DuckTales (video game)

North American NES box.

DuckTales, known in Japan as わんぱくダック夢冒険, Wanpaku Dakku Yume Boken, "Naughty Ducks Dream Adventures", is a platform action adventure game developed nad published by Capcom and first released on the NES in 1989.

I remember being interested in this game because it was pretty popular in Nintendo advertising, and because I enjoyed the television show. However, nobody I knew owned the game, so I didn't play it at the time. I tried it a few times in emulators, but didn't put much effort into it until around 2010 when I played it properly and found it to be a delightful game.

Status

I do not own the game, but have beaten it on the NES on easy mode.

Review

Overall: 6/10
Best Version: NES

Good

The graphics are fantastic, and accurately depict the various DuckTales characters.
A lot of effort was made to include most of the DuckTales imagery, which rarely happens in a tie-in game.
Despite the game showing up on lists as being one of the easiest NES games on the platform, I think the game offers a pretty good challenge to a new player, and being able to increase the difficulty is a nice feature.
Each area has a fair amount of hidden rooms and treasures which adds to the replay value.

Bad

With only 5 stages, the game is a bit on the short side. The designers elongate play time by forcing you to go through the same maps multiple times, but this is a cheap trick.
The mine cart riding portion is kind of annoying. It requires very accurate timing on a jump, and, if you succeed, Scrooge seems unperturbed at watching his Nephews fall to their death!
The difficulty settings don't increase the complexity of the game, they just cause enemies to deal more damage. This is a lazy difficulty setting.

Ugly

Nothing.

Box Art

The original NES box. The same art was used in all regions just with variations of the layout. I really like this art because it shows how Scrooge is only focused on obtaining wealth, even when his own life is in danger.
This is the Game Boy box art used by all regions except Japan. Scrooge here looks almost sinister, like you're being asked to accompany him to bury a body. The art is still great though, and depicts an adventure about the begin.
The Japanese Game Boy art is my least favorite. It has Scrooge staring off into space with the various other characters standing around in unrelated poses.