Tag Archives: Disney

Review: DuckTales Remastered (PC, 2013)

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D-d-d-danger! Watch behind you!
There’s a stranger out to find you!
What to do? Just grab on to some
DuckTales! A-woo-oo!

If ever there was a late-’80s earworm, the DuckTales theme song is it. It’s impossible to look at that iconic logo and not start singing along. DuckTales came out back when I was in junior high. It was a time when my friends and I suddenly got too old — and in our minds, too cool — for Saturday morning cartoons. Shows like Robotech were drawing us away from the cheap, mindless fare that was common back then, but DuckTales was different. It looked terrific, and had exceptional, fluid animation. I loved it, and whether I’m right about this or not, I always credited its quality and success in part for the resurgence of Disney’s animated theatrical releases shortly thereafter with The Little Mermaid and the lesser-known and under-appreciated Rescuers Down Under.

20140711_ducktales_nesIts popularity led to the Capcom classic game of the same name on the NES in 1989, which GHG reviewed last month. Despite its short length, simple boss battles, and pogo-jump controls that are arguably a little too complex, I really enjoyed it, and consider it a very solid 8-bit title, particularly when you take into consideration that it’s licensed, and could have been bad. Very bad.

When it was revealed that WayForward Technologies — a company known for their skill at crafting retro-style action games like Contra 4 and the excellent Shantae: Risky’s Revenge — was developing an HD remastered version of DuckTales, excitement levels went through the roof. I mean, if it’s not going to be Capcom themselves, who better to do it than a company that specializes in this sort of thing? While the selfish side of me was kinda hoping for Inti Creates instead, I put my faith in WayForward that they’d deliver. And for the most part, they did.

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First of all, full disclosure here: I played through DuckTales Remastered on its default difficulty first, which is set to Easy. I do this for all games, since it’s my belief that the default setting is what the developers want the majority of players to experience, and most play balance and tweaking generally center around it during testing. More on this later, but it’s an important detail to note.

Graphically, DuckTales Remastered does a lot of things right. The character art in particular is fantastic, with silky-smooth and expressive animation cycles that really bring them to life. WayForward did a phenomenal job ensuring that everyone looks as good as we remember from childhood, with new cameos that will surprise those intimately familiar with the NES original. Enemy art and animation are just as impressive, and it was so nice to see the same high quality level of effort go into both basic enemies and major bosses.

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I found the backgrounds to be OK, but there was nothing there that really blew me away. They are full of nice colors and provide a good amount of depth and separation, but they lack detail and most of them just looked overly simplistic to me and at odds with the quality of the superb 2D elements. Throw in generic-looking environmental objects that have a floaty, pasted-on look, and you end up with an overall visual aesthetic that didn’t really work for me. It gets the job done, but there was just something about the look of the game that never quite felt right, and I couldn’t help but ask myself, “How much better would this have been had it all been in 2D?”

DuckTales Remastered‘s soundtrack, however, is tremendous. Composed by Jake Kaufman — who has also scored a number of other WayForward games and the amazing Shovel Knight — this is an updated soundtrack done right. All of your favorites from the NES game are here, with a perfect balance of modern instrumentation, extended arrangements of classic melodies, and beautiful retro nods that pay nothing but the utmost of respect to the source material. Hats off to Kaufman for his great work here, and I highly recommend a purchase of it on Amazon or iTunes.

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The game also contains full voice acting, which is all delivered by the talented voice actors from the original show, giving DuckTales Remastered an even more authentic feel. Unfortunately, little restraint was exercised when it came to the sheer amount of dialogue here. Perhaps it was excitement about having the original cast involved, but it’s completely overdone and takes the player out of gameplay for far too long. You can’t speed it up and the only way to skip it is via the pause menu. It really kills pacing and could have easily been cut in half. As it stands, it’s full of needless exposition that is cool at first, but doesn’t take long for it to become borderline insufferable.

Gameplay-wise, DuckTales Remastered is a little bit of the old, a little bit of the new. It controls well enough, and the gameplay is as you remember, with Uncle Scrooge able to use his cane to pogo-jump around levels, find hidden treasure, discover secret areas, and use rocks and objects to take out enemies, just like the NES game. Speaking of the pogo-jump, you can now do it just by jumping and pressing the action button instead of having to press down on the d-pad as well. WayForward has both control options available, though, so go with what you’re most comfortable with. I used the default (i.e., easier) way, and I thought it was great.

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There is also a new collectibles objective where you have to find various objects around each stage to progress, but there’s no mystery to their whereabouts since they’re all marked on the pause menu map. It switches up the way you have to play the game in that it forces you to do these things before taking on the level’s boss, which is a fundamental change from how the original DuckTales worked.

These were likely added to enrich the game’s storyline and extend overall play time, and although they feel a bit contrived in that sense, I didn’t mind their addition.

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Getting back to what I said earlier about playing on the game’s default difficulty, I got through the game in about 3 hours. Although I didn’t die during any of the boss fights — which are more fun than the NES game’s, but still very predictable — I died quite a few times during regular gameplay, usually falling into a bottomless pit or some other instant-death scenario. You have unlimited lives, and I didn’t think anything of this. That’s modern game design 101, and most games don’t penalize you at all except for maybe sending you back to the last checkpoint. That’s what DuckTales Remastered does. On Easy.

On other difficulties, your lives are now limited. Losing them means Game Over, but it also means you lose everything from that level and you have to start over from scratch. This is utterly crazy. I would expect to at least keep found treasures and overall progress. If I have to start over from the beginning? Fine. I’ll make my way to where I lost my last life, but to erase all that work? No thanks. It made me quit out the first time it happened to me.

This kind of design works when your levels are short. It worked well on something I played recently — NES Remix — because its design is based around concentrated stages where subsequent attempts all build upon the mistakes you made previously, and getting further in each one gives you a strong sense of accomplishment. If you lose all of your lives, yes, you have to try again from the beginning, but it only take a few seconds or at most a couple minutes for a redo. It has no place here in DuckTales Remastered because WayForward has made changes — namely much longer levels with additional collectible requirements — that makes severe punishment like this unnecessary.

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Anyway, speaking of collectibles, the money you find throughout the game isn’t just for hoarding inside your giant vault. You can use that cash to buy a ton of artwork and music. Prices are high for each one, so for those completionists out there, it will take several playthroughs to get everything. Starting a new game will thankfully not erase your progress when it comes to these unlockable bonuses.

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Apart from the whole Game Over thing and the overwrought dialogue, I enjoyed playing through this game. It’s familiar enough that you will smile with satisfaction remembering everything from your youth, while experiencing new things that may surprise you. It’s not perfect, but to its credit, it successfully captures what made so many people fall in love with DuckTales — both the TV series and the game — in the first place.

Finally, be sure to sit through the end credits in its entirety. It was definitely one of my favorite parts of the game.

  • Graphics & Presentation: B
    Beautiful 2D character artwork and gorgeous animation are this game’s highlight. Serviceable 3D backgrounds with generic objects and some janky animation don’t match the quality of the character work. Long, painfully slow story sections bring the presentation to a near-standstill.
  • Music & Sound Effects: A+
    Fantastic soundtrack by Jake Kaufman, with refreshingly fun takes on the NES classics. Sound effects are good and voice acting is excellent, including all the actors from the show!
  • Gameplay & Controls: C+
    More forgiving pogo-jump controls make the game easy to learn. The sprawling level design is good, although objectives make them feel more linear than they should. Erasing all level progress after losing your lives was a terrible design decision.
  • Value: B-
    It only takes a few hours to get through the game, but unlockable content and different difficulties offer incentives to come back.

Overall: B-

 

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Review: DuckTales (NES, 1989)

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Oh, the licensed videogame. They have a notoriously bad reputation — especially those aimed at the younger crowd — and even though I won’t deny there are a lot of terrible ones out there, I think there are just as many great ones. Really, the same can be said for non-licensed games and how many stinkers have been produced. It’s very easy to get caught up in the negativity, but I’d rather focus on the positives: those games that elevate the very things they’re based on.

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One such game is Disney’s DuckTales, developed by Capcom, and released on the Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1989. It’s considered one of the best NES games by many players, and 2013’s DuckTales: Remastered from WayForward Technologies is proof of its lasting popularity. It’s also — if the internet is correct — one of the earliest examples of a licensed Disney console title, at least from the NES forward.

It sets the bar pretty high from the get-go. The colorful title screen featuring Scrooge McDuck is attractive and is accompanied by the series’ iconic theme song. I just love that 8-bit sound! Capcom was at the top of their game that year, with the wildly popular Mega Man 2 having been released a few months prior, as well as the criminally underrated Willow. DuckTales shares more than a few similarities to the Mega Man series, particularly with its open structure and some would say, its difficulty.

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This isn’t Ghosts’n Goblins or Battletoads hard, but don’t let the Disney license fool you: DuckTales can be a challenging game. It requires good coordination and practice, especially to master its signature move: Uncle Scrooge’s Pogo-jump. To do it, you jump in the air, press down + attack, and continue to hold them after the first successful bounce. After that, you can just hold down the attack button and pogo around. It’s fun and powerful — it’s the only way to reach many of the game’s ledges — but you can’t control the height of your bounce, certain enemies are immune to it, and getting too close to ledges will cancel it out. This adds a new layer of complexity and strategy to navigating levels, and it’s one of DuckTales‘ defining features. It’s also the primary way to uncover hidden treasures throughout, of which there are many.

Speaking of Scrooge’s cane, it’s not just for bouncing around. It’s a rather cool and context-sensitive weapon that you can use to hit environmental items to more easily take care of enemies. Swinging at canisters and rocks will send them flying across the screen, keeping you out of harm’s way. You can face those enemies head-on, but you’ll quickly learn of more creative ways to get around them. This encourages the player to experiment with their surroundings. You can also swing at bigger objects to uncover even more goodies; if they contain nothing, Scrooge’s head will humorously shake from the impact.

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When you begin, three hits will end you, and you will get hit. Enemy placement is very thoughtful though, and those looking to quickly run through to get to the end won’t make it far. Level checkpoints are sparse, lives are limited, recovery time is short, and there is a timer working against you. I don’t like that timer, even though it’s a generous one. Stages can (and should!) be thoroughly searched, but I think time limits can really discourage exploration in games. To be fair, once you learn your way around, completing stages can be done quickly and you do get a money bonus at the end. However, I was still happy to hear that this was taken out of the Remastered version.

The bosses themselves are a bit of a disappointment. They’re small, and most players will only have trouble with one or two of them. The rest display simple patterns that only take a few seconds to figure out and overcome. In fact, I found several of the game’s standard enemies to be more troublesome than the bosses.

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Graphically, DuckTales looks great. Scrooge is animated well, and small details, like how his top hat briefly pops off of his head when he… ducks, are wonderful touches. At times, he’ll walk behind foreground elements, which is always a cool detail that creates a convincing sense of depth. You’ll also briefly run into various characters from the cartoon, including Huey, Dewey, Louie, Webby, and Launchpad McQuack.

The music is an often-cited high point of DuckTales, and it has good reason to be. “The Moon”, easily one of the most recognizable songs from the NES era, is up there with “Dr. Wily’s Castle” from Capcom’s own Mega Man 2 in the “How many times has it been covered on YouTube?” department. It’s an inspired song, and always ranks high on videogame music lists. Another standout track is “The Himalayas”, which perfectly matches the tone of the game.

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DuckTales is short, but Capcom packed in a lot of content within its 5 stages. There’s some cheap recycling going on — you’ll revisit one area not just once, but twice — but overall, the game provides a good amount of variety within its branching levels. There are lots of hidden areas, and it even has three different endings, depending on how good or bad you do.

It’ll definitely take you several playthroughs to extract everything there is out of DuckTales, and even after that, you’ll likely come back for more. This is a unique, fun platformer that proudly does its license justice.

  • Graphics & Presentation: B
    Sprites are drawn well, the backgrounds have good detail, and enemies are decently animated. Character cameos included for series fans.
  • Music & Sound Effects: A
    DuckTales‘ soundtrack is great, with lots of similarities to Mega Man‘s style. Sound effects are typical of the 8-bit era, and get the job done.
  • Gameplay & Controls: B+
    Tight, precise controls make this a very enjoyable experience, and the nonlinear level design is very good. The Pogo-jump has an initially steep learning curve, which could frustrate some players, but it’s fun and unique.
  • Value: B
    There are only 5 stages, which is short even by 8-bit standards. However, there are lots of things to find, and only diligent players will get the game’s best ending.

Overall: B+

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Review: Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (PS3, 1990 & 2013 Versions)

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20140520_coi_gen_1I remember Sega’s Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse like it was yesterday. I played it for the first time at my cousins’ house around Christmas of 1990, and I sat there completely blown away by what I was seeing and hearing coming out of their Genesis. Its animation, music, and colorful levels made a huge impression on me, possessing all the qualities of a Disney animated feature. It was one of the first examples of a licensed videogame done the right way.

Last month, Sony released both this and the updated PS3 version from 2013 via their PlayStation Plus service. Today, I decided to play through each of them to see how they compared (and to relive my youth).

The original game is considered one of the standouts from the early Genesis years, following some of my favorites from 1989, including Ghouls’n Ghosts, Thunder Force II, and The Revenge of Shinobi. Sega and its developers got good at developing for it quickly, and Castle of Illusion is no exception.

20140520_coi_gen_2Playing through it in its entirety again today, I was reminded of all the things I loved about it, most notably the lovely animation found on Mickey Mouse himself. He is so full of life, and I was immediately transported back 1991, where I would obsessively study his various animation cycles and perfect sprite work. His walk is particularly good, and so different from the more mechanical walking animations in games back then. His overall look remains one of my all-time favorites, and it brought a big smile to my face today.

I forgot how big these levels were too, with lots of hidden areas and multiple paths to explore. My memory of it was that of a simple, linear game, but there is a surprising amount of variety to be had here. Each level is distinct, full of gorgeous color, parallax scrolling, and the soundtrack is one of the all-time greats, with bright, original instrumentation and melodies.

I struggled with the controls at first, which is a common problem for games that old, even the historically infallible Super Mario World. I got used to them by the end of the first level, but I still died a lot later in the game, where certain levels require precision platforming, else Mickey falls to his doom.

Overall, this is still as fun today as it was nearly 24 years ago. I also need to give proper respect to M2 here, who did an excellent job porting the game to PS3, with perfect emulation and a decent range of tweaks and options.

1990 Sega Genesis Version:
Graphics: A
Audio: A
Gameplay & Controls: B
Presentation: A
Value: C
Overall: B+

 

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On the other hand, the 2013 version developed by the late Sega Studios Australia, is more of a mixed bag.

I enjoyed how it stayed true to its vision of re-imagining the 1990 classic on modern hardware. The characters are animated well, and the levels are beautifully constructed and painted. Many of them are sprawling, and like the original, have hidden paths to explore and hidden items to find. Their new 3D structure means that Mickey can now move in and out of the backgrounds, with some stages switching from side-scrolling to fully 3D on the fly.

The music — which includes both classic and modern soundtracks — is very familiar, and made me feel right at home. The game also has plentiful, context-based narration, which adds to its movie-like feel, as well as good voice acting throughout. These are nice touches that one would expect of a game starring one of the world’s most recognizable icons. Some key story segments are presented through semi-animated, storyboard-like sequences, which have nice art, but I think those would have been better fully animated via the game’s engine.

Unfortunately, this update suffers from a very average framerate. Running at about 30 fps, Castle of Illusion simply doesn’t look as polished as it should. The framerate drops even more when there are lots of objects on-screen, which is a big hit to its perceived quality, reflecting on its overall lack of optimization.

20140520_coi_ps3_2Controls are also borderline awful, with loose jumping physics, vague hit detection, near-nonexistent feedback when you take damage, and movement that makes it difficult to tell where you are in 3D space. This all makes traversal and precision jumping much more difficult than it should be.

The game provides a middling level of challenge and length, similar to the Genesis original. The new version adds collectibles, unlockables, and a decent set of Trophies for completionists, so replay value is better here.

As a free game included with PlayStation Plus, it’s passable, but I would have a very difficult time recommending its purchase.

2013 PS3 Version:
Graphics: A-
Audio: A
Gameplay & Controls: C-
Presentation: B
Value: B-
Overall: C

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