Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Mulan (Game Boy, 1998) is a short action-platformer developed by Tiertex Design Studios and published by THQ. Released near the end of the original Game Boy’s lifespan, it tries to recreate several major moments from Disney’s animated film through a mixture of standard platforming and gimmick-based action stages. The variety is welcome, but sluggish controls, basic level design, and a very short running time keep it from being one of the better Disney games on the system.
Rating: 4/10
You control Mulan through roughly six stages that loosely follow the movie from army training to the final confrontation with Shan-Yu. The standard levels involve running, jumping, climbing ropes and poles, avoiding hazards, and throwing rocks at enemies. Rocks generally stun enemies rather than defeating them outright, so much of the game is about creating enough space to continue through the stage.
There is also a simple health system represented by hearts, along with Easy and Hard difficulty settings and passwords that allow you to resume from later levels.
Where Mulan stands out is its willingness to change the gameplay from one stage to the next. One section places Mulan in the water, where she must swim and dive while avoiding the other soldiers. Another turns into a downhill shieldboarding sequence, with Mulan racing down a snowy mountain while dodging obstacles and timing jumps. These stages help prevent the game from becoming completely repetitive and give it more variety than a typical licensed Game Boy platformer.
Unfortunately, the controls undermine much of that variety. Movement feels sluggish, and there is a noticeable delay between pressing a button and seeing Mulan respond. This is manageable in slower platforming sections, but it becomes much more frustrating during stages that demand precise timing. The shieldboarding sequence in particular can feel more like trial and error than a test of skill.
The control layout is also somewhat awkward. Jumping, attacking, and running do not always flow naturally together, and grabbing ropes or landing precise jumps can be less reliable than they should be. For a game aimed primarily at younger players, it can be surprisingly unforgiving in spots.
Visually, Mulan is respectable for a late original Game Boy release. Character sprites are reasonably large, animation is decent, and the environments are varied enough to represent training grounds, snowy mountains, the city, and the palace. Between stages, still images attempt to retell parts of the movie, although the heavy monochrome shading can make some of them difficult to read on original hardware.
The game also includes Super Game Boy enhancements with additional colors and a decorative border, which makes the presentation more attractive than playing on a standard monochrome screen.
The soundtrack is technically competent but not especially memorable. It uses original Game Boy-style compositions rather than heavily relying on recognizable arrangements from the movie, so fans expecting familiar songs such as “Reflection” or “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” may be disappointed. Sound effects are similarly basic.
Another major weakness is the length. Mulan can be completed quite quickly once you know what to do, and there is very little incentive to return afterward. There are no meaningful alternate routes, substantial collectibles, or unlockable extras. The password system is useful, but with so few stages it is hardly necessary for an experienced player.
The final confrontation with Shan-Yu is also fairly simple and does not provide much of a climax. By that point, the game has already shown most of its ideas, and the ending arrives before the mechanics have had much opportunity to develop.
Mulan is not completely without merit. The swimming and shieldboarding stages show more ambition than many licensed Game Boy games, and the presentation does a reasonable job of representing the movie within the hardware’s limitations. Unfortunately, good intentions are held back by delayed controls, awkward platforming, sparse level design, and a lack of content.
It is playable and occasionally interesting, but mostly as a curiosity for Disney fans or Game Boy collectors. For everyone else, there are considerably better platformers available on the system.
Mulan (Game Boy, 1998) is a short action-platformer developed by Tiertex Design Studios and published by THQ. Released near the end of the original Game Boy’s lifespan, it tries to recreate several major moments from Disney’s animated film through a mixture of standard platforming and gimmick-based action stages. The variety is welcome, but sluggish controls, basic level design, and a very short running time keep it from being one of the better Disney games on the system.
Rating: 4/10
You control Mulan through roughly six stages that loosely follow the movie from army training to the final confrontation with Shan-Yu. The standard levels involve running, jumping, climbing ropes and poles, avoiding hazards, and throwing rocks at enemies. Rocks generally stun enemies rather than defeating them outright, so much of the game is about creating enough space to continue through the stage.
There is also a simple health system represented by hearts, along with Easy and Hard difficulty settings and passwords that allow you to resume from later levels.
Where Mulan stands out is its willingness to change the gameplay from one stage to the next. One section places Mulan in the water, where she must swim and dive while avoiding the other soldiers. Another turns into a downhill shieldboarding sequence, with Mulan racing down a snowy mountain while dodging obstacles and timing jumps. These stages help prevent the game from becoming completely repetitive and give it more variety than a typical licensed Game Boy platformer.
Unfortunately, the controls undermine much of that variety. Movement feels sluggish, and there is a noticeable delay between pressing a button and seeing Mulan respond. This is manageable in slower platforming sections, but it becomes much more frustrating during stages that demand precise timing. The shieldboarding sequence in particular can feel more like trial and error than a test of skill.
The control layout is also somewhat awkward. Jumping, attacking, and running do not always flow naturally together, and grabbing ropes or landing precise jumps can be less reliable than they should be. For a game aimed primarily at younger players, it can be surprisingly unforgiving in spots.
Visually, Mulan is respectable for a late original Game Boy release. Character sprites are reasonably large, animation is decent, and the environments are varied enough to represent training grounds, snowy mountains, the city, and the palace. Between stages, still images attempt to retell parts of the movie, although the heavy monochrome shading can make some of them difficult to read on original hardware.
The game also includes Super Game Boy enhancements with additional colors and a decorative border, which makes the presentation more attractive than playing on a standard monochrome screen.
The soundtrack is technically competent but not especially memorable. It uses original Game Boy-style compositions rather than heavily relying on recognizable arrangements from the movie, so fans expecting familiar songs such as “Reflection” or “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” may be disappointed. Sound effects are similarly basic.
Another major weakness is the length. Mulan can be completed quite quickly once you know what to do, and there is very little incentive to return afterward. There are no meaningful alternate routes, substantial collectibles, or unlockable extras. The password system is useful, but with so few stages it is hardly necessary for an experienced player.
The final confrontation with Shan-Yu is also fairly simple and does not provide much of a climax. By that point, the game has already shown most of its ideas, and the ending arrives before the mechanics have had much opportunity to develop.
Mulan is not completely without merit. The swimming and shieldboarding stages show more ambition than many licensed Game Boy games, and the presentation does a reasonable job of representing the movie within the hardware’s limitations. Unfortunately, good intentions are held back by delayed controls, awkward platforming, sparse level design, and a lack of content.
It is playable and occasionally interesting, but mostly as a curiosity for Disney fans or Game Boy collectors. For everyone else, there are considerably better platformers available on the system.
