TaleSpin is a scrolling shooter video game based on the Disney television series TaleSpin. The game was developed by Capcom for the NES in 1991 and was ported to the Game Boy in 1992. The Game Boy version is essentially a slightly stripped-down version of the game. The NES version of the game was included in The Disney Afternoon Collection compilation for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in April 2017. The gameplay consists of maneuvering Baloo's plane "The Sea Duck" through each level, fending off incoming enemies and avoiding obstacles. Items can be collected for extra lives or to add to the total cash score. The plane can be rotated upside to traverse back through the level, but only on horizontally scrolling areas. At the end of each level, the player is required to fight a boss enemy by repeatedly shooting its weak points. After beating a level, the player has the option to buy upgrades for Baloo's plane with the money collected, before proceeding to the next level. In bonus levels the player controls Kit on an airfoil to pop balloons for bonus points.
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That said, Baloo's status as a goofy pilot adds to the gameplay: The main gimmick of being able to turn your plane upside down to fly (scroll the screen) in the other direction as well as fire behind you is an interesting one. It allows you to do your own interesting maneuvers, but on the other hand it's an NES game so you can easily just make the enemies respawn if you're not careful. You can also shoot at angles but only if you're moving exactly up or exactly down so it's really finnicky to work right but you can do things with it too.
The levels are interesting but feel completely out of order: The early stages can be brutal, with the Stage 3 (Sky) boss and stage 5 (Haunted Mansion) in particular feeling really brutal, but the final few stages are laughably easy as if they were meant to be played first. You do upgrade your ship inbetween levels, but the most you get are more shots out at a time, aspeed boost and an extra hitpoint, so it really does feel like the level design becoming easier as the game goes on, or not properly scaling with the capabilities of Baloo's plane.
I'm glad this game exists to give me another game based on the childhood right before mine and an interesting NES shmup that should still be considered among the NES shmup lineup.
For the most part, Talespin does two different things, let's you shoot diagonally pending on your plane control, and let you scroll through the left screen. While certainly something as minimal as movement options seems like it wouldn't add much, to a shmup this can cause a bunch of things to happen. Sometimes you move in just the right way to clear everything on the screen, and other times you end up spawning way too many things at once, and head up in a no one situation. The bigger point being, of course, you mostly cause your unfair demise.
While I don't think the game lays down enough of an impression to give itself as a good shmup, it certainly is an interesting one and one that I feel more people not fans of the shmup genre could play. The game is exceedingly short tho, and without a rewind button, exceedingly hard unless you know what you're doing. If you're a fan of shmups, this is a great one to try because it's so different. If you happen to have this game via the disney afternoon collection, it be good to give this a go as well, but for everyone else, you're better off with the other Disney licensed games.