Pop culture of the 1980's was marked by a profusion of commercialistic cartoons meant to sell toys, such as Masters of the Universe (aka He-Man). Some were good, especially The Real Ghostbusters (1986-91), DuckTales (1987-90), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1988-96). Each of these was adapted into an NES game more than once. DuckTales, in my view and that of many, is the best NES game based on a licensed property.
Capcom, which had made the incredible Mega Man and Mega Man 2, got the Disney license, which led to several popular games. (Hudson, the maker of Adventure Island, had already made the mediocre Micky Mousecapade, but it was published by Capcom.) Capcom wisely drew upon Mega Man in crafting the levels and game physics for DuckTales, as well as the concept of letting the player choose the order in which to play levels. They even recycled a bit of the Mega Man stage-clear music for the same purpose in DuckTales. This Mega Man engine, coated in the Duckberg theme, made the game a hit.
Unlike Mega Man, Scrooge McDuck has but one weapon, his cane. Strangely, he does not hit enemies with it (he can push sliding blocks with it); instead, he uses it like a pogo stick to bounce on top of them! This technique, which dominates gameplay, is both fun and unique.
DuckTales can be difficult at first, only because there are no continues or saving! Scrooge has three hearts of health and three lives. You can spend $3,000,000 by pressing SELECT to restore all his health. I recommend beginning on the easy difficulty: he suffers only half a heart of damage whenever an enemy touches him. At normal, he loses a full heart, and at difficult the game removes all health and invincibility pick-ups! Having to replay the same levels over again after dying gets tedious and is an artifact of 80's video-gaming: short games were stretched out this way so players wouldn't beat it immediately and feel short-shrifted.
The biggest weakness of DuckTales by far is that it's too short, with just five levels. Even the final boss, Magica de Spell, is staged in Transylvania again. Nevertheless, the quality and variety of the levels are strong.
I recommend tackling the Himalayan level first, because it holds a permanent health increase. Then do Transylvania, which also has one. With five hearts of health, the game becomes considerably easier. Transylvania is marked by mirrors that serve as teleportals, as well as a fake wall. I learned while writing this, by the way, that most of the levels are not based on the TV show! The Amazon stage is reminscent of the jungle of Wakka-Wakka.
The most memorable and interesting stage is the moon, surely inspired by the brief moment during the opening credits of DuckTales when Scrooge, in a space suit, grasps at a floating dollar bill. This stage is more complex than others because it requires you to find Gizmo Duck's remote control, which itself cannot be reached until you get a key for the locked door. At the end of the stage, if you have the remote control, Gizmo appears to blast open a hatch.
There are a few other small gimmicks like that. In the Amazon, Scrooge is asked to pay $3,000,000 to proceed. Don't do it! Instead, pogo off an enemy to reach the high vine without paying. The African Mines are locked, and when Scrooge touches the door, he's told he needs a key in Transylvania and immediately goes to that stage (even if it was already beaten). The key is hidden in the stage's first mirror and, once obtained, Scrooge zaps back to the mines. It's kind of pointless, but I guess the designers were trying to add some light, non-linear elements to an otherwise simple game.
Another weakness of the game is that the boss fights are simplistic. Each boss mostly moves back and forth slowly, and Scrooge just pogos on him or her (or it: one is a yeti and another a stone statue) repeatedly. There's a fun twist at the very end, though: after beating Magica de Spell, Scrooge must climb up a vine faster than his nemesis, Flintheart Glomgold, to reach the final treasure. This seems inspired by the ending of Metroid, when Samus must escape the doomed base by jumping up through platforms with a timer counting down.
To match the theme of DuckTales, in which Scrooge McDuck is a rich miser (an allusion to Charles Dickens's Ebenezer Scrooge), the game emphasizes collecting money, mostly in the form of small and large diamonds that appear frequently. Other pickups incude health-restoring ice cream cones and cakes, Scrooge dolls that grant an extra life, and temporary invincibility. The game's best ending is shown only if Mr. McDuck collects $10,000,000. (Interestingly, there's a special bad ending accessible shown only if you end the game with $0!) To get that much money, you will need to replay stages. This can only be done by hopping a ride from Launchpad McQuack when you find him in a stage. He asks "Mr. McD" if he'd like to fly back to Duckberg on his helicopter.
Other characters appear as well: Mrs. Beakley feeds him ice cream cones. Webby and the cousins appear as well to provide short bits of text. The caveduck Bubba is frozen in ice in the Himalayas. The Beagle Boys sometimes appear as enemies, and the weird Terra Firmie king is a boss. Unfortunately, Donald Duck never shows up!
One of the game's most memorable features is the music. Each level has its own theme, and they are fantastic, on par with the music in Mega Man 2. The moon theme in particular stands out. And, of course, the title screen plays an 8-bit version of the iconic DuckTales theme song.
Those of us who played DuckTales in the 1900's are no doubt colored by nostalgia, because the TV show was so good. But in an era where most licensed games (TMNT notwithstanding) were terrible, DuckTales stands out. I had a blast replaying it on my Switch 2 in the Disney Afternoon Collection (which somehow took nine years to come home to Nintendo). Incidentally, the Wii U remake from 2013 was also great, especially because the voice actors recorded new dialogue for it. It marked the final portrayal of Scrooge McDuck from the iconic Alan Young, who passed soon after. The remaster is worth playing for that alone! But you can't go wrong with the NES original, either.
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| Grade: A |
Linked Review
"DuckTales is fairly short, but non-linear gameplay adds replay value into the mix. You can choose to tackle the stages in any order, and there are a couple different paths to take in almost every level."
— Bryan Griffin, Nintendo Life, 9/10
— Bryan Griffin, Nintendo Life, 9/10
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