Crazy Castle (series)

The Crazy Castle series is an action-puzzle game series created by Kemco and released on the Famicom Disk System, NES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance. It stars different popular cartoon characters, most notably the Warner Bros. cartoon character Bugs Bunny and the Walt Disney cartoon character Mickey Mouse.

History
Kemco started the franchise after they bought the rights to produce a Famicom Disk System game based on the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit to make the first game's plot loosely based on the film. When Kemco was planning to release it outside Japan, there was already an NES game based on the same film developed by Rare and published by LJN. In order to release it outside Japan, Kemco bought the rights to Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes franchise to produce Looney Tunes-based video games, while the looks of some other Looney Tunes characters featured in the game as enemies have similarities to the Toon Patrol.

When the promotion of the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit in Japan ended, Kemco lost the rights in producing video games based on the film there, but gained the rights to produce Disney-based ones, due to the Who Framed Roger Rabbit film being produced by Touchstone Pictures, a studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Kemco later produced their Mickey Mouse versions in the Crazy Castle series and released most of these versions exclusively in Japan, while continuing their Looney Tunes versions outside Japan; however, some were based on other licenses such as Jim Davis's Garfield comic strip and The Real Ghostbusters animated television series.

Shortly before the release of Bugs Bunny: Crazy Castle 3 worldwide with Nintendo publishing it outside Japan, Kemco released the compilation Bugs Bunny Collection exclusively in Japan, which was a re-release of Mickey Mouse I and II, but with the Bugs Bunny sprite set and other minor updates (such as the Super Game Boy support). The rest of the Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle series were released as original titles throughout all territories from this point forward.

The fifth entry of the Crazy Castle series starred Walter Lantz's Woody Woodpecker in the role, rather than Bugs Bunny, due to Kemco losing their license to release Warner Bros. properties, while switching to the exclusive rights for releasing Universal Studios properties, because of their release of the Nintendo GameCube title, Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure, in which Woody was also one of the main characters.

Gameplay
While presented in a side-scroller format, The Crazy Castle games differed from standard side-scrollers such as Super Mario Bros. in that the playable character did not have a jump function; therefore, only by taking different routes (for example by stairs, ladders and teleporters) could the character avoid enemies and collect certain items. Some of the levels have weapons or invincibility items that could be used against the enemies in the game. There are also objects that the player must collect in order to complete a level, like keys. Passwords can be used to start at a certain level.

Reception
GamePro gave Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2 a fairly positive review, opining that "with smooth animation, good fun, and lively action, Bugs Bunny on the Game Boy is actually better than the NES version."