DuckTales
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 Bless me bagpipes! Time for an adventure!
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DuckTales is an action platformer video game developed by Capcom and based on the Disney animated TV series of the same name. Released in September 1989 for the NES and in November 1990 for the Game Boy, it follows Uncle Scrooge McDuck as he saves his grandnephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie, while on a quest to find valuable treasure, in order to retain the title of "Richest Duck in the World". An updated version of this video game, DuckTales: Remastered, has been developed by WayForward Technologies and released by Capcom in 2013 with new graphics and music for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U, PC, Android and iOS. The game would receive a sequel in 1993 entitled DuckTales 2.
Why It's An Adventure
- Innovative gameplay that involves Scrooge using his cane in order to kill enemies. After you kill an enemy, you will bounce very high in the air, often helping you bouncing on another enemies or bypass different obstacles.
- You can also use the cane to bounce on areas that normally would damage you, such as the areas with spikes.
- Not only you can pogo jump with cane, you can also use it to kick different items and collide with another items. (e.g: In Amazon you can hit a boulder and it will go up in the air and hit a chest, that it will fall, making it easier to open. )
- Fast paced gameplay along with tight and responsive controls, that are very important for the aforementioned cane mechanic.
- There are five stages in the game: The Amazon, Transylvania, The African Mines, Himalaya and The Moon (they are inspired by real life locations) and they are challenging but fair that can be played in any order, like in the Mega Man series and when you finish a stage, you will get a specific treasure that values $10,000,000, and the money will be saved in your bank.
- The level design encourages exploring in a good way, there are a lot of hidden areas with lots of goodies such as money, ice creams and lives, rewarding the player.
- Despite a timer being present in the game that can hinder exploring, if there is not enough time for you to finish the level, you can ask Launchpad (except in Transylvania where he is absent) for a ride back to Duckburg and choose another level to play with no lives lost. This is a another sign of good gameplay because it doesn't force the player to finish a level with risks being taken.
- There is an interesting gimmick where some of the money are hidden in thin air, but unlike in Super Pitfall, they aren't placed at random and the places make sense, giving the player good enough clues to find them.
- In the game there are also hidden chests that can often help you with reaching on other platforms.
- Amazing music for the NES version that compliments the stage you're playing, and fits perfectly. The Moon Theme is so great and catchy, that it has become one of the most recognized songs from the entire video game history.
- Some of the enemies are creative such as the bats in African Mines that are asleep, but when you get past over them, they fly and try to land on the player, ghosts that some of them come out of graves and fly around in Transylvania and the robo ducks that fly and land when they see you and try to punch you, in The Moon.
- Amazing graphics that accurately recreate the characters from the show. The color pallet used for the game, is also very vibrant and full of life.
- The Gameboy version while flawed, is still a good alternative over the NES version and has consistent framerate with the graphics being pretty close to the NES version.
- It also has a few pluses such as changed level design and now to use the cane you only have to press the B button which is more convenient.
- It's very faithful to the 1987 TV show of the same name, as it has several characters that are in the video game, both from Uncle Scrooge's entourage like Huey, Dewey, Louie, Launchpad McQuack and his enemies, like the Beagle Boys, Magica De Spell and the Terry Fermy King.
- Fun boss fights that require the player to react fast and use the cane while jumping in order to defeat them.
- The final boss of the game "Drake Von Vladstone" (also known as Count Dracula Duck) is very fun as you have to jump on bats that he spawns and then jump on him with the cane at the right time.
- Three possible different endings: a bad one, a good one and the best one.
- Bad Ending: If the player does not have any money when finishing the game, Scrooge is seen sobbing and the newspaper states that he has "lost his fortune in his search for the legendary five treasures. He will use them to rebuild his empire."
- Good Ending: If the player finishes the game with less than $10,000,000 Scrooge is happy that he has a full chest of money and a newspaper with Scrooge finding the treasures will be shown.
- Best Ending: If the player finishes the game with $10,000,000 Scrooge will celebrate over the stunning amount of money that he has and even the newspaper points it out with him remaining the richest duck in the world.
Bad Qualities
- The part where Scrooge's nephews: Huey, Dewey and Louie congratulate Scrooge and he thanks them for that, is always the same in all of the endings mentioned above and doesn't make sense in the Bad Ending.
- The final level is nothing special since it's just the Transylvania level reused with the only difference being the boss Drake Von Vladstone replacing Magica.
- No continues through the whole game, meaning that if you get a game over you will have to start all over again.
- To activate the cane you have to press the B button AND the down button, being pretty clumsy to time perfectly at times. Thankfully, this was fixed in the Gameboy version.
- The Gameboy has some flaws here and there such as:
- Butchered soundtrack that is a big disgrace to the NES version, as many notes are missing or some of them are ear-piercing, the worst offender being the "Boss Theme"
- There are a few game-breaking bugs such as in Amazon where if you pogo-jump on the falling platforms there is a chance that you will die and when you use the cart to navigate there is a chance to jump too low out of the cart and to not reach the platform you want to reach causing cheap deaths.
Trivia
- The bad ending is the most difficult to get. To get it, you have to finish the game with 0 dollars. Giving that the game is full of hidden treasures that fall on your head and can be collected even by accident, this is quite a tough task.
- There is a cheat in the video game that lets Uncle Scrooge recover a point of his health at the price of $ 3.000.000. To trigger it, pause the game and press select. It can be useful in order to obtain the bad ending.
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