Not Quite The Gem Scrooge McDuck Might Want
I don’t blame you for thinking otherwise but not every game based on a licensed property sucks, case in point being the original DuckTales on the NES. Developed then by Capcom, DuckTales was a colourful charming 2D platformer that wasn’t particularly complex but to quote the legendary William Shakespeare, “brevity is the soul of wit“. Basically the quote highlights the quality of being brief and concise which is what the original DuckTales was to me.
DuckTales was never intended to be the hardest game on the NES, it wasn’t even close to being the longest either but DuckTales was certainly one of the most enjoyable. Whilst many other games at the time were still trying to work out what made gaming fun, DuckTales already knew the answer. It involved smart level design, the minimizing of potential frustration and plenty of pogo’ing with Scrooge McDuck’s cane.
Whilst many fans of the original game will be quick to label DuckTales as an NES classic (and it is), we do have to keep in mind that it’s not 1989 any more. Call of Duty may single handily be taking gaming into brain dead territory but we shouldn’t overlook all of the positive advancements gaming has made since DuckTales first appeared. With that said, DuckTales Remastered is a faithful enough rendition of the original that should please fans.
When it comes to remakes it’s always a pain in the ass, there will be those who want a full on remake and there will be others who want little more than a re-skin on top of the existing game. DuckTales Remastered opts to sit somewhere between the two, this is still the same game you played on the NES but albeit with some changes. Some of those changes are great, others perhaps not so much but nothing is severe enough to break the game by any means.
Far and away the most appealing aspect of DuckTales Remastered are the new visuals. The artists at WayForward are an extremely talented bunch who deserve all the praise in the world for creating some of the most beautiful sprites I’ve ever seen in a game. We’re simply not used to seeing sprites rendered in such a high resolution and this would be the part where I mention that it’s just like watching the TV show but it’s not, it’s quite frankly better.
As great as the sprites are in DuckTales Remastered, the 3D rendered foregrounds aren’t nearly as impressive. It gets the job done but they ultimately end up looking a little bland and plain in comparison to the sprites. You can’t help but wish WayForward had gone all out and made the entire game in 2D instead. Regardless it’s still a mighty fine looking title that captures the look of the TV show perfectly to the point where you’ll actually want to unlock everything in the art gallery.
Since we’re talking about the positive aspects of DuckTales Remastered, we might as well take a moment to mention the music because it kicks ass. Typically speaking I’m used to remakes screwing up the music, it happens ALL THE TIME and it drives me insane because it feels like the person doing the new arrangements doesn’t have a clue what made the original tunes so good. Remastering the music isn’t about burying the original catchy melodies behind a bunch of fancy new instruments that draw attention away it.
WayForward’s composer Jake Kaufman isn’t stupid, this man actually understands why we have such fond memories of the original tunes. To some Jake may be playing it safe his compositions but to me he is doing exactly what he should be doing and that’s remastering the tunes, the game is called DuckTales REMASTERED after all. Just wait until you hear Jake’s version of the Moon theme, he’s completely done it justice and I prefer it over the more “bleepy” original.
Also on the audio side of things is a host of new voice overs not seen in the original game. As a fan of the TV show I’m pretty touchy about voice overs and if anyone other than Alan Young did Scrooge McDuck then I’d be pretty pissed off. Not only has WayForward and Disney delivered an Alan Young Scrooge McDuck, they’ve also brought back the entire surviving cast of DuckTales. The end result is a big fat seal of approval from me in terms of DuckTales Remastered being an authentic product of the source material.
If WayForward and Disney brought back the original cast then you can sure that they didn’t bring them back to record a couple of sound effects. DuckTales Remastered now features story cut-scenes throughout the adventure and don’t worry, they’re actually very well written and feel right in line with an episode of the TV show. It works well enough the first time you watch them (ever wanted to find out how Scrooge can breathe on the moon?) but sadly they bog down the game’s pacing to a halt. The option to skip cut-scenes is there but it can be annoying when deciding to replay the game, an option to disable cut-scenes after the initial playthrough would of been welcomed.
Another area in which DuckTales Remastered stumbles upon is the the padding out of the original level designs. The NES version did have a certain path which you could take to complete stages but doing so meant you didn’t always see everything on your first go. This gave players an incentive to return to DuckTales, to see what else they might of missed along the way. DuckTales Remastered does no such thing and instead scatters various items across the stages that must be collected, you won’t finish a stage in DuckTales Remastered until you’ve basically run through every inch of it. It’s not exactly a deal breaker but once you’ve finished DuckTales Remastered, there’s no reason to return to it.
Boss battles have also been toyed around with so that they’re no longer laughably easy. Everyone is now sporting new attack patterns and for the most part it’s an improvement over the originals although I find that they now require too many hits to defeat. This isn’t a compliant in regards to difficulty as they’re still not much of a problem but it just drags out the battles longer than they need to be.
The core gameplay in DuckTales Remastered remains the same as the original. You play as Scrooge McDuck who is technically the one who should need rescuing given his age but instead he gives the middle finger to arthritis and goes around pogo’ing through stages, as you do. With this being an NES title only two buttons are used, one for jumping and the other to pogo with your cane. In theory it sounds pretty unique but in reality it’s quite similar to Super Mario Bros where you’ll be jumping on top of enemies and bosses.
One of, if not, THE most important aspect of any platformer is that the controls feel just right. If you screw up the controls or even worse, the jumping physics like LittleBigPlanet then it’s pretty much a given that I won’t be playing your game much longer. DuckTales Remastered ALMOST gets this part right and it kind of pains me to use the word almost because everything else feels spot on.
Maybe Scrooge McDuck is older than we think because he sure does forget to pogo sometimes. If I were a playtester I’d be very annoyed because this “problem” is somewhat difficult to recreate at any given moment. This certainly isn’t very professional of me but let’s just say the pogo jumping in the game isn’t as reliable as it should be and no I can’t go into detail. The game can be pretty challenging on higher difficulties so perfectly precise controls that are not prone to failing sometimes are essential.
When it’s all said and done, DuckTales Remastered is a successful update of the NES classic. The original has held up nicely over the years and whilst WayForward have made some changes that I personally wouldn’t have done, it’s still the DuckTales game we all remember. Not all the changes are bad however, I do prefer the additional stage at end for the final boss over the return trip to Transylvania seen in the original. Having infinite lives on easy mode will certainly be appreciated by younger players who are new to DuckTales so that’s another positive in my opinion.
So why the low score Xav? Well it’s NOT a “low” score and like I said at the beginning, it’s not 1989 any more. Even if this were 1989 would you honestly place DuckTales alongside something like Super Mario Bros 3? Including the original NES DuckTales as a bonus also would of gone a long way with me but for whatever reason, it’s not here which is a shame.
There’s bound to be other reviewers out there claiming that DuckTales wasn’t that great to begin with and therefore choose to attack the remake. I’m not here to suggest they are wrong but perhaps they’re missing the point, DuckTales Remastered is a game best enjoyed for what it is, a pleasant nostalgic flashback to a time when cartoons weren’t terrible and games were simple in nature yet full of charm.
