Back on the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System, Capcom and Disney partnered up and put out some pretty dang fun games. When it comes to figuring out which one was the best, Duck Tales is one that’ll probably near the top of the list for most folks. It’s just good, old fashioned platforming fun with a single gameplay mechanic thrown in to make things interesting – Scrooge McDuck’s pogo-stick like cane.
In Duck Tales, you use Scrooge McDuck’s cane in two ways. The first way, and the way you’ll use it for most of the time, is bouncing around like you’re on a pogo stick. This tactic helps you kill enemies and pass areas that you normally wouldn’t be able to. The second way is never really necessary to use in the game, but you’ll likely use it a few times anyway, and that’s swinging it like a baseball bat to send an object sliding across the room, or knock an object up into the air to hit an enemy. Without the cane, Duck Tales would probably still be a little fun, but the cane really adds a lot of enjoyment to the title.
There is really only one problem I can see with the game, but that problem is kind of nullified by other things that I’ll mention in a little bit. The problem is the length of the game. If you avoid exploring and just head straight to the end boss of each level, you can finish up this game in about fifteen minutes without any troubles. If you do spend time exploring, you can maybe squeeze a half an hour or forty-five minutes out of it. The lack of length in the game takes a little bit of replay value out of the game. Granted, the game is fun enough to play through a few times without getting bored...But no matter how fun a game is, you can only play through it so many times before you get bored. Yeah, there are three difficulty levels in the game...But there is literally no difference between easy and difficult (from what I could see, anyway) aside from the fact that the invincibility tablets you pick up are replaced with ice cream cones to replenish your health...Which actually made me believe that difficult mode was actually easier than easy mode because of it.
Now, the lack of replay value is remedied a little bit with the little hidden secrets to find within the game. There are plenty of hidden rooms to discover, which can help add to the replay value a little bit, but they’re pretty easy to find once you start looking for them. There is also a secret bonus stage to discover if you talk to Launchpad and return home with a certain requirement fulfilled beforehand. I won’t mention how to do it here, I’ll let you try and figure it out for yourself. You can visit the bonus stage multiple times during the game, but the stage never really changes, unfortunately. There are also two endings to discover. The first one you’ll get just for completing the game. The second one you’ll get for banking in $10,000,000 after completing all levels...The bonus stage is almost a mandatory place to visit if you want that ending. All of these little things, along with the fact that the game is just plain fun, all help boost the replay value up a little bit...But the fact remains that it’s still a very short game, even with all the little discoveries to uncover.
Graphically, Duck Tales looks pretty good. Each level looks completely different from each other and are full of different enemies. There’s a lot of variety among the stages and they’re all designed very well, too. It’s a pretty purdy game. The audio is just as good. Each stage has its own background music and they compliment the environments perfectly. Each song sounds pretty neat, too. It’s very unlikely that you’ll be reaching for the ‘mute’ button at any time during the game. The game is very cosmetically pleasing overall.
Duck Tales may be a very short game, but there’s enough to discover and it’s fun enough to play that you likely won’t mind. You likely won’t be pulling this out for a gaming marathon, but with its fun platforming gameplay, Duck Tales is a great game to pull out every now and then to play for a few minutes to pass the time. Sure a little more length would’ve been great or the ability to tell the difference between the easiest and most difficult modes when you’re playing...But for what it is, Duck Tales isn’t just one of the best games to come out of the Capcom/Disney collaboration, it’s one of the best platformers overall on the NES...And you can take that to the bank. - Ape
1990
January 26, 1990
December 14, 1990
