WayForward or Waybackwards?
The original DuckTales videogame first came out on the NES in 1989 and I for one remember playing it at some point in the 90s, although I was only a few years old at the time…I do have fond memories of it, so I was curious to see just how close to the original they would make the game and it turns out, quite close indeed. Being a “remake” of a NES game, the design is a bit dated and the challenge is higher than the games of today, so bare that in mind…
Those who don’t remember or weren’t around when DuckTales was will be pretty lost and wonder just who Scrooge McDuck is as well as the other characters like Huey, Dewey and Louie. The original contained 6 levels, while the remastered version has an extra level as an opener to teach you the basics. Essentially, DuckTales is a platformer where Scrooge McDuck must pogo jump on enemies and hunt for treasure across prime locations like the Amazon, Transylvania, Himalayas and the Moon to name a few.
You’ll find plenty of diamonds along your journey to spend on artwork in the gallery, but it’ll take a while to buy them all. The game itself is full of secret areas where you’ll find extra hearts, health, extra lives and more diamonds to spend, I found the game a breeze on Medium but the difficulty is stepped up a considerable notch on the Hard/Extreme modes where you are giving limited lives, Extreme even makes you complete the game in one go without breaks, as well as enabling Hard Pogo mode where you have to hold down as well as tap Circle or Square to jump on enemies and across the hazards you face.
The remastered version has seen fit to add cutscenes with cringy voice-acting. I wasn’t a huge fan of them and found myself pressing Start and hitting X on the “Skip Cutscene” option. Each level ends with a boss battle and each is memorable in their own way, while each level has nicely varied and full of reasons to explore. The only gripe I have with it is that the controls are a little stiff at times which can cause frustration when attempting difficult jumps that make the difference between life and death for Scrooge.
The new art style for DuckTales is a huge improvement over the original NES game and looks authentic to the DuckTales cartoon, I just wish the animation for the characters during cutscenes wasn’t so stiff, other than that…I really like the look, it almost reminds me of Paper Mario in a sense. The music has also been reworked and is also a great improvement while staying faithful to the original work, which sums up the game as a whole.
The Verdict
WayForward have created a game that has a fresh coat of paint but has stayed faithful to the classic 1989 NES cartridge. DuckTales may or may not have aged well depending on who plays it, but I personally loved it from start to finish as much as I did when I was a kid and you deserve to add it to your collection, even if the difficulty drives you insane on Extreme…
