-scrolling platformer and has some thematic similarities to Hudson Soft's 1992 NES game, but there are several differences. First, there are only two boss fights, the power-up system acts different, and there's an all around lack of polish to the controls, design and presentation.
Dragon Co. also reused this games engine for another one of their NES bootleg games, Super Hero, for the Dreamgame 75-in-1,
Tropes:
- 1-Up: Collecting 100 milk bottles (along with the Eggs, which are worth 10 bottles) gets you a 1-up. Collecting a heart while you have the tank gets you a one-up as well.
- Adaptational Wimp: Captain Kidd wasn't a top tier villain to begin with, but he at least posed something resembling a threat in the cartoon he appeared in. In this game, during the "fight" against him, he just hops or walks around without even using his sword, and he goes down in a few hits from your attack. The pit you have to jump over to complete the game is harder than he is!
- A Winner Is You: Your reward for beating the game? A screen of Felix hugging Goldie Goose with the words "The End" hanging over them.
- Big Bad: Captain Kidd.
- The Bus Came Back: After being absent from the Felix series for 62 years, Captain Kidd returns to challenge Felix once again. Goldie the Goose also returns alongside him for the occasion.
- Charged Attack: When he's wearing boxing gloves, Felix can charge them up for a bigger punch. It doesn't seem to do any more damage than a normal punch, though, and the charge time leaves you a sitting duck for an attack.
- Damsel in Distress: Goldie the Goose.
- Death Mountain: Level 3 is set in a mountain region that Felix has to traverse, with erupting volcanoes in the background.
- Early Game Hell: The first level is much harder than the rest of the game.
- Excuse Plot: Captain Kidd has kidnapped Goldie the Goose again, and Felix has to go save her.
- Fake Difficulty: The game is loaded with design flaws that make it much harder than it needs to be. Felix can only see a couple feet ahead of him, and many levels have bottomless pits or platforms with enemies on them just offscreen with few or any chances to prepare yourself for them except by memorization. To make matters worse, the game flat out hates unarmored Felix — he has no Mercy Invincibility (the two boss fights can even exploit this by trapping Felix in place, whittling down his power-ups until he dies), and his default attack is a pathetic short-range punch, and it's very easy to trigger the nearly useless windup punch, which leaves you a sitting duck for an enemy attack, and you lose all of your power-ups on dying. On top of that, Felix has very stiff jumping controls, and the levels are designed to use that against you.
- Final Boss: Captain Kidd, who just walks or jumps around towards you without unsheathing his sword.
- Flaming Sword: Felix's first power-up is gaining yellow Knight armor, complete with a (useless) shield and a sword that gets covered in flames each time he swings it on the ground. In mid-air, it doesn't have the flame effect, though.
- Follow the Money: The game occasionally uses milk bottles to guide you to a platform offscreen, but they'll often be platforms with enemies on them too.
- Gangplank Galleon: The seventh and final level is set on a pirate ship near a tropical island.
- Green Hill Zone: The first level is a grassy plain setting.
- Haunted Castle: The second level is set in a castle filled with skeleton knights.
- Hitbox Dissonance: Some enemies, like the pink creatures in level 5, have bigger hitboxes than their sprites.
- Levels Take Flight: Level 5 has Felix grab a hangglider to fly around in it. He can upgrade it to a helicopter and flying saucer as well.
- Jump Physics: Felix has a very stiff jump that's hard to control, and if you so much as walk off a platform without jumping, Felix will sink like a rock and you lose any mid-air control over him — these are often in spots with Bottomless Pits, too.
- Kaizo Trap: After you beat Captain Kidd, there's one last pit you have to jump over to complete the game, but it's very tricky, and very easy to fall into it. If you fall for it, you have to play some of the level and fight Captain Kidd all over again.
- Marathon Level: Level 4 is a long underwater level that gives you just barely enough time to finish it. If you screw around, you will run out of time before you reach the goal post, although dying and respawning at a checkpoint resets the timer, making it slightly easier.
- Power-Up Food: Like the 1992 NES game, there are milk bottles floating around, but they just serve as coins here — they don't recharge your power-ups or give you points. The Eggs floating around are worth 10 bottles, which make it easier to get 1-ups.
- Shout-Out: Stage 7 has enemies that pop out of the floor to throw axes at you in a way very similar to the Doomship enemies from Super Mario Bros. 3.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: World 6 is an ice themed level with enemies like baby penguins sitting around, although design wise its basically a palette swap of World 3.
- Tank Goodness: Like in the NES game, Felix can stack power-ups, with the fourth one being a mini-tank. Unlike the 1992 game, the Tank can shoot in a straight line that follows the movement of the tank and quickly mow through targets, but it's attack range is much shorter as a tradeoff.
- Un-Installment: Some copies call it Felix the Cat 3, even though there weren't any games before it (not counting the official 1992 video game).
- Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Captain Kidd comes back to challenge Felix again after 62 years — and just tries to rely on Collision Damage and jumping to fight him, while Felix is now able to use four different attacks, all of them capable of taking down Kidd in seconds.
- Warm-Up Boss: The caveman you fight at the beginning of the first stage.
