Okay, so it seems like the biggest cliche trend at the moment is the retro-review, where aspiring reviewers dip back into the past with games we have all played, but may or may not have realized at the time how much they sucked. It was entertaining at first, but there's only so many times I can hear about how bad Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was, how Ghosts and Goblins is impossible to beat, and so on and so forth. At this point, it has suddenly dawned on me that once the novelty wears off, it becomes clear exactly how easy it is to go back to the NES era and talk about how bad the games were.
Sure, we remember the good games like the Mario series, Metroid, Kirby, the Mega Man series, the Zelda series, the Castlevania series, etc, etc, and thus think fondly on the NES as the good ol' days of gaming. But once you resign yourself not to play these games, you realize that just about everything else on the system was horrible. Obviously, this is a sweeping generalization and there were some gems out there, but my point is that I could randomly draw NES titles out of a hat and could go a pretty good while before I eventually hit a good game. And so, picking on bad NES games is easy. Really easy. Like, almost easier than lying down on the floor. And so, the *real* trick is to find the games that are threatened to be lost in time but deserve to be recognized as what made gaming in the NES era great.
And so, my choice for today is Duck Tales. Now, I know that today, nothing makes a gamer cringe more than games that are based on TV shows and movies. Let's face it, games based on TV and movie licenses are quite often targeted for younger audiences, and then talk down to them. Every now and then, though, we get a game that's based for teens or mature audiences, and then continue to talk down to them. Duck Tales, however, can be picked up and played by younger gamers (like myself, when I was a kid) and provide them a fun but challenging experience. Fast forward to me playing it less than half an hour ago, and it's still fun, though a bit less on the challenging side, but mainly because I played it on Easy mode just so I could blow through it and jog my memory.
For the older audiences, there is a varying difficulty level from easy to medium to difficult, to cater to everybody's needs. Given, I have yet to play the game on difficult, but I rarely ever play games on difficult, because I'm not one of those gamers who revel in getting my ass handed to me in Ninja Gaiden Black.
Now, down to the mechanics. Fans of the series will see a lot of familiar faces as you step into the webbed feet of Scrooge McDuck, wielding his trusty cane which can be used as either a golf club or pogo stick, depending on which offense best suits the situation. It's usually pretty clear as to whether or not you need to pogo onto somebody's head to snuff them out, or to golf swing a heavy object for projectile purposes. Whether playing the game with the series fresh in your mind or jaunting back down memory lane, it's fun to see characters like Gizmoduck, Ms. Beakly, Launchpad, and Gyro make cameo appearances to help you at various points in the game.
As Scrooge, you tour the world, playing through 5 different levels (initially) that you get to select from the main screen. So, if you don't much care for a level and would rather play something else and come back to it later, you have that option, which is always welcome by me, especially when taken to a whole other level in games like the NES version of Strider, but I digress. Each level protects a treasure that Scrooge wants in order to increase his vast wealth, and once each of these treasures are recovered, you advance to the "final" boss fight against Dracula Duck, because... well... you have to. Who cares? It's still fun, it finds the right balance between depth and simplicity, and remains as one of the most overlooked games of the NES era.
I'm generally not very good at assigning numbers to games, so let's just say that I enjoy this game as much as spending the equivalent time at a free smorgasbord of BLT sandwiches and root beer. Which is to say, quite a bit.
Sure, we remember the good games like the Mario series, Metroid, Kirby, the Mega Man series, the Zelda series, the Castlevania series, etc, etc, and thus think fondly on the NES as the good ol' days of gaming. But once you resign yourself not to play these games, you realize that just about everything else on the system was horrible. Obviously, this is a sweeping generalization and there were some gems out there, but my point is that I could randomly draw NES titles out of a hat and could go a pretty good while before I eventually hit a good game. And so, picking on bad NES games is easy. Really easy. Like, almost easier than lying down on the floor. And so, the *real* trick is to find the games that are threatened to be lost in time but deserve to be recognized as what made gaming in the NES era great.
And so, my choice for today is Duck Tales. Now, I know that today, nothing makes a gamer cringe more than games that are based on TV shows and movies. Let's face it, games based on TV and movie licenses are quite often targeted for younger audiences, and then talk down to them. Every now and then, though, we get a game that's based for teens or mature audiences, and then continue to talk down to them. Duck Tales, however, can be picked up and played by younger gamers (like myself, when I was a kid) and provide them a fun but challenging experience. Fast forward to me playing it less than half an hour ago, and it's still fun, though a bit less on the challenging side, but mainly because I played it on Easy mode just so I could blow through it and jog my memory.
For the older audiences, there is a varying difficulty level from easy to medium to difficult, to cater to everybody's needs. Given, I have yet to play the game on difficult, but I rarely ever play games on difficult, because I'm not one of those gamers who revel in getting my ass handed to me in Ninja Gaiden Black.
Now, down to the mechanics. Fans of the series will see a lot of familiar faces as you step into the webbed feet of Scrooge McDuck, wielding his trusty cane which can be used as either a golf club or pogo stick, depending on which offense best suits the situation. It's usually pretty clear as to whether or not you need to pogo onto somebody's head to snuff them out, or to golf swing a heavy object for projectile purposes. Whether playing the game with the series fresh in your mind or jaunting back down memory lane, it's fun to see characters like Gizmoduck, Ms. Beakly, Launchpad, and Gyro make cameo appearances to help you at various points in the game.
As Scrooge, you tour the world, playing through 5 different levels (initially) that you get to select from the main screen. So, if you don't much care for a level and would rather play something else and come back to it later, you have that option, which is always welcome by me, especially when taken to a whole other level in games like the NES version of Strider, but I digress. Each level protects a treasure that Scrooge wants in order to increase his vast wealth, and once each of these treasures are recovered, you advance to the "final" boss fight against Dracula Duck, because... well... you have to. Who cares? It's still fun, it finds the right balance between depth and simplicity, and remains as one of the most overlooked games of the NES era.
I'm generally not very good at assigning numbers to games, so let's just say that I enjoy this game as much as spending the equivalent time at a free smorgasbord of BLT sandwiches and root beer. Which is to say, quite a bit.
