October Magazine

Decap Attack
(Sega Genesis) (1991)
Decap Attack stars Chuck D. Head,
a mummy created by Dr. Frank N.
Stein, who is sent on a mission to
defeat Max D. Cap, who has returned
from the Underworld seeking
to overthrow the surface. Max
has seperated the land into multiple
scattered islands, which Chuck will
reform along his adventures.
If the story sounds a little sketchy
and saturated with goofy puns,
that’s because the game is an unusual
Westernized port of Magical
Hat no Buttobi Tabo! Daibōken, a
game based on the Japanese anime,
Magical Hat. Vic Tokai (the
game’s developer) couldn’t secure
a license for a game based on Magical
Hat outside of Japan, they instead
created Decap Attack, which
had a radically different story and
design theme, as well as reworked
enemies and levels.
Decap Attack was a platformer similar
to Super Mario Bros., though it
had a heavier focus on vertical traversing
levels, meaning that you
quite often had to climb up to great
heights in order to complete your
objectives. Unfortunately, missing a
collectible often meant an annoying
amount of backtracking throughout
the level, though the gameplay
overall was pretty solid.