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Disney Cold Shadow Review

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Stranded Geek Presents: Disney’s Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow

Stranded Geek Clearly wearing Hawaiian attire and drinking fruit punch has turned on his camera to start a very special review. However when he spoke not only was his voice different but clearly not matching his lips as he was being dubbed over.

    “Aloha, my friends and welcome to my birthday special, as you can see I have been trying to have a more tropical theme to it as I don’t really care for the fall. And for a special gift for you guys I’m going to talk about a very tropical game. And what could be more tropical than Ninjas. What’s that you say? Ninja’s doesn’t sound tropical. Ha, ha, oh my fellow viewers clearly you have not brushed up on your Marshal Arts lore for if you did you would learn that Ninjas are in fact everywhere because… they’re Ninjas. Even Disney knows this as they made a videogame called Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow. A game staring Donald Duck as a bumbling "medium-boiled" detective who seeks to be come a hero and stop the evil shaman Mojo from using their holy idol to destroy the island using a powerful storm.”

    As Geek spoke he poses in several kung fu styles while continued to explain the game and turning it on. “Now as you know this game came out for the Super Nintendo which I’ll be playing, but I also used to have it for the PC which was the best version & it originally came out on the Sega Genesis via the Sega Channel. Now I previous was unaware of this & fans of my Pulseman review will remember a mistake that I can correct about the Sega Channel. It originally was a add-on peripheral much like the Sega CD that you hooked up to your cable TV and while you enjoyed the new secrets of some games as well being able to download rare titles, your parents got stuck with a monthly bill. This explains why some titles like Pulseman & Cold Shadow were nearly left forgotten, like a ninja both came & went with barely leaving a trace.”

    “So fellow grasshoppers, let us see if this game was a lost gem or a curse meant to be forgotten. We start on level 1 searching Mojo’s Manor. Playing as Maui you are armed with a bug blaster gun that is capable to firing in all directions. You have 50 shots indicated on upper right corner. You’ll recharge when you stop firing, so remember not to go completely crazy with your shots. There 2 forms of alternate ammo. The lighting spread shot, the Fire homing shot & you can combine the 2 together in have a spread homing shot but remember to save it for when you need it as you’ll have to gather up more ammo for both if you run out. You can also climb on poles or chains to reach certain paths & as well as bounce across certain platforms. Collecting Luau Loot treasure will be a very special goal. Collect enough to match or beat the given percentage and you will unlock the bonus stage where you can collect extra lives, Continue Voodoo dolls and launching 6 fireworks before the less than two minuet timer runs out will give you the password so you can skip to the next level. Health comes in a medical bag, a glass of refreshing fruit punch or a big pitcher of fruit punch."


Stranded Geek takes a swallow of his fruit punch, and then spoke again this time going back to normal.

    “Okay sorry about that, that was getting to be a bit annoying. Anyway after clearing out the manor, dodging spiders, evil butlers and of course the first boss a giant mechanical spider, we discover that the horrible witch doctor has entered the forbidden Ninja training grounds. And here we get our first yin yang coin transforming us into Cold Shadow. Ah but Mojo won’t let us get away that easily as he zaps our powers from us we will need to defeat these imposter ninjas and go through training if we want to beat him. You’ll notice in the Super Nintendo version that you will have a color rank on your band, collecting yin yangs will increases it, maxing out to 999 you get a black belt and you can do more attack combos but those will drain your yin yangs, doing combos is as easy as just mashing the attack button but if you hit the X button you can do a spin swing but this only works going to the right. There are certain heads that you can use your pole to swing from & narrow paths you can jump and hitting the Y button will allow you to wedge the pole to help you wall climb. After taking out straw training dummies, sparing partners, and hitching a ride inside statues we get to the boss of stage 2 a shrine that will create shadow ninjas for us to spare with, clearing them & beating the spinning yin yang blade will proven that we are now a new ninja in the deadly art of slap-stick. And just how dangerous are you? Well Cold Shadow’s skills with a boa staff are so good that he can cause it to spin fast enough that he do the hula with it.”


Stranded Geek now blinded folded with his boa staff and given enough space tries out his skills. After several attacks and poses while shout all kinds of “ha” & “Hi-yah!” he tries to do the hula trick only for the staff to come back and whack him in his “yinyangs” as cartoony jackpot noises from the game play as he collapses onto the floor. Barely able to get he squeaks, “Clearly I need more training.”

Later after one ice pack.

    “Okay, admitting we’re not all that great, heck the island princess Hernae, which may or not be a pun if I knew how to pronounce it, thinks we will only get in the way and only the legendary hero will save the island, sending us to the Muddrakes village. The Muddrake pigmy ducks are armed with traditional island native weapons blow darts, spears…buzz saw yoyos …hey wait a moment! After making our way to their arena we have to take out their war totem and blast the pants of them. However our victory requires we meet their custom of being thrown into the active volcano. Dealing with fire spirits, lava bats, & surfing on a slap of rock when the volcano blows. Note that after the ninja training grounds you can switch between Maui & Cold Shadow but you need yin yangs to do that, There are also shrunken head check points through out the game to help mark your progress. Some things Maui can do and then there are some things only Cold Shadow can do. Before I get any farther into the plot I have to say this game is not very long only ten levels. The difficulty of this game is easy but what makes it rather challenging in a bad way is that the hit detection is off and it makes things really hard to hit especially in ninja form. That and in some cases there is a bit of a slowdown caused because the camera tends to jerk when we move, as well as some places looks like we could go there but it’s blocked off because there are some background objects we can go through but others we can’t and I’m not talking like secret paths or anything like that. I mean they don’t keep the theme of what is blocked off and what isn’t.”


    “With that out of the way we have good news, escaping the volcano has proven to Hernae that we are the chosen hero but we must restore honor to the tribe of the Muddrakes for only they know what became of the idol. Oh like I want their help NOW, if it wasn’t for their chief who used his black magic to shrink me down, and after getting back to normal only run into their arena & fight their war totem, they also THREW ME INTO A VOLCANO! AND YOU WANT ME TO APPLOGIZE? Well apparently we can after bungee jumping with vines dodging spears & sharp bamboo as part of their test. There is only way to prove ourselves. BY BLOOD SCARFICING THEM TO THEIR FROG GOD! I’m serious in order to beat this boss you shoot him and he latches his tongue to the nearest muddrake and he eats them spits out the bones, which you’ll need to avoid, and that’s it! Repeat until your done, sheesh a little morbid there Disney? Apparently this was a good thing we have appeased the frog god and them. They tell us that only a captain named Quackoo knew where the idol was hidden however he died long ago at sea. So now we have to explore his sunken pirate ship to find him and escape from the Flying Duckman. Navigating the water is tricky to do but all you need to know is just fire your bug gun as a means of propulsion facing the opposite direction you want to go. So fire up to go down fire left to go right and so on. And now we enter the realm of the Dead! Sheesh Ninjas, Topical island natives, pirates, zombies, what’s next cowboys, aliens, robots & dinosaurs? CAUSE THAT WOULD MAKE THIS GAME EVEN MORE AWSOME!”


    “Okay this last part in the realm of the undead is tricky but not really a boss fight, you have keep climbing the tower and defend Quackroo’s remains so you can put them to his final rest at the end. I recommend using the alternate ammo you get. I also forgot to mention ammo doesn’t carry over so you have keep finding more in each stage, which is dumb. Keep the ghosts way away as you make your way to the top and we are done, on to the final boss. Having been to realm of the dead & back proves that we are a true ninja and no longer need the aid of yin yang coins. On the floating strong hold we have to take out the crystal orbs to get to the center platform and fight Mojo. Ha, ha, you fool my kung fu is very big and you will be defeated now why not! Watch out for his fireballs and you shouldn’t have any problems. And that’s it we beat the game, we got the idol but we were also stuck down in our moment of glory as the thing crashed landed on us revealing it to just be their idol to be a fancy shaped fridge. They would name their island after us but they don’t see tourists flocking to an island named Mallard but they would look up to us in the stars and that…THAT’S IT? I GO THROUGH ALL THAT AND I GET NOTHING BUT MY HEAD STUCK IN THE GROUND WITH EVERYONE THINKING I’M DEAD! NO I DEMAND A BETTER ENDING YOU ARE NOT DOING THAT TO ME!”


The ending continued as it revealed that Maui did get out of the dirt and Hernae came back giving him a romantic kiss and they teleport away.

    “Darn right! That’s better, and don’t worry folks they aren’t that big of a jerk, you get that ending no matter what difficulty setting you play on. Well that was Cold Shadow, a really good Disney game for the time. The graphics were good, the music was catchy and the story was funny and exciting. However there were some problems like the hit detection being off. It’s not game breaking but it is tricky to handle. You master it and don’t get to confused on where the barriers are; you wont have any trouble with this game. However I must confess I was playing probably the worst version of game, the original Sega version is much better & the PC version was even better than that. Which is odd considering most of time it seems to be the other way around usually Nintendo does the better job but they screwed it up so badly they even removed any references to Donald Duck in the game for unknown reasons. Score one for Sega man. Over all it’s great game even if you’re playing the Snes version. It’s funny and the action is great, leave it to Disney to combine things like Hawaii and Ninjas and actually have it make sense. With games like Mickey’s Castle of Illusions & the first Ducktales games getting remade into some really good ones, I wish this game could be recognized more to warrant a remake. Because Donald doesn’t get a lot of the proper attention he deserves. And this game is one that rewards him the most with a hot chick that I know would make Daisy jealous.  Thanks for joining me, thanks for the good wishes, and here’s to another year. If you like this review stick around, cause my birthday isn’t the only annual celebration, I got 2 more happening. Until then See Ya’!”


Stranded Geek gets up from his couch and hula dances away in a grass skirt.


Cold Shadow is owned by Disney

Thanks for the Birthday Wishes guys, Seriously You’re awesome!
I wanted to do something special for my birthday when I posted this, For you guys. And This game is pretty cool. Seriously Tropical Ninjas & Undead Pirates how can you not like it?
© 2013 - 2024 StrandedGeek
Comments1
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Huaie's avatar
Nice review. This game will be interesting to pass my time.
Nice day. 
LegendaryHyuuzo gets up from his couch and hula dances away in a grass skirt.