Magical Tetris Challenge is a puzzle game by Capcom and Disney Interactive. It is a Dolled-Up Installment of Tetris starring Mickey Mouse and friends.
You can play as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, or Minnie Mouse. Each character has their own story path, showing their own perspective of a unifying storyline.
It starts out as a normal day for all our heroes. Mickey is on his way to Minnie's house to help her bake cookies, Donald is fishing, and Goofy is bringing Minnie vegetables from his farm. Unfortunately, Pete and his henchmen, the Big Bad Wolf and Weasel (possibly one of the weasels from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad or The Prince and the Pauper) are up to no good. Our heroes each go on their own journey, challenging each other to Tetris duels before dueling Pete and his henchmen themselves.
The game was originally released for arcades (in Japan only), and was later released for the Nintendo 64 and the PlayStation in 1999. A Game Boy Color game with the same title but with a completely different plot was also released. Rather than following the console version's plot, it instead centers around a coin rally race as each of the main characters try their best to obtain the coins by completing challenges or challenging others to Tetris matches.
This game contains examples of:
- A Dog Named "Dog": The weasel character is named Weasel.
- And Now You Must Marry Me: Pete's goal is to force Minnie to marry him, going as far as to hypnotize her in Mickey's story.
- Animate Inanimate Object: The objects used as the Tetris boards in each stage are alive. They have faces that change expression throughout the fight.
- Mickey's Tetris boards are boilers.
- Donald's boards are barrels.
- Goofy's boards are windmills.
- Minnie's boards are ovens.
- Big Bad Wolf and Pete's boards are grandfather clocks.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Pete is known to change jobs and outfits depending on the story. In this game, he's referred to as Sir Pete. He wears a tuxedo and top hat, and he lives in a mansion. Still doesn't stop him from being the main villain, though.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Donald, Goofy, and Minnie's stories all end with them giving Pete something he needs for his Evil Plan. Only in Mickey's ending does Pete actually lose.
- Big Bad: Pete has an evil plan to force Minnie to marry him. He's also the Final Boss of each story path.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: In Mickey's story, Pete hypnotizes Goofy and Donald and orders them to block Mickey's way. Downplayed in that, since this is a Tetris game, the worst thing that Goofy and Donald do is challenge Mickey to Tetris matches.
- Brainwashed Bride: Pete uses the magic from a powerful gemstone to hypnotize Minnie into wanting to marry him. The spell works, although Mickey rescues and de-hypnotizes Minnie before Pete begins any kind of ceremony.
- Damsel in Distress: In Mickey's story, Minnie is hypnotized and kidnapped by Pete, who intends to marry her.
- Dolled-Up Installment: It's Tetris with the cast of Mickey Mouse. Subverted in that it's an original game in the series rather than a reskin of an existing game.
- The Dragon: Played with. On one hand, Weasel refers to himself as "Pete's right-hand man" in Mickey's route. On the other hand, Big Bad Wolf is the Penultimate Boss to Pete, and he shares Pete's sharp fashion sense while Weasel dresses like a thug.
- Evil Laugh: Pete's intro animation at the start of a match has him do a deep, bellowing laugh. However, since the game has no voice acting, you don't hear it, you only see it.
- Final Boss: Pete is the last opponent in each story path.
- Freaky Electronic Music: The Leitmotif for Pete and his gang is a discordant hip-hop tune
. - Formula with a Twist: There's a couple of extra bells and whistles added to the typical Tetris formula in this game.
- There are a few extra shapes added to the typical assortment of tetrominos, such as an L-Block with a piece jutting out the side, a U-Block, and even an I-Block with five pieces (which can cross the line from a Tetris to a Pentris).
- Garbage is handled differently from the usual random-gap block lines pushing the stack upwards. This game's garbage instead takes the form of abnormal blocks that the player has to place themselves, and the current assault of garbage must all be placed before regular tetrominos resume dropping. They can be very obstructive, ranging in shape from square to triangle to diamond, and can be as big as 5x5.
- Home Stage: Almost every character has their own stage:
- Mickey has the factory.
- Donald has the harbor.
- Goofy has the farm.
- Minnie has the kitchen.
- Big Bad Wolf and Pete share the mansion.
- Averted with Weasel. He has no stage of his own; instead, he challenges the player on the player character's home stage.
- Housewife: Implied and zig-zagged. On one hand, while Mickey, Donald, and Goofy all have specific jobs, Minnie is only shown baking cookies at home. On the other hand, she is stated to be the owner of the house, and there's no implication that she's married to anyone. It's unclear how she makes a living.
- In Name Only: The Game Boy Color version has a completely different plot from the console versions involving Mickey, Donald, Goofy or Minnie at a Tetris carnival having to challenge others such as Chip and Dale and Horace Horsecollar to gain Tetris Coins.
- Mineral MacGuffin: A magical gemstone that fell to Earth from space plays a big role in the story. Pete's evil plan depends on getting the stone and its power.
- Nightmarish Factory: Averted. Mickey, the hero, works at a factory, and it's not a particularly scary place. The factory boilers, which are alive, look friendly enough.
- Penultimate Boss: Big Bad Wolf is the second-to-last boss in each story route, always coming just before his superior, Pete.
- Phlebotinum Overload: In Mickey's ending, Pete tries to draw more and more power out of the magical stone. It ends up creating a portal that sucks him in, transporting him to who knows where.
- "Rashomon"-Style: How the game's story is displayed. Donald's story comes first as he finds the stone when he goes fishing and Mickey's story is last due to revealing what the power of the stone is and what Pete's fate is at the end.
- Rogues' Gallery Transplant: The Big Bad Wolf was originally the enemy of The Three Little Pigs, but here, he's going up against Mickey Mouse and his friends. The pigs don't make an appearance.
- Unsportsmanlike Gloating: When Donald wins a match, he points and laughs in a very exaggerated, mocking way.
- Working-Class Hero: The good guys all have lower-class jobs, except for Minnie, who seems to be a stay-at-home woman. Mickey works at a factory, Donald works at a harbor, and Goofy runs a farm. This is in contrast with the villainous Pete, who is a rich man.
- Wicked Weasel: One of Pete's henchmen is a weasel simply named Weasel.
