Flicky outsold, go home gurl. No, seriously, I genuinely prefered it to Mappy. It has better cat sprites, that's all it takes. Graphics matter in this new age of gamers (we started popping up 20 years ago). But unless you're a soulless pool of ideas like Tower Of Fantasy or Palword, comparing games from different minds doesn't suit me. What Mappy does is not too crazy, the bite-sized gameplay loop they had to choose worked well enough. It's not intuitive, but you get the hang of how things work eventually. Whatever buzzwords people used back then probably conveyed the floatiness of the game better than I ever could, but "sigma" will have to do. Staring down these cats as you soar or dive past them is the first sign of alpha activity in Mappy's career. All of that digested neatly as you spend quite some time in the air. I never seen no rat come out of a redbull commercial like that.

Secret's out, I always fumble the bonus stage at the last possible moment. I've started to recollect Flicky's bonus stage and replacing my memories of Mappy with that one as coping mechanism. The comparison makes itself at this point, as unstoppable as an angry hippo you don't wanna mess with, though not as dangerous. Outside of the odd reference and a surprising new entry by the former devs, we won't see Mappy in meaningful roles, but people still know who he is to this day. His... name is Mappy, right? The mouse, I mean. He's a dilf that's all I know for sure I'm just assuming that's his name. I just can't shake this bad feeling. He looks like a Mitch or a Bruno to me, fine names if I do say so myself, fitting for a cop in duty indulging in intense physical activity inside what I hope is his own house.

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

(marked completed, but I only finished 2 of the 16-stage loops. I'm not masochistic enough to get to 256 stages)

On the recommendation of a friend, this is one of the first games I'm playing that's older than me if only by a smidge. Despite its age, the unorthodox movement and attack methods make the gameplay feel surprisingly fresh. The game is great at communicating its rules to the player, and the end result is a game that's easy to pick up and learn, difficult to master, and varied enough that it doesn't feel as limiting as other classic games (Pac-Man for example). Also the theme song slaps.

To be perfectly honest, a lot of this game's design choices are really questionable. Mappy's ability to sneak drugs into the cars of his enemies of his enemies and use that to arrest them is really broken. Also, his military grade weaponry power up is somehow even more broken, to the point where it feels like overkill. Not only that but this game's gold economy is really poorly balanced. The mechanic where Mappy gets money from politicans is way too strong and because of said mechanic, he has more money than he would ever reasonably need.
All in all, future Mappy games should phase out the punishment-focused gameplay and start focusing on the rehabilitation mechanics which even I can admit are pretty good.

Mappy for the Nintendo Family Computer is an arcade port of the Namco classic of the same name, as a result it basically plays the same, I've played a bit of the arcade original and this happens to be hands down one of the best translations from arcade to home console that exists.
The basics are this, you're Mappy, an anthropomorphic mouse cop that is retrieving stolen goods from this organized cat burglar gang. Think the cat police scene from Rat Movie but vice versa, and as an arcade game derivative of Pac-Man. As I said, the game plays not to dissimilar to Pac-Man, however the maze is laid out in a multilevel house, and you go up levels through these trampolines, and have doors in your way to make things a bit complicated.
All through the level you have several small cats, and one boss cat chasing you around, using what must be the same basic AI and pathing the ghosts and enemies in other namco games. As a result you have to keep yourself from getting trapped somewhere, and also time things just right so as to not get caught and get a lot of points. The way to disable these enemies varies, you can open a normal door in their face knocking them over for a few seconds while you pass by or you can open one of the flashing doors to make airwaves push them clear off the screen for a nice bonus. the score getting incrementally higher the more you manage to trap at once. If you get the boss he doubles the score.
To progress through the stages you have to collect all the stolen goods in the stage and then you get to move on. If you grab a stolen object while the boss it hiding behind it you get an additional 1000 points, and sometimes the objects flash to indicate a score multiplier for that object. It forces the player to pay close attention to everything going on on screen, making for a genuinely fun experience with plenty of opportunities to fail, or score big.
I'm probably biased cause not only is this the first game I ever bought for the Famicom, but its one of the video games I remember playing the earliest back when me and my siblings would peruse through my brother's extensive retro game collection. I love this game, and it actually puts a smile on my face whenever I play it, all it leaves me wanting is a switch port or something, because it simply just too much fun to put down. I give this one a hella recommend.

A game where you play as a cop mouse going into a building to arrest some cat burglars... heh.

It's another Pac-Man esque game which involves more running from enemies than fighting them, but in this case with the added complexity of one way doors placed throughout the levels. You can open them onto enemies to knock them over, but watch out if you're on the wrong side -- the door will smack you straight back into any enemies behind you.

With good music and pretty fun gameplay, Mappy is a good example of an above-mediocre game from its time period. I definitely think it's worth a play, if you are just interested in playing 80s games to begin with. Otherwise, it's hard to say that it's such a big deal, now.

My favorite part is definitely the music.

3.5 - Good: Good but still lacking something that propels it to greatness

🟢 Uses minimal force and avoids aggression despite his life being on the line
🟢 Cute as a button
🟡 Despite fighting organized crime, the items suggest he's merely recovering bourgeois property.
🟡 Did he really get into the cats' building without backup?
🔴 He's a cop
🔴 Cat's name is Nyamco and I love him

I'm a bit on the fence in the Mappy ACAB debate, but the game is a lot of fun.

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.