>>3481
Due to playing it for a good chunk of my infancy both for "work" and for curiosity when a bit older i always thought
Mickey's Ultimate Challenge was eerie, not scary but like being stuck in limbo which is something Mickey was into despite me not knowing due to language barrier when 3 or 4 years old.
The music is what stuck to me most as i still remember it when something similar sounds like it but visually it also still evokes an uncomfortable feeling in me, mostly because i had to play them as part of a quick edutainment phase from my parents but i didn't mind that much because i could use the SNES.
Particularly speaking the Wizard Donald Duck and end level of the sky, the game itself is a Mickey retelling of the Jack and the Beanstalk tale aka that one with the Giant and the Magic Beans, so the game's scenarios are kinda canon to that story and kinda not but still, webms related to both.
In the wizard's case now that i am older and more paranoid i can see the clear parallels to the usual esoteric tell tales but this is result of the obvious setting, a wizard being a wizard but if we want to play a complete loonie noticing things that aren't there we can mention there's the checkered tiles in the chess board (duality of nature, order and chaos, mason's fact check etc etc) with mirror polishing for extra western esotery, the as-above-so-below analogy and God's vantage point (imitation game and a bit of satanism) and there's also the alchemy and transfiguration of matter with the still-bizarre form in which mini Mickey transforms the shrunk magic potions into the mirror/pond/thing for Donald as a ritual passage as the Disney mouse can merely go outside the cave to fulfill his mission (Hermes alchemy, another mason fact check) and so on, but again the context makes it obvious that there's no hidden meaning, just a bunch of long-time depictions everyone knows in the mainstream media
OR IS IT?
Sky level is a much more innocent and wholesome depiction of the original published stories of the teen british kid Jack who, out of his anglo bloodlust, steals gold from the Giant, lures his wife away and then kills him for no seeming reason before subsequent writers had to retcon the story (and backstory) to add a moral, humane facet to justify the madness.
Speaking of the game Mickey falls asleep while reading said tale and dreams of a british city state with its land and castle suffering from constant earthquakes and noises, Mickey does what he seems to know and tries to help the denizens and find in his earnest effort what is going on
WWI steamboat and WWII propagandizing aside but ultimately fails to know what's the deal, in his last ditch he throws into a well the bounty of his journey, a bunch of shiny beans, and he gets the answer of his question.
While up there in the skies he finds a Giant sleeping and snoring
very hard and instead of doing the eternal thing he decides to wake the big guy up to stop the commotion. With Mickey succeeding he then wakes up himself and finds that everything was a dream... yet glimpses of the dream world persist in his reality, he also ended the Giant's own world and the world in his dreams, a constant looping of mirrors with the same creature in different forms... or simply the mouse just woke up.
Just having fun looking too much into a game that could be completed in 30 minutes but a nice little game anyways despite feeling "empty", bit boring for even a big kid but endearing for a toddler, perhaps a bit too outlandish too, i can later comment on the music and its later successful creators too, that's a thing i wanted to post since a long time now.