Mouse P.I. For Hire Final Preview - Turning Mickey Mouse Into A Fantastic First-Person Shooter

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In the wake of some very old cartoons opening up to the public, there have been some interesting projects that utilize those art styles and characters. However, none of them have gotten hype as high as Mouse P.I. For Hire. Developed by Fumi Games, this first-person shooter is clearly inspired by the original Mickey Mouse cartoons, like Steamboat Willie. And ever since I first saw it, it has shown me that other creators can really make something special out of older works.

Ahead of its release next month, I had a chance to check it out on my own time. In this final preview, I got to play through a whole level and check out a little bit of the progression. While it was a little bit of an abrupt end, the time spent hooked me in and proved that taking inspiration from the original Mickey Mouse style can create a compelling experience that I can’t wait to play more of.

Now, let’s get the obvious out of the way first. The art style and animations are fantastic. Every single character, weapon, animation, and some building animations have so much expressiveness to them. It’s endearing and quite enjoyable to see in action. Almost every action we can take, when it comes to shooting, reloading, or punching with our fists, feels so defined. One of my favorite animations is actually picking up secret figurines. I was only able to find one in my preview, but the way the figurine would crack up and start laughing as I was tickling it. It was so fluid and expressive that I actually reloaded a previous save just to see it play out again.

The only criticism I can think of here is that I wish there were more of it. While some of the buildings are slightly bouncing up and down, it felt like a lot of the world was still very static. This is probably better for actual playability of the game, so it doesn’t get too distracting, but I just love the style so much that I wish it were everywhere.

Still, because of the style, everything that does have this bouncing, very cartoony look stands out a lot. Every character I talk to stuck out in my mind, every weapon I used had extremely unique animations to define them, and even though the entire world is black and white, nothing blended in with each other. I knew where I was, I knew what I was doing, and I was enjoying the eye-candy.

I don’t wanna comment too much on the story since I only got to play a sliver of it, but it does seem like it’s shaping up nicely to be an interesting detective tale.

Looking past that, Mouse P.I. For Hire does a pretty good job as a first-person shooter. It was satisfying to go around killing enemies, and there was a good amount of guns to use in the preview. I found myself getting drawn to the boomstick (shotgun), but I would regularly switch weapons. There was also one very unique weapon. I got to use a lob that lobbed a ball of poison at the enemy. I hope there are going to be more unique guns like this in the full game, because it became my second most-used gun. The combination of the poison gun and the boomstick was perfect for fighting against the bosses I faced.

While I was never overwhelmed, the bosses did feel a little bit on the tougher side. I fought against three different versions of Robo-Betty, and the signature move was shooting out lasers and spinning them around. The first two versions were not as bad, but the final version was much tougher. It became a little hard to navigate and dodge the constant lasers and explosive dogs that would come out at me, but I did overcome it. The grunts struck a nice balance between bullet-spongy and easy to kill, so while it took multiple bullets to kill them, it never felt like I had to empty an entire clip just to take down one enemy.

The pacing was also quite nice when in combat. I found myself moving around a lot, switching weapons depending on whether an enemy was in front of me or further away, and it was enjoyable the entire time. Ammo pick-ups felt generous, but varied, which further encouraged trying out different weapons.

We will also be able to upgrade weapons using schematics that we find throughout levels. It’s a little in the basic side, with each gun having three upgradable levels, but they augment the gun a lot, giving an alternate firing mode, increased damage, and more. There are also coins to pick up in the levels, and while I didn’t get to use them in the preview, I did see a shop through the window in town, so I think it’s safe to assume that that’s where we will use them.

Because I got to play the game on my own time, I got to check it out on the Steam Deck. For the most part, it’s already playing very well. This is a preview build, which means it’s definitely not the finished product, but it stuck to 60 FPS a majority of the time. The lowest I ever saw the framerate go down was to around 48 FPS, so going to 45 should be quite stable on this build. Still, for this early build, it performs very well, and I am quite optimistic about how the final release will run.

Ultimately, Mouse P.I. For Hire left a great taste in my mouth. The fantastic visuals and animation are really making the game stand out against other similar titles, and it backs it up with solid gameplay and a nice, simple upgrade system. It bodes well for the full release, and I couldn't be more excited for it to launch.

Mouse P.I. For Hire can be wishlisted ahead of its April 16th release date.

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