216 · DuckTales
Ranked #4 in our Top 10 NES Games of 1989 →
Duck Tales for NES is a traditional platform game in which the player takes the role of greedy Scrooge McDuck in search of treasures around the globe. He counts on his three nephews and on other Duck Tales characters to help him in his quest through inhospitable places such as the Amazon rainforest, the African mines, the Himalayas, Transylvania (where he meets Dracula Duck) and even the Moon.
SHOW NOTES
DuckTales Gameplay
DuckTales 2
DuckTales: The Quest for Gold
DuckTales Remastered
DuckTales TV Show Opening
Scrooge McDuck Dell Comics
DuckTales sends Scrooge McDuck around the world and up to the moon for five treasures, with rival Glumgold as the duck he wants to out-rich. Capcom put much of the Mega Man team on it, so this was never a throwaway license. Our familiarity with the show ranged from little to none, and it still won us over.
What makes it work
- The cane. Scrooge pogo-bounces by holding down while jumping, and golf-swings anything he can push up against. It feels clunky for a few minutes, then becomes how you get around. A plain cane attack would have hurt the game: the pogo is speed, the golf swing is slowing down to think, and the game seems to know which rock is meant for which enemy.
- Levels in any order. The Mega Man-style select screen lets you start in the Amazon, Transylvania, the African Mines, the Himalayas or the moon. Each stage has a straight path to the boss and branching detours, and nothing is gated behind a score. The Himalayas take your pogo away by sinking you in snow, which raises the challenge without a harder level.
- Money that means something. Put a dollar sign on a score and "seven million" suddenly feels like a lot. It even buys a life after you die. Finish above $10 million for a better ending, or at $0 for a joke ending.
- A character who explains the secret wall. A rescued nephew tells you where it is. We have complained about hidden walls for ages, and this fixes it.
- The music. Sean pointed out it is not just the moon theme; nearly every level has a real song.
What holds it back
- Ideas that appear once. The toll gate, the rope duck and the wall-blasting gadget each show up in one stage and never return. The African Mines sending you to Transylvania for a skeleton key felt roundabout.
- A timer with no purpose. It is generous enough that we barely noticed, but it fights a game built on exploring.
- The finale. After five treasures you go back to Transylvania for the same level with a Dracula duck at the end. It felt like a level six.
- Short. Bosses sit around Mario 3 difficulty, and it ends just as you get going.
Beyond the game
An article we read says Disney killed an ending where Scrooge gives up his fortune for dreams and friends. We agreed that would be out of character. It also got a Game Boy port, DuckTales Remastered, and a spot in the Disney Afternoon Collection.
The bottom line
Essential. In the episode the vote split: Sean voted yes, Joe called it a definite essential NES game but not quite an essential game today, and Mike voted no to revisit it after the rest of 1989. It stayed off the list that day, and was added in the Best of 1989. Joe's complaint, that the ideas never deepen the way Mario or Mega Man do, is a fair one, but it is the complaint you make about a great game. Play it for the movement alone.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
- A long time ago in a faraway land there lived a lovely young princess named Margarita
- NES Longplay
- Introductions
- The TV Show
- I just missed this so I was actually surprised to learn there were so many ducks other than Donald. But I have a large collection of Scrooge McDuck Dell Comics from the 1960s
- Overview
- Players control Scrooge McDuck as he travels around the world and outer space in search of five treasures to further increase his fortune, outwitting his rival Flintheart Glomgold to become the world's richest duck.
- Gameplay
- Capcom’s Mega Man team bringing the Mega Man level select approach
- The path and then there’s the money path. Fun secrets, don’t need to explore everything
- So why a timer? It doesn’t make any sense. You may remember in an alternate universe we complained about Sonic the Hedgehog for the same reasons
- Playing as Scrooge
- Similarities to Mega Man again
- Pogo Stick could’ve used a little work
- Your money counter - I love that it’s ridiculous
- Level themes - Enemies / Boss Fights
- Sequels and Spinoffs
- Game Boy port of Ducktales
- We will play Ducktales 2 (a very expensive NES game)
- An HD remake was released as DuckTales: Remastered for PSN, Xbox Live Arcade, Wii U, and Steam in summer of 2013. The remake includes modified original levels, additional new levels, and animated cutscenes with voice acting.
- The original 8-bit version of the game was also included in The Disney Afternoon Collection compilation for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
- EGL
- NEStalgia Byte - Antarctic Adventure
- Next week - Fester’s Quest.
- What we been playing
- Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon
- Hacked my 3DS so I wanted to play some DS games I missed. I love FE games so I thought I’d give the remake of the original a go
- Games where the story continues but the
- Bowsers Inside Story
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Course
Found automatically from the transcript and checked, but it can miss things or pick the wrong page. Spot a mistake? Tell us.
Games
- DuckTales mentioned at
The episode's game, a Capcom platformer starring Scrooge McDuck collecting treasure around the world.
- Kingdom Hearts mentioned at
Where one host knew the nephews from, and later Scrooge, in Kingdom Hearts II.
- Final Fantasy VII mentioned at
One host's pick for a favorite soundtrack, especially its hip hop remixes.
- Hotline Miami mentioned at
Its soundtrack introduced one host to synthwave.
- Final Fantasy VIII mentioned at
Another Uematsu soundtrack one host loves.
- Ori and the Blind Forest mentioned at
A game whose soundtrack one host loves without having played it.
- Ratchet & Clank mentioned at
One host's pick for an underrated soundtrack, orchestral with techno and funk touches.
- Marvel vs. Capcom 2 mentioned at
Its smooth jazz soundtrack, including the title track, is one host's favorite game music.
- Silent Hill mentioned at
Its industrial, indie-rock-style soundtracks by Akira Yamaoka get an honorable mention.
- Sonic the Hedgehog mentioned at
Mentioned in a joke about a timer in an exploration-heavy level.
- Super Mario Bros. 2 mentioned at
Its pick-your-character design is raised as an alternative to playing only Scrooge.
- Shovel Knight mentioned at
A modern game with similar pogo-stick movement.
- Pac-Man mentioned at
Cited as an arcade game that grants extra lives at score thresholds.
- Super Mario Bros. 3 mentioned at
The difficulty of DuckTales' bosses is compared to its mid-world bosses.
- DuckTales 2 mentioned at
The NES sequel the hosts will play, noted as expensive.
- DuckTales Remastered mentioned at
The 2013 remake with new levels, animated cutscenes and voice acting.
- The Disney Afternoon Collection mentioned at
The compilation that includes the NES DuckTales for modern systems.
- Air Fortress mentioned at
A past game the hosts voted against putting on the Essential Games List.
- The Black Bass mentioned at
A past episode the hosts joke about as a game that was never going to be essential.
- Crash Bandicoot mentioned at
Cited with Mario as a platformer whose ideas evolve over time.
- Mega Man 2 mentioned at
The previous episode's game, used as a reference for evolving platforming.
- Fester's Quest mentioned at
The NES game based on Uncle Fester, to be played next.
- Antarctic Adventure mentioned at
A penguin racing game that is next up for the Patreon show covering Famicom games.
Companies
- Capcom mentioned at
The game's developer, which brought over much of the Mega Man team.
People
- Nobuo Uematsu mentioned at
The Final Fantasy composer praised for his soundtracks and projects outside games.
- David Bergeaud mentioned at
The composer of the original Ratchet & Clank soundtrack.
- The Black Mages mentioned at
Nobuo Uematsu's rock band that plays Final Fantasy music.
- Akira Yamaoka mentioned at
The composer behind the Silent Hill soundtracks.
- Keiji Inafune mentioned at
A key Mega Man designer who also worked on DuckTales.
- Huey Lewis and the News mentioned at
A joke the hosts make about the nephews' names.
- Genghis Khan mentioned at
The historical figure whose crown is the Himalayas treasure.
Film, TV and music
- DuckTales mentioned at
The Disney animated series the game is based on.
- Count Duckula mentioned at
A Dracula-duck cartoon character the hosts bring up when discussing the Transylvania boss.
- The Disney Afternoon mentioned at
The syndicated cartoon block that gave the collection its name.
Terms and events
- Synthwave mentioned at
The retro electronic music genre one host discovered through Hotline Miami.
Articles, videos and sites
- NEStalgia Essential Games List mentioned at
The show's running list of must-play NES games, debated here for DuckTales.
Other
- Scrooge McDuck mentioned at
The wealthy duck you play, who travels the world hunting for five treasures.
- Uncle Scrooge mentioned at
Dell comics starring Scrooge that one host collected from the 1960s.
- A Christmas Carol mentioned at
The Dickens story that inspired Scrooge's name and his change from miser to adventurer.
- Huey, Dewey, and Louie mentioned at
Scrooge's nephews, who appear in the game as helpers rather than playable characters.
- Mega Man mentioned at
The Capcom series whose level-select structure and look the game borrows.
- Spyro mentioned at
Its levels with scattered friends and small tasks are compared to the haunted house level.
- Kirby mentioned at
A series where beating a game unlocks a harder challenge mode and a secret final boss.
- Gizmoduck mentioned at
The gadget-inventing duck who explains how Scrooge breathes on the moon in the remake.
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
DuckTales, bless me bagpipes, when will that thrill-seeker Scrooge McDuck ever quit?
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. I think DuckTales is a TV series slash this Konami video game. You know, like these things are very close to some people because they grew up with the show and stuff like that. Guys, what's the familiarity with the TV show DuckTales for, you know, for the two of you? I've only ever heard of it. I've heard of it a lot, but I've never seen any, any bit of it. When I, when I think of DuckTales, I think more about the indie band than I do about the show. I don't really know much about the show.
Yeah, I feel like I just missed this. So I was actually surprised to learn that there were so many other ducks besides Donald. I mean, I know Scrooge McDuck from the like Christmas Carol thing, but I didn't think he was like an actual recurring character that would get a, you know, become a playable video game character, let alone have a whole game centered around him collecting money. But now I'm, you know, I kind of did know that because I also have like a large collection of Scrooge McDuck Dell comics from the 1960s. I just happened to like acquire them at a,
like a garage sale one time and I was like, oh, cool. I'll just own these. But I never really thought about it twice until now that we're playing DuckTales. Wow. But you knew Huey, Dewey and Louie, right? That I did, but also that was from Kingdom Hearts. So again, like none of these things happen. Yeah. Well, in this game, it's more just like Huey, Louie and Louie.
Right, right. Because Dewey just gets ripped off and he's just not on the main screen. Oh, I, you know what? I didn't even notice. Yeah. Well, you know, another thing that I knew about this game going into it that I briefly mentioned at the end of last week's episode was the song for the moon, that level that you go to, that is a very famous song that has been covered a lot of different times. And everybody always talks about it being like one of the best chiptune tracks ever.
And rather than talk about, you know, the music right off the bat, I just wanted to address a listener question that we got in via email. You can always email us by going to nostalgiacast.com and hitting the little form submission and it'll send us an email that way. Anyway, we were asked, what are some of our favorite video game soundtracks, retro or not? So don't feel like you have to say NES games. Do you guys listen to video game music music at all outside of playing video games?
Um, okay. So that's, that's like two questions. All right. Yes. Um, just answer the first one first. All right. The first one I'm going to cheat and kind of say two, but, uh, one is, um, in terms of original music made for the game by a person that only made music for the game. Um, it'd have to be Final Fantasy seven. All those songs are bangers. Um, and I still will sometimes listen to them on their own, but, uh, mostly, uh, they are like hip hop remixes.
Um, and then like the one that I will listen to on their own, like all the time would be, uh, the, uh, Hotline Miami series, just like that entire soundtrack. It's all, it's from original artists, but, um, it's all music and it just sort of introduced me to, uh, the whole genre of synth wave. So, uh, that's a very important soundtrack to me. Yeah. I listened to actually quite a bit of video game music, both games that I've played in games that I haven't. So it's hard for me to pick one specific. I mean, I love, I also love anything that's like Nobuo Uematsu, particularly like Final Fantasy eight soundtrack and stuff. And I mean, I listened to, there's a lot of like,
a lot of games like, like Ori and the Blind Forest, which I've never played, but I love the music and tons of games where I just like listen to the soundtrack. But if I have to pick one, I, you know, it's maybe a little cheating because I don't know if it's necessarily my favorite, but I think it's like the one that I like that is the most underrated or like the least appreciated is the original Ratchet and Clank soundtrack by David Burgod, I believe.
I don't know how you pronounce that, but, uh, but it is just so like imaginative in the way that it's, it's like, it's like orchestral and it sounds like Epic in that way, but it's also sort of like techno, like funky sounding. And it's just this like weird marriage of these two things that like, that fits the tone of like exploring these other alien planets, but also being like adventurous so well that like, I really have a, have an appreciation for those as well.
Since we're all mentioning, uh, Nobuo and Final Fantasy music, I thought it was also important to note that Nobuo's like music works outside of video games is also very impressive and worth checking out. If you've only ever thought like, you know, Final Fantasy seven or Final Fantasy four or Final Fantasy six, like if you thought that music was great, you should really see what he's done outside. And he's also done some cool projects where he's taken that video game music and, you know, made it into like a rock band. He has a, the black mages is a group of his that, uh, does like rock versions of those songs. I think that's all really cool stuff.
But in terms of favorite video game soundtrack, I'm going to go with a weird one here because, uh, I'm sure everybody knows the ones that most commonly pop up on like YouTube channels of just like, you know, 20 hours of Nintendo 64 music and stuff like that. For one that really like hits me in the right way is the Marvel versus Capcom two soundtrack.
And that is because when you think about that video game and you think about the instructions of like, you know, okay, Capcom's working on another street fighter esque video game where you've, you know, you got Spider-Man punching the shit out of Ryu or, uh, Akuma taking down Captain America, do you go to the composer and you're like, all right, we need the soundtrack for that. And he comes back with just, you know, the hardest smooth jazz I've ever heard in my life. Uh, these tracks are just, uh, you know, they don't belong in a fighting game
at all. And I listened to them regularly outside of playing Marvel versus Capcom two, just because of the kind of feels that they provide. And then I have to remind myself like, oh yeah, but right now, like Wolverine's taking down Chun-Li, you know, it just doesn't match at all. And I don't know how that soundtrack became the result. And I'm not just talking about the title track too.
Uh, I want to take you for a ride, which I know is like a meme at this point in the fighting game community, but just the overall soundtrack too. If anybody just wants to like chill out for like a solid hour, every track on that is just very relaxing, very, uh, you know, a wide eclectic amount of instruments involved. And, uh, I really enjoy it. So I probably have played that album, you know, front to back, like 40 plus times.
Nice. And I just wanted to, one last honorable mention, uh, shout out to Akiri Amalka and the, uh, industrial chill wave, uh, indie rock stylings of the Silent Hill soundtracks.
Of course, we're not just here to talk about music and we will get to the DuckTales music, but I think it's just important that we talk about DuckTales, the game first. Uh, you know, the, the, in DuckTales, you play as Scrooge McDuck, which is a weird choice in itself, but you're Scrooge McDuck because he is traveling around the world and outer space in search of five treasures to further increase his fortune. Uh, he has a, uh, I didn't know this, but he has a rival Flintart Glumgold, who, uh, is also trying to become the world's richest duck.
So throughout the game, you are acquiring all sorts of large sums of money and treasures and all these things add to your, uh, you know, your net worth and your net worth is tracked throughout the game. And ultimately the goal is collect the five treasures, take down, um, Glumgold and, uh, you know, become the richest duck in the world. Sounds like a fun game, right? Who doesn't want to be the richest duck? Uh, I mean, uh, it is refreshing to just be like, there's, there's absolutely no honor to this. It's just, he wants money. So I can appreciate that.
And Capcom's bringing in most of the Mega Man team to do, uh, this game. So, uh, you know, I didn't get too many Mega Man vibes from this game, but it is important to note that like a lot of the people who are very instrumental in creating Mega Man one and two, uh, like Inafune are now making this DuckTales game. So clearly this isn't just some licensed cash grab. They actually are assigning a, uh, a worthy team, a team that could have been working on Mega Man three, but is instead now working on this DuckTales game. And I think the first obvious place to spot that is the fact that you don't have to play the levels in a specific order.
They took the Mega Man approach of a level select where all the levels are in front of you. You can directly go to the moon or Transylvania, but you, it doesn't really matter what order you go in like Mega Man. There's no power up to acquire at the end of these stages. It just makes it to this way. Every time you boot up the game, you can decide which level you want to, uh, to tackle. I thought that was a neat approach. Yeah. I, I, I'm, I'm for that generally, as long as it doesn't ever get like super unbalanced. Um, I'd say the only other thing that reminded me of Mega Man or gave me some vibe of Mega Man was just the like aesthetic. It just got this very clean and like,
uh, it looks good. The game, the game looks, uh, like the art looks good compared to a lot of other NES games, particularly platformers like this, uh, around this time. The, the Mega Man vibe, uh, was most prominent to me, uh, when you're sort of going between, uh, screens, when it's not like the smooth scrolling and, and you're sort of going into the, the, the boss part, or if you're kind of going in from a, like a vertical fall through a whole thing, it does that sort of stutter, um, slow down.
Um, that is like always reminded me of going into the boss sections for Mega Man. But other than that, I would not have thought this, uh, but, um, yeah. And then it's got that whole, uh, you know, choose your own adventure, like, or go, go to whatever level you want.
And I think that the difference here is that like with, with Mega Man, um, there were, there's like an optimal route. Whereas with this, like, there's definitely some parts where like, it's going to make you go back and get something in another level, but it's not, it's not something that you have to play over and over to find like, oh, this boss would be a lot easier if I had this.
Um, so it's just a lot more free form. Yeah. And I think in a game that approaches itself, you know, as a duck tales, like you're playing a screwed McDuck, it's kind of supposed to be kid friendly. I think that is the right approach to take like all the things that worked about Mega Man and just scale down the difficulty a little bit, the intricacies, you know, a little bit. There's a whole thing about each level.
You're just supposed to collect the treasure, right? Like that's the end goal for each level is to beat the boss by bonking him on the head, like four times and then collecting that treasure. And that's what brings you back to the main menu screen. But the game also opts to have like, there's the path to get to the treasure. And then there's the money path, like all these extra places you can go to and things to do that either have fun secrets or, uh, you know, are turned out to be dead ends, which they're pretty good about not doing dead ends in that sense, but just like extra ways to increase your score and stuff like that.
So that if you did want to just, you know, stumble upon the boss or get to the boss in the quickest way, there's that path, but then there's also these branching paths of different ways to do that. And I thought that was also a, a neat approach in the, in the level design because you didn't have to just, you know, it was clear what your goal was, right? Of like getting to the end of the stage to, you know, fight the boss or whatever, but you also didn't have to, um, you didn't have to collect a certain amount of treasure or, you know, hit a certain amount of points to unlock a gate. You know, it wasn't gated or off or anything until you did certain things.
The only question I have then is why a timer? It doesn't really make any sense to have this timer. And I, you know, I'm thinking back to like, you know, a game that I believe we recorded in an alternate universe, uh, Sonic the Hedgehog, where, uh, you know, versions of, versions of us probably had complained about, you know, the timer for the same exact reasons. You know, you've created this level where you can explore and take on different routes and there's, uh, you know, multiple branching paths and stuff, but the timer actually limits you because if you, you know, fool around too much with collecting the money, then it's, you know, uh, you get, you lose a life and have to restart from like, uh, a self-assigned checkpoint.
So it doesn't, you know, it doesn't really help in the whole like exploration category here. I'm a little confused by the timer. They do give you an ample amount of time, so I'm not going to complain about it too much, but in terms of like fighting exploration and fun versus straightforwardness, I felt like they, you know, they conflicted themselves there because there is a way to play the game and get to the boss super quick and do it like speed run style or just like, you know, I beat this before. I just want to beat it again. And then there's the more fun path of like collecting all the possible money you can. Yeah. I'm generally, I'm generally not a fan of timers and like in a game that's not
outright trying to be about speed. So like, it is a little weird. I mean, I get, I get the argument that it's like, Oh, well, they're trying to like make it feel a little more stressful. Give you a, put a little pressure on you when you're exploring to like have to find, to remember to find your way out. I get that. I don't think it's needed here. So it's like the timer is weird, but like you said, the timer is a, it's a very long timer. So, so it rarely ended up becoming a problem, but it is a little bit of an annoyance.
Yeah. I never, I barely even noticed it because you have so much time, even though I was also exploring and going to the nooks and crannies. So I didn't really have a problem with it. It is still extraneous because like, again, there's, there's no reason for it to exist other than to reward fast play. But then what are, why are you pushing, why are you priding them to explore then? It's, it's, it's counterintuitive design, but I don't see it as frustrating. Yeah.
And as far as the, like the, all the like branching paths and like these interesting non-linear levels, I think that they did a good job with it. Even with the timer, it encouraged me to explore. And I don't know, all I know about Scrooge McDuck is from this game and from his brief appearance in Kingdom Hearts 2. But from my understanding, like after, I assume that there was a, there, you know,
there was a Christmas Carol, right. That I'm assuming he was in and, and he, and he went through that arc and became like a good guy at the end. And now he's friendly. I mean, is that, does anyone know? That is exactly what happened. Yes. So my, my, my gathering from this and from Kingdom Hearts 2, is that he is like, he's like this adventurous Indiana Jones style explorer now, right?
Yes. He's not the, he's gone through the Scrooge evolution. Okay. So then with that in mind, this does encourage me, at least me personally to explore in, in a game that normally I would feel like I would just try to get to the end.
I mean, you know, we always talk about how none of us are really into like, into like getting high scores or, or collecting points, but like they just put that dollar sign next to the points and, and said like, his goal is to collect money and, and made these, these levels like have these hidden treasures and stuff. Yeah. It makes a lot more sense now. Yeah. I was actually pretty, I was pretty incentivized to not just find the major treasures, but to actually explore these levels and, and, and gather money. And I, and I thought that that worked well.
And, and maybe the timer kind of would, if I really went into that for a while, maybe the timer would end up being like another sort of adversary to me where it's like, well, I want to explore, but I got to think about that. It's like, I don't know. I haven't, I didn't go much further than getting through the main part of the game yet to like, see how, if I'm, if I'm trying to like get as much money out of this level, maybe the timer will be more of a negative or more of a positive.
And one thing that I will say that is that like, well, it isn't used to its fullest there. You can spend money on a thing. Uh, like there, there's that locked gate that you have to pay to open the toll or there's a toll and you have to use your score slash money to open it. I guess there's a way to get around it, but I didn't see it. Um, and if, and they don't really explain it, but if you lose all your lives, you can buy a life. So it's at least like the score is useful in a way and has a little bit of context to it. Um, but otherwise, um, it's, it's just window dressing.
Yeah, that's a good point though, Sean, about how they integrate some of that stuff into the levels, you know, because that first, that first stage, uh, which is like a, it's like a jungle stage, I guess. Um, I forget what they called it, but anyway, that first stage is the one that has the gate with the money saying like, pay this toll and we'll get you through. And you are right. There is a way to get to go around it, but it's, it's kind of like for players who have been around the block a few times and know the little like secret, uh, you know, rope that you can grab to climb up over it.
However, that's just like one idea offered at that specific moment. And then other stages don't have any kind of like collect this to do that. And then some stages have specifically, you will get to the part where the boss is and they'll actually say like, no, you need, um,
you know, another duck invented this thing that blows up, uh, this force field. So you need to find that, um, gadget first. And, and then, you know, and then you'll be able to pass on through. So there is like a little bit of a, I don't want to say it's like a careful balance, but it's just like each level is kind of playing around with the ideas of what kind of game this is, you know, whether this is a game where you collect things or a game where you spend points or a game where you just, you know, try to explore to find the path to the boss. It does play around with that idea between the five levels.
Yeah. It's just not very consistent. And while it's, I liked that they, they did add some, some gates so that there's, uh, more of a feeling of all of these things sort of being interconnected, even though they're not just go back to your, your home base. Um, it would have been nice to see if there was like one of those for each level, like maybe not like, oh, this is gated off, but, um, you gotta go do this sort of sidebar in order to, uh, to move forward. Just so there's a bit more, uh, just a bit more to do, even though there is a lot to do. Um, that it just, it's just inconsistent.
Yeah. I think that that sort of hits the nail on the head for me too, especially like when you think about that, uh, that part where you have to pay to get through, like a big part of this game is collecting money. So it makes sense that there's somewhere you have to pay, but, but like you guys said, that's the only time that that comes up.
So, you know, that's like a one and done thing that, the, you know, the, the, the weapon there, whatever the item that blasts through the wall, one and done thing. There's just, as far as I know, there's just the one, like secret wall that like you need to go through and like other things like that. There's, there's, there's like the duck that has like a rope that's like flying around with a rope you grab onto it. It feels like every, every level is like introducing like a concept, but then they just use that concept just enough for you to learn the concept and never use it again.
Um, so like it's, it's cool that they had that stuff, but yeah, I would like to see them develop those things a little more. Yeah. Maybe that's something for duck tales too. Right. And you know, it is a funny idea, Joe, that like you would learn those things in these first levels and then the, you know, whatever the final level that you unlock by beating these five, that would be the one where like, okay, now all the little things that we've taught you throughout these five little levels, right now,
we're going to expand upon them kind of like Mega Man, right? Where you beat the, the, uh, what are they at the robot masters? And then all of a sudden it's like, okay, now you have the Dr. Wily stages. And you kind of take all the new power up you have. Now you're the real Mega Man and you've got to go through and apply it all. They didn't do that here with duck tales. Instead, they actually send you back to Transylvania, uh, stage two.
Yeah. Well, yeah, a few times they do it, but I'm talking specifically for after you like beat the five entry levels, they send you back to Transylvania and just say like, no, it's, it's literally the exact same level. Uh, the boss is in the same spot, but now he's a different boss. Yeah. That was weird. I thought I was missing something at that point. I thought there was going to be like a hidden door that would take me to the real final level or something.
One thing that I did like about like the, the level design of this though. Um, and this, this may sound odd, but it kind of reminded me of the way that a lot of Spyro levels are constructed, um, where you're not just going through a level,
collecting stuff, getting to the end, beating a boss. Like your friends are just sort of scattered about and they'll have like many tasks for you to do. And again, inconsistently done, but you'll, I think it's in the haunted house where, you know, one of the many, many ducks, I don't know, the, the bluey tooy and gooey, um, all correct is hidden behind, uh, a big boy and you have to hurt the big boy and save him. And then he'll tell you a little trick. And it's sort of just that like adding a little bit more spice to the level, um, that I really appreciated. Uh, it felt like you weren't just alone in a level anymore. There's a bit more going on.
Uh, so I just wanted to point that out. Yeah. And as far as whoever that is, Huey or whatever, um, telling you about the, what you're talking about, the secret wall that you can go through that secret wall thing is something we've complained about in so many other games. And look how simple it is to make that like a, a workable
obstacle because there's actually a character that you find that tells you the secret wall and you know how to look for it. It's not just something you'd have to know. Exactly. And you know, we've talked about all these other side characters that are part of the, DuckTales franchise of, of things.
We never really talked about like playing as Scrooge McDuck himself. And, you know, first, before we even talk about how Scrooge controls and, you know, the fun in controlling him, just put on your marketing hats for a minute here. Do, do we actually think that this was the right choice for a game based on the DuckTales franchise to be centered around playing as Scrooge McDuck and not some fun, like Huey, Louie, Dewey, like where you, you know, Super Mario Brothers 2 style, like choose your character for each level. And like one jumps higher and one's faster.
Like, you know, maybe that is like the more straightforward approach. I'm not sure how Capcom or maybe Disney told them, like, how did they decide on Scrooge McDuck? Would you guys agree that Scrooge was a weird choice or was he the only choice? He seems like a weird choice, but like, I don't know what the, what the like reception around Scrooge McDuck or DuckTales in general, maybe he was like, if he was like, if everybody loved Scrooge McDuck who watched DuckTales, I mean, you know, maybe I just don't know.
Yeah. I guess I don't have enough information on the franchise in general to think that using Scrooge McDuck is weird. Like, yeah, thinking about it, this old man that just carries a cane and only cares about money, I guess is a weird protagonist, but I, I didn't think anything of it. Right. Which is good. I think that's a good point to make, Sean, is that you in the year 2022 did not find it strange to be Scrooge McDuck.
Whereas I guess I was just thinking a little too hard about it because yeah, it's not weird and he controls just fine. And it makes sense plot wise to, to collect all the money in the world and find these five treasures to be richer than your rival duck. Like that's the plot and it wouldn't work with Huey, Louie and Dewey. You'd have to change it a little bit to be like, you know, Scrooge has been kidnapped and they have to travel through five lands to try to find them or something. So it's fine. But, you know, I guess that was me overthinking a little bit. I'm sorry. I just have to just point out real quick that every time you say their names, I just keep, I think you're about to say Huey, Lewis and the news.
Huey, Louie and the news. That's what Dewey is known as going for. Well, he is in the game. He's not on that cover though. That's funny. Where I was going with this though, Sean, is that I guess it doesn't really matter because they did make Scrooge McDuck an interesting character to control. He's not just a jumping duck. He's, uh, he's able to use his pogo stick, uh, his cane rather as a, his cane acts as a pogo stick. Uh, you know, and I think that's a really funny, uh, choice.
It's a little weird to control at first, but once you like learn that technique, you pretty much just use it exclusively through the rest of the game. I don't know about you guys, but I found myself bouncing on that stick, uh, as, as level traversal, not just as like, Oh, there's an enemy coming up.
I better switch to pogo stick mode. It was just something you default to, but they also did another cute little like one-off thing with the cane that if you push yourself up against an immovable object, he then like winds up like a golf club and then can swing the, uh, the cane into the object to then launch it, which, uh, you know, is required in certain scenarios, but it's also just something you can use with the way that objects are placed in the game to take out enemies without having to jump on top of them.
And I, I thought that was like, wow, that's a very specific kind of input thing that you must do in a certain situation that it acts as his only other attack. But then again, like the pogo stick isn't just something that you just press the B button and now you're, you know, you're doing an attack. It's something where you have to be jumping and then switching to the down, uh, on your D pad plus the, uh, jump button in order to, you know, trigger the pogo stick controlling, maybe not the, the smoothest thing in the world.
But I think old overall, like Scrooge McDuck platforms. Well, yeah. And I think like, it's weird because it's kind of random what games I choose to read the manual beforehand and which ones I do not, but this was one that I chose not to because I figured it'd be straightforward enough, I guess.
Um, but I, the first thing that I was able to do, like interacting with, uh, with the game as Scrooge McDuck aside from jumping, um, was the, like the golf swing. And I'm like, okay, this is interesting. Like everything you do has to be golf swinging. And I guess it's more like a puzzle platformer that way. I just, I didn't know, I didn't know you could do the pogo stick thing, um, for most of the first level until I was just like, there's gotta be more to this.
Like, why is there, why is there a, an unopenable, uh, box right here that doesn't seem to be doing anything? And then I was just messing with the controller and then discovered it, which, uh, which I recommend just, you know, discovering very basic things on accident that everybody else knows. It feels, it feels much better like an aha moment. But, um, then, yeah, that was just all I really wanted to do.
Um, but then the game got way more fun and I realized that, okay, you don't have to unlock a double jump to get over this thing. It's just, you've got it already. Um, so yeah, I, I think that it's, it's a little sticky. Um, but like you said, Mike, it's, uh, you'll, you'll get used to it and, um, it's not too much of a burden. Um, yeah, I think these, these two things, this, the golf swing and the, uh, the pogo stick cane are like the, the like bright, the bright parts of this game. I think that they really, I like, that's my favorite part of this game is the, is the, is like the, just the movement of it all.
The fact that like they, they did something that's so unique that even, even now it's not something that I've really seen before. I mean, I guess maybe I haven't played it like shovel night. Does that, does that take a little bit or something, but it does. Yep. But otherwise like I've never really played a game like this, even just the way you use the pogo stick, you have to, you have to hit down and a or B or whatever, jump at the same time. And then you just hold, you just continue to hold, uh, B and you can keep pogoing.
And at first that feels really clunky and complicated, but once you get used to it, it actually feels really good. And it's not just like this button is the pogo bounce button. Like there's a little bit of like, there's a little bit of like dexterity involved to, to get some of these things off on time, especially when you like have like really narrow passages to try and like get through and there are spikes and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it is really fun to play and not like overly easy and it's just unique. It just felt, it felt like really interesting, different platforming than I'm used to.
And then on the flip side of that, you're at your quote unquote attack with the, with the golf swing is like, is so much more like cognitive. You have to think like, okay, I have to stand here and like, it's not, it's never a puzzle, but it does feel like a little bit, a little bit like you have to treat it like a puzzle. I have to get to this thing. And the game is always like smart enough to, to know if you're going to hit this rock, what enemy you're probably trying to hit it at because they placed the enemy there probably for that purpose. So it's like, you don't really have to aim. You just have to see like, Oh, I got this rock and there's an enemy over there. If I hit it, it'll probably go straight to that enemy.
And like that feels satisfying too. It's like, it's a little bit of, um, it's a little bit of like the opposite of the pogo stick, which is all about like movement and speed. And the other one's more about like slowing down and thinking about what you're going to do. And I thought that was a really cool balance. And I will say that if, uh, if there was a standard cane attack, I think it would actually harm the game. I think that these two, uh, odd ways of interacting with the world are, um,
that's all it needed. It's all it needs. And just hitting a and attacking enemies is kind of boring and bland and wouldn't really fit with everything else. I totally agree. Although I do like, I do like the idea of him just like bonking them on the head with his cane. Like there's acute animation. You are right. Yes, you're right. It would be, it would be a harm to the game specifically because this is also not a platformer like Mario where you can just jump on their heads and that be the attack. You, you have to be the pogo stick version, uh, in order to do the damage. Otherwise you'll take the damage. So Scrooge is no Mario.
and after each level you know as you're collecting the treasures in each stage which sometimes are like you know sometimes it's money and other times it's like you know a doll of yourself or a cake and stuff like that like there are other items that you can collect but essentially once you've collected all these uh things and you come out of the level with the treasure the treasure amounts for most
of the money but all the money you collect in the stage does matter because then you go back to the main menu and it shows you your net worth and it shows you the money counter that just continues to uh you know accumulate as you go from level to level i really love that this just is a ridiculous number and not just like um you know like oh you collected 12 in the other stage right like every you're just picking up dollar bills uh along the stages it is fun to watch that you know number
grow and be extreme and actually apply like some weight to this and believe it or not the amount of money you collect does matter uh in terms of the ending that you receive there are a couple of like secret endings if you will but we'll we'll hold off on that for a minute i just want to hear what you guys thought on just the idea that the money counted as more than just a high score and was something that
they were reminding you about in the uh you know in the main menu hub yeah i mean like i said before i do appreciate that like at least in some instances it is more than just a score because otherwise it it would just be a score um because yeah in any other circumstance that's just like oh here's your cumulative score again um but it's just that that context of it being money um that that gives it a bit more flair um i thought it was a neat addition yeah and it being money and also tying into the
character of scrooge mcduck makes it just so like it's it's a number even right now i'm watching footage of it it's it's a number up there that if i cover up the dollar sign it looks just like any other number that i would pay no attention to i would never try and read that number it would just keep going up and i wouldn't even look at it but with the dollar sign there i'm like oh my god like seven million seven i got seven million dollars like that's amazing like that's a lot of money
whereas like with the points it just means so it means nothing to me so i'm like well okay yeah i got points like what do i can i cash those in somewhere like you know this feels it's weird because it's all just it's all just this like this superficial difference that like i know doesn't actually mean anything but it but it did make a difference in my gameplay experience yeah and points being tied to lives is not actually like they did it in a funny way because as you mentioned
sean like you can buy lives after you're dead but like in arcade games you know usually like once you score like in pac-man 10 000 points or you know in other in other arcade games a certain amount of points gives you an additional life it just gives it to you right then and there you may not even notice rather than making it i think that's the better than making it a purchasable thing right i feel like that's a fun addition that's also something that i feel like more games need to think about too is
what's the application of the high score uh you know it now now that we're like beyond the arcade now that we're at home with the consoles what is the point of the high score and ducktail's kind of figured that out i think if more games you don't even have to call it money just keep it as score if they more like if it was it was more of a proactive thing that you had to spend your score to get an extra life um then i wouldn't have been as bothered by it in every other game that we've played
not to go on a tangent but does that mean that like in some way experience points are kind of like a high score that you accumulate those experience points to then to then spend on rpg leveling up i think that that's a bit more that there's more to it like it it's so ingrained into leveling up uh it's not as uh um it's it's so much more utilized that it can't be a regular score scored is specifically underutilized so i don't think it's the same
and we talked a lot about the levels and their branching paths and the the ways that they handle like getting to the boss and stuff like that but we didn't really talk about these you know the the themes both in terms of the you know the aesthetic of the levels but also the enemies that you find in these levels and the boss fights and all that like on just like a we don't have to break down each level
specifically there's the amazon transylvania um the moon what what does anybody remember the other two african mine yes the african mines and the himalayas yes so like there's there's a ton of variety there it all um seems a little weird to me that ducktales takes place in you know our earth uh you know like we just agreed that they live with us yeah no you know what i'm saying no it's like yeah i guess you're right so they just happen to have things that are called exactly the same but they don't necessarily
live on our earth uh but you know there's um there's different enemies for each level uh there's different um you know like navigational things like i think we were talking about the secret paths and stuff like that but also just like in transylvania you can transport through the the coffins and you can uh you know in the moon level like you go into a spaceship like i think that there's some neat ideas here to just get around the feeling that you're just you know uh hopping around to get to
the end of the stage instead you actually feel like you're exploring these environments yeah and they all like you said they all have different structural uh themes where uh when you're on the spaceship it's a bit more structured and symmetrical when you're uh when you're going through um the forest it's a bit more linear when you're going uh through transylvania it actually feels disorienting and it's not just and and even like not so much of um how the how the map is laid out but in in just how the levels
feel um the himalayas like you know you can't pogo stick in the snow like stuff like that it's it's really refreshing yeah the pogo stick in the snow thing really really felt like a way to kind of like up the challenge without making it like a much more difficult level because you can go in any order but it's like now you have to think about doing this without your main the thing you've probably been doing the whole time is pogo sticking because you'll get stuck in the snow
and like it's contextually makes sense too so like there was there was a lot of thought put into that i imagine the treasures that you collect in each of these uh worlds though it's funny how like you know for transylvania it's the coin of the lost realm something uh you know very mysterious uh in the african mind it's the giant diamond of the inner earth and then for the himalayas it's the crown of genghis khan so again like just like a like a real person who did exist and now you have his uh his crown uh i just thought that was like you know they couldn't think of anything like mythical for the himalayas like did he wear a crown i don't know i doubt it
but maybe that's how he uh accumulated all that land it was the crown actually yes uh another thing about these you know the the thematic part of these levels that i uh was a little confused by is brand you know going back to the branching paths the african minds is the sole one that tells you that you have to go and get the skeleton key from transylvania at the start of the level if you didn't you know if you didn't go there but like it just sends you right to transylvania anyway and pretty much conveniently where the skeleton key is so i never like tried
to find it in the original transylvania level is that even something that can be done or no matter which way you play this game do you always have to like click on the african mind level to then go warp to be warped to the specific part of transylvania that then just takes you to the skeleton key just felt like a really roundabout way of of exploring that particular level rather than um you know just just having them be like the rest no i have no idea but maybe like again we were talking
about the whole kid friendly thing maybe in one version of this like it was something that you had to search for a secret entrance for and didn't immediately transport it to um but in this one like it proved too hard i don't know i'm just guessing but that's the only thing that makes sense yeah i don't know i was i hadn't thought about i did think it was weird that it sent me straight back to transylvania especially because the way i played it i had just come from transylvania
and then i was like oh i gotta do this level again now that you mention it i guess i wouldn't be surprised if it is like you can't actually find the key until you until you get told you need to find the key just because it feels like such a specific such a specific thing that like this level sends you back to that level i don't know i don't know why i really think that i just i just feel like it could be that they like oh they really wanted to just do that at one point so they just put it in where it's like mandatory but who knows
so the end of each level there are these boss fights where um you know they're not particularly challenging but they are unique each one is a little different even though your objective of just uh you know pouncing on their head with your cane like pogo stick that that's that remains constant but the way they attack and the space that you're in uh does change what did you guys think of these boss fights i feel like they're just the right balance for this kind of game you're really just focused on collecting money and uh and finding them in the first place so it's nice that they're not um you know super challenging or the you know the extreme difficulty curve in the game but it's also nice that they're thematically
they work within each level too and it's not just like you know the the rival duck that you just face over and over again they're chill i i'd i'd like equate them to like the level of difficulty of like the super mario brothers three bosses where it's like they never get too crazy off the rails they just do a couple different things you jump on their head three times particularly talking about like the like mid-world dungeon bosses and super mario brothers three but uh yeah like they gave me that vibe granted they're not quite as like clean of like attack patterns as as the mario uh bosses are but but yeah it felt like they never got too complicated but it was just like a decent
elevated obstacle at the end of the level yeah i'm not sure what more you can say than that and it never it never uh goes quite beyond that because like we were talking about earlier after you collect the five treasures you don't get this like next phase of the game you just go back to transylvania and um take on like a dracula duck i suppose uh i don't does he have like a cute name as well it's probably like quackula quackula i think you're right actually believe it or not that
quackula sounds perfect so you're a writer for ducktales clearly um you know and then that's like to me that's a little downer i don't want to you know i don't want to poo poo on it because it's still the same awesome gameplay that we've been experiencing for the other five levels it just felt like that was the time for it to evolve and you know especially for me like i didn't really care for the transylvania level i didn't think it was like all that great to begin with why am i going back three times uh so
you know to finish on that note and to have the boss fight just kind of be uh you know they did elevate it a little bit literally elevate it by making it so this way you cannot just um you know pogo stick on to his head because he's on the ground he's always above you with his wings so you have to kind of launch off of an item that he throws in order to ascend to his level i did
appreciate that but ultimately like i don't know it just felt like another level uh you know like a level six rather than the final level yeah i i agree yeah it definitely felt like like oh we just have we could just reuse the assets and we don't have to design a a final boss or a final level i mean they did they did do the final boss but um i don't know if they ran out of time uh if if uh
if there just wasn't like okay we've just used up all of our money um but i feel like they could have done more but you're right it's it's weird i'll be honest when i was when i was playing through these five levels i wasn't i wasn't convinced that these would be the last five levels i thought like oh i'm gonna finish these five levels and that's gonna unlock the next five levels or something like that like i just thought that overall i could have used a few more levels a little more
to that game i mean not that shorter means worse or anything it's just that for this i just felt like i was just getting started i was just getting in the swing of it and then it was like okay that you're on the last level which is a level you've already done twice before yeah totally and you know sean a cursory look tells me that he's not named quackula so that sucks what is it um i think it's just uh count uh dracula duck it's a dracula duck which is like so generic they're just just dracula duck character count duckula would have been fine too right yeah it's not as you know it's not but done already so
The ending thing here. I don't know. I just found out a lot of information on this ending. And if you're just like me and you beat the game because it's a fairly easy game to beat. So I'm not taking any major pride in that. But if you beat the game, you see the ending. And it's Scrooge with his little treasure chest. And he's excited. And it tells you how much money you've collected. And that's great and all. And that's the ending that most of us will experience. I don't know. Did you guys see a different ending before I go over them? I mean, I saw them in videos. But I did not see the other ones, no. Got it. I didn't even see them in videos.
It's fine. Because there is a secret good ending, I suppose. Like, you know, a gooder ending. Where if you collect more than $10 million, instead of just seeing a treasure chest that you, like, look at, instead there is, like, a mound of gold that you are on top of with some, you know, bags of cash littered around it. And then Scrooge McDuck now has a crown on his head rather than a top hat. So presumably he has become, like, king. Or Genghis Khan. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. He's become the next Genghis Khan. And fear his rule.
Now, the super secret bad ending is something that I wasn't even sure you could do. But apparently they not only, like, considered it, but they made it, you know, like a whole thing that could happen. And what would be the implications if this happened is that they created a way where you could beat the game but have $0 to your name. And they created an ending for that.
So I think that's really funny that, like, you get to the end and instead of there's just no money whatsoever, it's just, like, a really sad-looking Scrooge McDuck who doesn't care at all that he beat his rival or whatever because he actually doesn't have any money to his name. The headline reads, Scrooge loses fortune but finds treasures, which implies that he would still have some kind of fortune. Scrooge McDuck has lost his fortune in his search for the legendary five treasures. He will use them to rebuild his empire. Congratulations. Total money, $0.
And I think, yeah, I think that's cool. It's obviously an Easter egg slash, like, dog ending, but I was actually watching, like, you know, just to see what the – not to see the consensus because I know that everybody kind of loves this game. But just to see what other people have to say about it, I was watching a video of a guy that was really annoyed by the fact that this was so out of the way and almost impossible. Like, well, if you're a completionist, you won't be able to see this unless you do this really boring and long, tedious process. I'm like, dude, it's an Easter egg.
And the fact that it's there is more just like, oh, cool. They actually thought of, yeah, the implications of this and not so much, like, hit it as an achievement for the people that are OCD about achievements. So I thought it was cool.
Yeah, it almost feels like something nobody would have known about for a long time if they didn't reveal it themselves somewhere. You know, like, how would you even – the objective of the game is to collect some form of money, and money is given out so much in this game. You know, like, millions of dollars. How are you going to get to zero? So it actually provides, like, I don't know, a unique replayability for someone who might find out about this having not played it in the last, like, you know, 20 years.
Being like, oh, I want to go back, and now I have, like, an added challenge. It almost feels like the Kirby games, which are super easy no matter which console they've ever been on. They've never made a hard Kirby game. But once you beat the game, all fans of Kirby know that's when the game starts. Now there's, like, a new challenge mode where, like, you can find out the ending where Kirby fights God.
It always happens. I'm not joking. Is this really? Okay, I did not know that. Yeah, Kirby always fights, like, some kind of, like, you know, eldritch horror style thing. Like, yeah, just crazy. But it's a final boss that's, like, secretly locked behind, like, 100% completion.
Wow. Anyway, a little more on the ending here. It's not over yet. Besides all those alternate endings, I think it was, this was one year ago, Destructoid did an article where they were talking with Darlene Lacey, who was in charge of overseeing all the Disney games that were being made. Not just on the NES, but any kind of Disney video game properties in the late 80s. And Darlene recalls that they had to make a change to the game's ending because Disney did not like it, where originally there was going to be an option for Scrooge to give up his fortune and inform his nephews there really is more important treasure than this. And that is dreams and friends.
And, you know, they were tempted to keep it in, but that is just so, you know, so against everything Scrooge McDuck or Uncle Scrooge, Uncle McDuck or whatever you call him.
Uncle Scrooge is like a real person in the Christmas Carol. I don't feel right calling him that. But, yeah, it is. It's just out of character. And say whatever you want. And like, oh, that's, of course, Disney, the conglomerate, would say this is a bad thing. But like, no, it's just Scrooge McDuck. He would never do that. That's his one personality trait. But he still does say something somewhat nice. He says, I couldn't have done it without you. I really am the richest duck in the world. He should have maybe said we are the richest ducks in the world. No, no, no. I think that's like, you know, I have profited off of your labor, but you're not going to get any. Oh, it's some like late stage capitalism.
Well, I got that. I mean, I think what they were, yeah, they're obviously trying to do the like, I am the richest duck in the world because I have you guys. But what I gather from that, because I'm just watching this ending now on YouTube, and, you know, they say like, hooray, Uncle Scrooge, we're glad you found it. Like, but don't forget, we helped too. Like, almost like they're expecting like a cut. And then he's just like, you're right. Thanks. You guys are great. And then it doesn't give him anything. Yeah. And then it brags about how rich he is. Honestly, how is this guy a hero? I don't know. This was just that time before, you know, the, before social media. It's really a character study. I idolized Scrooge McDuck.
On the sequels and spinoff side, if you ever want to check out DuckTales in portable form, there is the Game Boy version of DuckTales. And it is a straight port. They changed a little bit, I guess, like how the levels, like how the size of them, because you scroll, like everything's bigger on the Game Boy. So you just see less information. So other than that, like it is basically the same exact game. So it's pretty cool that it's a very faithful port on the go. If you're a big fan of the console version and now you're going to your aunt's, it's like, hey, you got something for the car ride.
But that's not the only thing for DuckTales. We will play, I think, as Joe, I think you knew this, but you did mention that maybe it's something they could fix in the sequel. We'll find out if they fix anything in DuckTales 2, which is on the NES, and a very expensive game, I might add. Uh-oh. Hmm. Yeah, I don't know how we're going to afford it, but we'll give it our best go to, because, you know, we all legally buy these games before we play them. I don't know why you would, but it goes without saying. Is there other ways to get these games?
Not that I know of. And if you wanted to legally buy other DuckTales games, you could do that on PSN, Xbox Live Arcade, on your Wii U, which I believe they just shut that whole system down, so you can't do it there anymore. But it's still available on Steam, because in summer of 2013, DuckTales Remastered came out.
And the remake includes modified versions of the original levels, plus some additional levels, completely animated cutscenes with voice acting of the surviving original cast. And by that, I guess they just mean whoever is still alive, you know, they got to sign on to do the roles. Anybody who, you know, they didn't recast or anything like that, I imagine, unless they had to. But they're not saying that canon Scrooge McDuck is actually dead.
Yes, yeah, exactly. But, you know, one thing I found interesting is they took the time in the cutscenes, now that they have voice acting and everything, to explain a lot of, like, the plot and stuff that necessarily didn't need any explaining for a series based around ducks. But they felt the need to explain how Scrooge McDuck is able to be on the moon without a helmet.
And that is because the Gizmo Duck, or whatever his name is, the one who invents all the gadgets, he has invented a chewing gum that you just take five chews of, and then you can be on the moon for an hour. I would have thought that since it's implied that the moon is made out of cheese, that it was actually just like, you know, from the gases that emanate from cheese, an atmosphere has formed.
But maybe that's too deep lore. I don't know. One other really cool thing about DuckTales Remastered is the look of the game, in my opinion, because they did do this 2.5D style level graphics for the backgrounds and the platforms. But the ducks and the enemies are all still in that, like, classic cartoon style look. They almost look like, not quite like Paper Mario-like characters, and definitely not like their 8-bit pixel art that we expect from the DuckTales on the NES.
But it's like a nice bridge, so this way it's not super jarring to see, like, a 3D version of Scrooge McDuck. You know, it feels a little classic in that regard, so I appreciated that. The original 8-bit version of DuckTales can still be played today if you don't have an NES anymore. You can still play it because it was included on the Disney Afternoon Collection. And maybe they call it the Afternoon Collection because it takes just an entire afternoon to beat the game. But you can play that on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
So, you know, it's pretty accessible, this game, in 2022. Lots of options. And Mike, I think it's called the Disney Afternoon Collection because they're all based on Disney Afternoon cartoons. Like, that block. That TV block. You know, you, between this and Quackula, you're making just enough sense. But I still can't say, you know, that everybody else agrees because they didn't name him Quackula. That's true. If he were named Quackula, I would agree with you on the afternoon thing. Okay, yeah. We'll have to see if everybody agrees on just one more thing. And it's probably the most important thing we do on Nostalgia. We're going to see if everyone can agree on whether DuckTales belongs on the Essential Games list.
Sean, your vote for DuckTales on the Essential Games list. Okay, but before I go into this fully, I just need to... Like, we did, like, allude to it in the beginning, but we didn't really spend much time on it. Like, the music in this game is incredible. Like, they're actual songs. It's not just the moon level that has a banger. It's kind of all of them, aside from a couple, like, you know, a couple things that just sound annoying. But those aren't level songs. Those are just, like, weird tracks. But just wanted to state that because it does also inform my opinion on the Essential Games list.
There's some stuff that, you know, we said that there were kind of missed opportunities. But it's only, like, good games that can have these kinds of missed opportunities. A lot of the times we're talking about a game that is so bad that, like, you know, they had so many opportunities to make it good, whereas this is a great game that had opportunities to become amazing. I think, yes, it's a lot easier than one would expect. But I think that just the whole experience of this game between the way he controls, the level design, the goofy animations,
that everything about it is just fun. And maybe it's not always challenging, but it is always fun. And for all these reasons and probably more, I'm going to put this on the Essential Games list. For my – I'm sorry. I'm going to vote for it to be on the Essential Games list. You're getting a little ahead of yourself. Yeah, that's me.
Joe, your vote. So, like I said, I mean, I really, really appreciate a game that does something different. And this control scheme and the way the platforming feels is not only, like, good, but it's unique. It's different than other games that I've played. And, like, even the way you attack is different in a good way. And, like, the nonlinear levels are fun and interesting to explore. And, like, just the fact that it encouraged me to try and get a better score says something about it. And I'll say, like, absolutely – I struggled with this vote. So, I'm going to say this. Like, definitely no question that this is an Essential NES game.
But is it an Essential game today? Does it hold up against modern games, even, like, games that maybe were inspired by DuckTales that might have improved it? But I was on the fence because, you know, I've got my golden plates. And I was like, I can put it there. And then I was also like – I could make my – you know, coin my new category, which is Essential game but on probation. And I sort of wanted to do that and think about, like, in the best of 89, maybe I'll take it off or maybe I'll revisit it.
But I think when it comes down to it, I feel like a lot of these themes just could have been taken a little further. I just wanted a little more out of this game. And, like, it's kind of like what I said – and help me out here. What was the last game? Sean, you voted for it to be Essential and Mike and I didn't. What game was that? Yeah. A couple weeks ago.
I have a very short memory, Joe. Me too. What the heck was it? I said the same thing about that. That, like, I don't have anything – I don't have anything particularly bad to say about DuckTales. I think it's fantastic. Fantastic.
I just don't think it's quite on the level where I'm going to decide, like, this is up there with the other games on the Essential games list. That, like, you must play it. I think if you want to play an NES game, definitely play it. And if you can get your hands on it, it's a – we haven't really used this term in a while, but it's a play it for sure.
A golden play it. But I don't know if I – I don't know if I get behind it being up there with all these other games we have on the Essential games list. And I know that that might rub some people the wrong way because while looking into this game, I realized that it has a very big fouling and people really, really love it. Like I said, I appreciate everything it's doing. I just don't think it – I don't think it quite reaches that level. And I'm hoping DuckTales 2 gets us there.
Sean tried to put the black bass on the Essential games list. No, I didn't. That was the one. Of course. That was the one that Joe was like, no, of course not. It was Air Fortress. Air Fortress. I just thought that would be funny if people go back to the black bass. Because, you know, they probably jumped out of that episode. They were like, oh, yeah, yeah, we know this isn't essential. But now they're like, wait, Sean said what? It's actually good? Anyway, no, to round this out, you know, Joe, that is an interesting thought. But a little strategy, if you will, you have there with the best of 89.
And where I sit right now on DuckTales is there is a case to be made for DuckTales Remastered, a game that we did not review on this podcast. And I didn't play it, so I don't even know if it's like actually like true and faithful and better. It could be a case that like, oh, well, it's been remastered and it's really fun there. And it's expanded upon and it has animated cut scenes and it includes the voice cast. So it's all the things that people probably wanted out of the NES DuckTales now better. Because they didn't change the levels or anything. They just took them and expanded them and added new ones, in fact.
But like, you know, there's also something to say about like, you know, just because you make a game longer doesn't mean it's better. I mean, I'm starting to figure that out a lot about just video games in general. Is that these newer titles can't really hold my interest as well as these NES games. Not because I'm like being indoctrinated by playing this podcast. It's that I'm realizing some of these games are really tight, fun experiences in a short burst. That doesn't require, you know, hours upon hours of your time doing the same systems.
And just, you know, slowly feeding you a drip feed of content as you go along the way. Who knows? Maybe that's what DuckTales Remastered is. So I can't say that DuckTales Remastered is going to inform my opinion here on whether DuckTales goes on the Essential Games list or not. What is going to inform my opinion here, though, is that Joe is on the fence about whether DuckTales should be on the Essential Games list. And where I feel like this is better solved is rather than me putting it on the Essential Games list right now and making it harder to remove, I'd rather see us go through the rest of 89. This guy's doing this meta game and shit.
This is real. Play all these other games and then decide whether we can get to a unanimous vote on a game like DuckTales. Because I could see the argument for both. I think when Sean was talking, he had me, you know, thinking like, yeah, it is an Essential Game. And when Joe was talking, he reminded me, oh, well, you know, yeah, it is kind of a short experience that doesn't offer much variety other than, you know, the thematic changes of each level. Like, it's not expansive compared to the other games on the Essential Games list. However, a tight experience is a tight experience and it's probably worth experiencing today.
So definitely, you know, both of you agree that this is a great NES game. It's just the problem of is it an Essential Game? And so I'd like to, you know, just pause on that for a second. And instead, I'm going to vote no so that we can revisit this topic probably, who knows what, a whole year from now? When is the best of 89? I don't know. The game is evolving. The game of this podcast is evolving now. And I like it.
But I didn't do that for Air Fortress for more specific reasons. You know, I feel like it because I went last there, too. And I just felt like, no, that's not an Essential Game. With DuckTales, I don't know. I'm still kind of on the fence. But I'd rather us be unanimous on a game like DuckTales than unanimous on a game like Air Fortress. I feel like, you know, at this point, we have to take a bunch of games off the Essential Games list. Like if we're going, if this is the way we're going about it. Just because, you know, now I'm thinking like, you're right. There's a lot of games that I don't think fit that rubric that you're judging this one on.
Well, here's something I wanted to say in response to what you said, Mike. Which is that I want to be clear. I am never of the opinion that longer equals better. And that's not what I meant as far as like there's not enough to this game. That there's literally like it's too short. Which like I think that it could help to make this longer. But I just think that you need to make. I think that the game could be a little deeper if that makes sense. Like there's all these like little things that are introduced. But I want to really get into these themes. And like use these new gameplay elements. And again, like I never played Shovel Knight.
But from what I understand from that game is it takes all these little things that it introduces to you. And it builds them into like things you have to think about differently. And approach different ways. And DuckTales did that a little bit. But I wanted it to kind of, I wanted it to do a little more. Oh yeah, no, I completely understand that, Joe. I was just saying that like just because a game gets remastered. Doesn't mean that the remastered is default, the better. Right, right, right, right.
But I also don't think that, I can't use a game that I haven't played. Like I will say that if a game falls into the same category of a game that we're reviewing. And I've played it. And I think it's close enough that it's like, well, just play that instead. But you're using a game you haven't played. I don't know. Well, Shovel Knight is not what is making me keep it off. I'm just using that as an example because it looks like it's similar.
But taking other games, like any other game that has like a quote unquote gimmick to it. Like this gimmick being the pogo sticking thing or the different things it's adding. It's just like we talked about. It's adding things and it's not, they're not coming back ever. They happen one time and they don't go deeper. And I don't think I've done a great job of explaining what I mean by deeper. But particularly with platforms, I'm personally looking for like evolution of the gameplay.
And Shovel Knight was a stupid example because obviously I haven't played it. But take like Super Mario Brothers or Crash Bandicoot, which both introduce really good gameplay and DuckTales does that too. But in Super Mario Brothers, that evolves more throughout the experience and gets more challenging and intricate, which is what keeps me wanting to move forward. So like, you know, even if you look at something like Mega Man, which doesn't necessarily evolve in challenge since you can play in any order, it like it makes up for it because you evolve throughout. And the levels introduce like new ways for you to approach them and new gameplay.
But with this game, it just it never felt like it got deeper in that sense or like too much deeper in that sense where like each level, while it feels like aesthetically different and maybe introduces like one instance of something unique, it just didn't seem to capitalize it enough. And it left me wanting more out of it, you know? And like, I guess the best example of it is like by the time I got to the final level of DuckTales and it was the same level I had already played. And now I'm on the third time I'm playing this level without really any changes or upgrades or anything new to experience.
I was sort of feeling like I was kind of getting over it at that point. And like, I'm not looking right now looking like I'm so excited to jump back in and actually beat this game because I kind of feel like I got the whole picture already. And like, I know that all sounds really negative, but but I really think, you know, because I really do think this was a great game.
I just I've come to want a little more out of something that I would vote essential. Yeah, I think, you know, what you're describing, some people might say it's just a short and sweet game, you know, like they it doesn't have many flaws. So they just, you know, made it what it was. And then they didn't expand on that. I think a lot of the games you were referencing, though, like calling out Mega Man 2, we've been doing that a bunch in the episode.
I think that is a fair comparison. I don't you say Mega Man doesn't necessarily like get more challenging because you can go in any order. I think, like we said in the episode, that's something that's very interesting that you can choose any path and it matters in this game. You can choose any path and it doesn't matter.
Yeah, no, totally. And particularly for, you know, for a platformer, that's like maybe it's just me, but that's what I'm looking for out of a platform. It's like some sort of evolution, even if you are choosing your own your own path. Like like Mega Man solved that problem. And this I felt like and I'm saying problems that I'm really just trying to explain why I don't think it's up to essential. I still do think it's a really good game. Just, you know, I'll be honest. After I played it, I read a bunch of like what people say about it in reviews and stuff. And like my experience wasn't it wasn't as good as everyone else's seemed to be. So like maybe there's a disconnect there. But yeah, that's kind of my overall feeling on it.
Very intense. And the essential games list remains to be very intense, hotly debated. And some people will tell you that it's already invalid because we don't have certain games on it. So why not just add DuckTales to the list of invalidity that is the essential games list? Well, you know, there's always a chance for every NES game to be on the essential games list. I don't want people to feel like, you know, we were joking about the black bass, but there was a chance before that episode, right? We don't come in with judgment. I don't come in with any judgment.
So if I told you guys that they were going to make a whole video game based around Fester, Uncle Fester from the Addams family and call it Fester's Quest, and we'd be playing it next week. You guys wouldn't just say like, oh, Mike, that's based on a side character from a TV show that I didn't have any affiliation with. That's not going on the essential games list. You'd give that the honest fair shake. Well, now I'm not.
What's wrong with Uncle Fester? Why can't he have his own game? And he does, by the way. It's called Fester's Quest. I think that. And it's what we'll be playing next week.
And also, you know, for those of you who are looking for more Nostalgia content, keep in mind that we have a Patreon now for a little show called Nostalgia Bites, little bite-sized episodes where we play through the Famicom library. So maybe it should be called like Famstalgia Bites instead because it's Famicom instead of Ness. But whatever. You get the idea. We've done three episodes already, but technically four games. Try to figure that one out. Hint. We recorded two games in one episode. The next game that we're doing, Antarctic Adventure, it's like, you know, a penguin version of Slalom with some racing aspects. What's not to like? What's not to try? What's not to give us some money to hear?
What's not to try?
