Life
is like a Hurricane. Well it is if you live in Duckburg. Also, with
all the Racecars, Lasers and Aeroplanes, i'm surprised that Scrooge
McDuck can have any time to enjoy his Millions. And
now to add to all that, Wayforward & Capcom announed earlier this
year that Scrooge will be making a comeback in Ducktales Remastered,
a remake of the NES Classic from 1989 which is still considered to be
one of the best titles in the NES Library. I myself loved every
minute, and the music alone, was iconic, let alone the levels. Scrooge
is also bringing back Launchpad, and his Nephews Huey, Duey and Louey
along for the ride, and Webby too.
I
myself am massively excited to be revisiting the iconic locations
such as Transylvania and The Moon amongst others, but in glorious
handrawn HD & because of the massive hype I have regarding the
upcoming XBLA Release (It is also being released for the Wii U
Virtual Console & PSN on PS3), I thought "Why not revisit
the classic?"
Ducktales
was released for the NES in 1989 and was designed by Keiji Inafune,
of Mega Man, Onimusha & Dead Rising fame, and was released for
the Gameboy a year later. I did get to play the Gameboy Version, and
while the NES Version is the better of the two, the Gameboy Port is
an excellent little port, and not much was lost in the transition.
The
game saw you play the role of Scrooge McDuck, the leading character
from the TV Show we all know and love, as he and Launchpad travel
across the world in search of five treasures to add to his already
huge vault. Ducktales saw Scrooge visit The Amazon, Transylvania, The
Moon, The Himalayas and the African Mines with his trusty Cane for
company which you used as a weapon to swing at rocks to take down
higher enemies or harder to reach Chests, and also as a Pogo Stick.
While
the controls were a bit fiddly at first, the younger version of me
found myself taking out Gorillas, Mummys and Spaceducks in no time.
For me too, I personally loved The Amazon, and Transylvania levels,
as they seemed to have more about them, and more character to them
than the others. Although, to this day, I still have fun revisiting
all five locations (and swearing a lot too at some of my mistimed
jumps). The Soundtrack to the game as mentioned earlier, was a star
in it's own right, and it still stands up today as one of the
greatest Video Game Sountracks of all time, with each location having
it's own theme, with The Moon being a fan favourite amongst millions
across the globe.
Jake
Kaufman has done a spectacular job of bringing back said pieces of
Music for the Remastered Version, and despite having only heard
snippets of each piece (at the time of writing), during Preview
Videos and the Capcom Duckumentaries, I can honestly say i'm blown
away by how he's made them sound so much grander, larger and
beautiful, while still retaining the classic 8-bit sound to them that
made them so popular in the first place. Ducktales
also had you trying to find the two secret areas in each location,
which many of us missed the first time around (thank you YouTube) and
also had us amassing more Money throughout the game, with one of the
endings (the Great one) happening if you managed to collect
$10,000,000. The other two endings were triggered by you either just
completing the game normally (the Good ending) and for finishing the
game with $0 (Bad ending). You also had a Boss Fight at the end of
each location to win each of the five Treasures. After collecting all
five treasures, you then went back to Transylvania for a final boss
fight to end the game.
I
think what I loved about the original was that while Mario was
undoubtably the king of the Platformers on the NES, Ducktales felt a
lot different to most platformers around the same time, and it had a
certain addictive quality, and charm, along with the beautiful
soundtrack, and great locations, it's no surprise why it's considered
one of the best NES games. If you ever played the Disney games on the
NES, then you'll have also played the classics Chip and Dale Rescue
Rangers, and Darkwing Duck, which people are hoping to see be
Remastered in the same way that Ducktales is being done, should
Ducktakes be successful.
As
mentioned, i've played through Ducktales recently, and while my
skills as a child didn't transfer completely to now (damn you
Himalayas and African Mines!) I still found myself humming the
soundtrack whilst playing though the locations again, and loving it
even more so now, than when I was a 7 year old Ducktales obsessive
having a great time with the NES Controller in my hand Pogoing my way
through Magic Mirrors, Minecarts, and through the Snow. Come
September 11th, this Man Child here will be "Solving a Mystery"
(no might about it) and hoping Capcom have "rewritten history"
in a good way.
