Felix the Cat

A few months ago, I posted an episode of Review Crew where we looked back at classic reviews of Felix the Cat on both the Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy. Now, at long last, that compilation is available for download on systems like the PlayStation 5 and Switch. It’s a bare-bones package where you use Felix’s bag of tricks to defeat cartoony bad guys and save his girlfriend from the Professor’s outer space lair. That sounds pretty cool, but do these games hold up and are they actually fun to play? That’s what I’m about to find out when I review the Felix the Cat collection.

The first thing you need to know about me is that up until a few days ago, I had never played a Felix the Cat game. I was certainly familiar with his long history and importance when it came to the world of animation, and I was even into a lot of the Disney and Looney Tunes games at the time, but I somehow missed out on Felix. That’s really the big reason why I jumped at the opportunity to review the new collection and not just leave it as a Review Crew episode. With magazines like GamePro and Video Games & Computer Entertainment giving it high marks, and Nintendo Power featuring the century-old feline on their cover, I knew that I needed to give these games a play.

And I’m glad I did, because Felix the Cat on the Nintendo Entertainment System is an absolute delight. It’s a side-scrolling platformer that looks like just another 8-bit Mario clone, but actually delivers some unique ideas and makes good use out of the licensed property. It’s bright, colorful, whimsical and surprisingly varied, everything you could possibly want from a Felix the Cat game.

There’s a story here that involves the mad Professor kidnapping Felix’s girlfriend, Kitty. This sends him to nine different worlds, each with two or three stages and a boss. Instead of jumping on enemies like so many of his platforming peers, Felix will use his bag of tricks to fight back against fish, birds, moles, tree trunks and a wide assortment of cartoony villains. At first this means punching enemies with an extended boxing glove, but he’ll quickly upgrade his tricks until he’s literally driving a tank around the level. These upgrades not only make it easier to take out the bad guys, but they also act as a life bar. You won’t die if you get hit by an enemy, you’ll simply get downgraded.

What surprised me the most about this NES game is how varied the levels are. The game starts out like a standard side-scrolling platformer, but it won’t be long until you’re flying through the sky in an airplane and traversing water stages by riding on a dolphin. The game is full of surprises and the level designs are cleverly made and fun to explore. This could have easily been a lazy licensed game, so I was genuinely impressed by the level of care that was put into Felix the Cat. I can definitely see why somebody thought it would be a good idea to preserve this game.

On top of the NES game, this collection also features the Game Boy title. Although this is clearly a stripped-down version of the console game, Hudson did a good job of preserving a lot of what worked when porting it to the handheld. It’s a lot slower, the gameplay is sluggish and it’s way shorter, but it also has all the power-ups and does a good job of recreating the different levels. I was also surprised to see that it kept the variety from the console version. You still ride a dolphin, go underwater with a submarine, take to the sky in an airplane and even travel through the galaxy in a spaceship. If anything, I figured that would be the content to get trimmed due to size constraints, but most of the missing stages are the more traditional platforming levels.

It’s also worth mentioning that this collection comes with the Japanese version that was made (but never released) for the Famicom. This version of the game was announced in the early 1990s but never materialized, with many believing that the prototype has been lost to time. There is some debate over the authenticity of this inclusion, but it’s nice to have as an extra and I’m not going to let that muddy this otherwise solid compilation.

If there is a problem, it’s that this so-called Japanese port is the only extra in the entire game. While I love that I get to play both the Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy versions on modern hardware, I wish the package did a better job of filling in the history. After seeing what Digital Eclipse did with both Atari 50 and Karateka, I can’t help but want more in terms of extras. How cool would it be to have a short video chronicling Felix the Cat’s century-old history? Or maybe we get to see the cover art and instruction manual. What about the advertisements and the magazine coverage? This would not only add value to the bare-bones collection, but it could also clear up some of the confusion about the Japanese release.

The collection does the bare-minimum. That’s the best way to describe it. We get two solid 8-bit games, and that’s about it. Sure, you can add filters and change the video settings, but your options are limited and barely worth talking about. You can’t even change the border. Perhaps it’s worth mentioning that you can rewind time at the push of a button, but, here again, we have a feature that can be found in every retro game collection released in the last 15 years. There are no ambitions to make this more than what it is, a bare-bones package where you can play either the NES or Game Boy versions of the game. That’s it.

Thankfully, those games are worth playing. And as somebody who just recently played both of these Felix the Cat games for the first time ever, I can say that it’s not nostalgia talking. These are genuinely fun platformers that are bright, colorful and bursting with imagination. For as much as I would have liked the package to contain some historical context, I’m honestly just happy to see these games preserved on modern consoles. And if nothing else, this is a reminder that we need a lot more Felix the Cat in our lives.