Disney's Pocahontas is a Platform Game developed by Disney Interactive for the Sega Genesis, based on the Disney Animated Canon movie of the same name.
The player controls Pocahontas and her pet raccoon Meeko through four stages based on the animated film, alternating between them during certain sections in order to advance. Through four stages that mostly follow the movie's storyline, Pocahontas helps wild animals, which lends their spirits that grant abilities to advance in the game.
Tropes:
- Ability Required to Proceed: Every ability the player acquires serves to advance further in the game.
- Animalistic Abilities: The player can only advance in the game by using the abilites they gain from the animals' spirits:
- The Deer Spirit grants the running ability.
- The Otter grants the swimming ability.
- The Bird helps the player fall from great heights without losing health.
- The Squirrel allows Pocahontas to climb tree branches and swing between them, although Meeko can climb tree trunks with no effort and the player climbs cliffs in Stage 1.
- The Fish allows the player to swim faster.
- The Wolf Spirit allows the player to sneak: Pocahontas crouches and crawls.
- The Bear allows Pocahontas to project a spirit to scare off the trembling, skinny Englishman in Stage 3.
- The Owl Spirit grants night vision to the player (see below).
- Bee Afraid: In some places Meeko can knock down beehives to scare away settlers.
- Bottomless Pit Rescue Service: Not exactly a bottomless pit, but Flit will save Meeko if he falls from a great enough height. Averted with Pocahontas herself; it's instant death if she falls off the bottom of the screen.
- Checkpoint: Piles of leaves which fly away.
- Fade to White: Happens whenever Pocahontas dies, and also when Thomas shoots Kocoum.
- Falling Damage: If the player doesn't use the Bird ability for whatever reason, a fall from a high place will cost some HP. By the way, this is the only form of damage you can take more than once without getting killed outright.
- Friend to All Living Things: The player helps animals in need (mostly), and gains their abilities in return.
- Hollywood Darkness: Stage 3, where Pocahontas has to traverse the forest to reach the Englishmen's camp. Despite being set at night, the scenario is bathed in a bluish light. During some sections, the screen darkens a little for Pocahontas to use the owl spirit.
- Life Meter: Pocahontas's life meter is represented by five golden brown-coloured leaves. It can decrease if Pocahontas falls from certain heights (otherwise, she "dies" and the screen fades to white).
- Magical Native American: Pocahontas communes with animals in order to gain their spirits/essences. Through this, she gains abilities to advance in the game.
- Multiple Endings:
- Reaching John Smith in stage 4 before the sunrise, the game ends and the player nets the Canon Good Ending that mirrors the movie's bittersweet one.
- Collecting all the pieces of the necklace unlocks a brief scene of John Smith and Pocahontas together before she watches the ship leave.
- Non-Standard Game Over: If you don't reach John Smith in time to prevent his execution in stage 4, an extra scene shows Pocahontas discovering the charred remains of her village before cutting to the continue screen.
- Not Quite Flight: By helping a nest of little birds, the player gains the ability to fall from great heights without losing health: Pocahontas floats down gently to the ground. The more feathers the player has, the longer the drop.
- One-Hit Kill: The settlers in stages 3 and 4 can kill Pocahontas with a single shot if she comes very near them.
- Password Save: The player can acquire passwords between stages by collecting all golden fruits in the stage using Meeko.
- Player Death Is Dramatic: Should Pocahontas fall from a high place too many times, fall down a Bottomless Pit, or find herself on the business end of a settler's gun, the scene cuts to an image of her body disintegrating in the wind.
- Race Against the Clock: The main premise of Stage 4: the player must race against the clock to reach John Smith before the sunrise (represented by a sun slowly rising above the horizon on the top of the screen). In terms of the actual amount of time, you have a little over five minutes; the sun will start blazing (with the rays and outermost part animating) with about 15 seconds to go. Justified because in the film, Chief Powhatan sentences John Smith to die at sunrise following Kocoum's death, and Ratcliffe rallied the rest of the men to attack the village in retaliation, playing on their willingness to rescue John Smith. This also sets up a Non-Standard Game Over: if you don't make it, Pocahontas's village gets burned down.
- Spared by the Adaptation: The ending leaves out John Smith Taking the Bullet for Powhatan.
- You Have Researched Breathing: Pocahontas does not know how to run or swim at first. She gains these abilities from helping animals, respectively, the deer and a pair of otters in Stage 1.
