The player guides Mappy the police mouse through the mansion of the cats called Mewkies (Meowky in the U.S. version) to retrieve stolen goods. The player uses a left-right joystick to move Mappy and a single button to operate doors. The mansion has six floors of hallways in which the stolen items are stashed.
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One of the most charming 80s arcade games, this game oozes with character and personality with its cute and memorable characters and music.
too bad I can't really say I like the gameplay as much as its charm. I don't even know what genre this would fall under. Maze? Action? Platformer? Since mappy can't jump, the only way to avoid mewkies are to stun them with doors/traps, or juke them out with the trampolines, and I never really felt like either are very satisfying to do. Long hallways without any doors are death sentences so if there's a treasure there good luck not getting flanked by an offscreen mewkie. I'm also not sure how the hell you are supposed to get the safes in the last set of levels without sacrificing a life, they are literally in dead ends. It feels like the main way to play well is just to continuously camp the trampolines over and over until the one chance to move shows up, ESPECIALLY if you are trying to score high by getting all the nyamco score bonuses in the correct order, and that's assuming you dont accidentally get read by a mewkie exiting the trampoline at the same time, instantly costing a life. You can do some funny shenanigans with the doors when they exist though, as Mappy's door opening reach length is "yes", but it's not something to really be relied on as the mewkies definitely go for the hoard tactic of overwhelming you with speed and numbers that the sluggish door opening controls won't really help much with as the game goes on.
Despite my various complaints towards the gameplay, I do find this game genuinely impossible to hate. The charm alone absolutely carries here and even if the game is meh I'll always give it a play if i see it and get excited every time namco references this goofy lil game.
all mice are bad
You play as a mouse cop, who goes through houses with a bunch of cat burglars in it, collecting a bunch of stolen items, jumping on trampolines and killing the cats along the way. If that isn't the best premise in game history, I don't know what is.
Oh yeah, game is also pretty good, and the music is a banger.
Game #113
I had never heard of Mappy until I went to a local barcade with friends and found it tucked away in the corner. It ate up most of my time there for sure. I really loved the literal mapping out it requires of you, it was fast paced and fun and intuitive and felt ahead of its time. Probably my favorite 80s arcade game. Also Mappy is cute and you wouldnt even be able to tell he's a cop just from the pixels haha
This game makes literally no sense.
Mappy deserves the recognition that Pac- Man has.