DuckTales
Nintendo Entertainment System
Nostalgia Factor:
When I wrote my review for DuckTales Remastered about two and a half years (and 134 reviews) ago I remember being under the impression that I had played the original NES game in the past. I was wrong.
I came to the realization pretty quickly after starting this game that I had definitely never played it before. I guess it’s an easy mistake to make, considering the plethora of cartoon-based games that came out in the late 80s/early 90s like Chip ‘n Dale’s Rescue Rangers and Darkwing Duck. Still though, I find it kind of funny that I’d played the next-generation remaster of the game before playing the original 8-bit version. I am old - it almost always happens the other way around!
Regardless, as soon as I started playing this game I realized it was something I was going to absolutely love, and lo and behold I was correct. Despite being made with technology that has been outdated for decades now, it completely blows the remastered version out of the water. Read on for my full review!
Story:
The game’s story is pretty thin. You play as Scrooge McDuck and it is your goal to collect five treasures from around the world in order to cement your status as the richest duck in the world. As you play you’ll battle through several of the cartoon’s famous villains as they attempt to stop you and steal the treasure for themselves. These villains include Flintheart Glomgold, Magica DeSpell, and the Beagle Boys.
Gameplay:
Right off the bat, DuckTales showcases its willingness to do something different by offering you a stage select screen. That’s right, you can play the levels in this game in any order you want (with a few stipulations). It is your goal in each stage to make it to the end of the level, fight a boss, and collect that stage’s treasure. Once you’ve collected that treasure, you go back to the stage select screen and make your next selection. The game doesn’t end once you complete all five stages – instead some of the villains team up in a desperate attempt to steal what is yours and you must fight them and defeat them to beat the game. All in all this is a pretty quick and easy game. Don’t expect to spend more than two hours on it your first time through it. I played through DuckTales twice before writing this review, and on my second playthrough I was able to cut my time playing the game completely in half. So it is definitely not a lengthy game.
I don’t want you to think it’s too easy though. I’m a grizzled 8-bit veteran who grew up playing stuff like this so I was able to pick this up and succeed at it pretty quickly. If you are not used to this type of game you might struggle with it for a while. I’d say the challenge level is just about right for the type of game this is.
Another thing that makes DuckTales different is in its level structure. For example in the first selectable stage, the Amazon, you’re cruising along thinking you are going to beat the stage when BAM you hit a “toll way” where you have to pay $30,000 to advance. If you don’t have the money you need to make it through, you have to turn around and start looking for more. This game is filled with stuff like that. Transylvania has magic mirrors that transport you around the stage, giving you multiple paths to take and adding a maze-like feel to the level. On the moon you have to collect keys and search the starship before you can summon Gizmo Duck to come help you. You need a key to even get into the African Mines stage, which you can find on a hidden pathway in Transylvania. So there’s all kinds of little touches when it comes to the stage design that make the game worth playing through and exploring as thoroughly as you possibly can.
Gameplay consists of your simple, side-scrolling affair. Controlling Scrooge McDuck, you jump, whack with your cane, and bounce your way through the game’s stages. Enemies hurt you if you touch them. You cannot jump on them or hit them directly with your cane or you will take damage. You have to either whack blocks at them with your cane or use your cane to bounce on their heads. Utilizing the cane bounce move is essential to mastering this game. To activate it, you jump and hit down and the action button at the same time. Hold the action button to continue bouncing. The second you let it go, however, you drop to your feet on the ground – so be very careful. You’ll use your bounce move to fight enemies, bounce across spikes, jump long spaces between platforms, and reach high places. You can control the height of your bounces by strategically letting go of the action button and deactivating and activating the bounce move in mid-air.
Collecting money in this game is a little different. Instead of breaking blocks or having shiny collectibles sitting out in the open, the gems you collect are completely invisible to you. By walking or jumping through their predetermined locations, you “activate” them and make them visible, where they fall to the ground waiting for you to collect them. It’s an interesting mechanic, but one you’ll get used to quite quickly.
Graphics:
I think this game looks really good. Of course it isn’t as vibrant and colorful as the remastered version, which looks like a cartoon brought to life, but it still looks pretty darn good. It has that classic NES charm to its visuals that is hard to deny. The stages are fun and well-designed. The characters look great. I got major Mega Man vibes from this game’s visuals as I was playing it – which I guess shouldn’t be too surprising seeing as how this game had a ton of people who worked on Mega Man on its creation team.
DuckTales for the NES pays a wonderful homage to the show, giving you occasional cameos from people like Launchpad McQuack, Webby, and Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
Sound:
This game sounds absolutely sensational as well. As if the 8-bit digitized version of the iconic DuckTales theme wasn’t enough, each stage has its own unique musical track and ALL of them are absolutely top-notch. My personal favorite is the music from the moon stage. It’s so freaking good! Again – major Mega Man vibes.
Overall:
I had SUCH a good time with this game, and I was not expecting it at all. Like I said before, I had already played the remastered version on the PS3 and while I liked that game, it wasn’t anything I was too overly excited about. I ended up giving it a final score of a B. This game, however, is so much better. And it is so much better because it is so much simpler. No dialogue scenes that drag on for unnecessarily long amounts of time. No irrelevant back story to each stage. No “missions” or fetch quests to partake in. You just explore the level, find your way to the end of the stage, fight a boss, collect a treasure, and move on to the next level. Simple as that.
The game is flat out fun. A great control scheme, well-designed stages, great music and graphics, an intuitive “bounce on your cane” gameplay system, fantastic bosses. I could not put this game down. Usually I just play through a game one time before I review it, but I had such a great time with DuckTales I absolutely HAD to play through it twice. And I had just as much fun on my second playthough (if not more) than I did on my first. This is a game that gets better each time you play it.
Would I recommend DuckTales to anyone who hasn’t played it before? Absolutely! I always thought I’d already played the best games the NES had to offer, but with my recent playthroughs of games like Castlevania III, Kid Dracula, and now DuckTales I am realizing that even though I’ve played and reviewed 26 NES games now, I’ve likely barely scratched the surface of all the great games on the system.
Play this game. Play DuckTales. You are doing yourself a disservice if you don’t!
Final Score:
A
If you liked this review, check out some of my other game reviews:
No comments:
Post a Comment