Duck Tales Remastered a good remake that just not has great has the orginal

Note all pictures and videos on this hub were captured by me, Duck Tales was made by Wayforward and Disney.

In a previous Hub I reviewed Duck Tales for the NES and said it’s was a really fun and addictive platformer from the 80’s, a gem among NES games that has aged better than a lot of other NES games. Needless to say I was excited to see Duck Tales was coming back and was being made by WayForward makers of Shantae, as well has Double Dragon Neon. After picking up and playing it I was both fascinated and a bit enraged by this upgrade. Wayforward does a good job making a Duck Tales game, but at the same time the stuff they added takes away from the experience rather then enhances the enjoyment of it. And all I can say is the main fault of this game is its $15 price point.

The NES game had no narrative at all; basically Scrooge is out to find treasure because well that’s what Scrooge does. In this one expect a lot more narrative. Basically after the Beagle Boys try to rob his vault again, Scrooge finds a mysterious treasure map on the back of a painting they tried to steal and decides to find all the treasures on that map. Each stage plays out kind of like an episode from the series with lots of cut scenes in it. They manage to bring back a lot of the original actors including the voice actor for Scrooge McDuck who well into his 90’s when he played the role for this game. His voice has softened a bit but he still knocks it out of the park has Scrooge. The writing isn’t the problem these cut scenes feel right at home paying homage to the 80’s TV series. But they clash in with the 1980’s game this remaster is supposed to be celebrating has well because they slow down the action in the stages horribly taking away the breeziness of the original game.

The graphics in this remaster are incredible, Wayforward got some of the old Disney animators to come in and to draw backgrounds and help animate the character’s. Some character’s in there animations are just kind of goofy and some enemies death animations are comical to watch. I am not going to complain about the graphics because they look gorgeous.

I knew what I was in for with the sound just listening to what Wayforward did with the opening theme song. It starts off with the 8-bit theme song, and when the main chorus hit has built to be a new fully orchestrated version of the classic TV shows theme. This meant the sound track would be remixed but treated with respect, and boy does it sound great. Every remix sounds new and impressive, but still holds up to the original. No worries about your moon theme it sounds better than ever. So no complaints about the music in this game either.

I can complain about the gameplay elements however. Let’s start off with the good the platforming is still has fun has ever, your still going to be finding secrets and pogo sticking off of everything, now made easier by a one button control scheme to control Scrooges pogoing. There are two new stages an intro tutorial stage that is ok, and an ending stage that is hard has hell and doesn’t quite hold up to the classic stages but is still an A+ effort by Wayforward to add something legitimately new.

The bosses are also redone and are now more complex and have more attacks. I enjoyed these new boss fights a lot and they were a lot memorable then the simple ones on the NES.

Also diamonds and treasures can be used to buy things in a gallery mode. Classic artwork, sound tracks, etc and it’s fun to unlock these items.

Unfortunately I now have to go into the bad parts of this game and again it’s $15 for a game that can beaten in an hour, and speed run in about 15 minutes. Needless to say in order to get peoples money’s worth Wayforward felt like needed to pad the game, and it’s this padding that makes remaster weaker than the original 8-bit game. The short cuts are all gone and to make matters worse you’re now expected to explore every nook cranny of the stage in order to find items to get to the boss. For example in the Amazon jungle on the NES you can keep going on right pogoing across spikes and head up a vine if you want to get to the linear area that leads to the boss. Or you can go downward into some caves and find lots of treasure the choice is yours. In remaster in order to unlock the final area that leads to the stage boss you have to find coins, meaning you’re going to go cave diving weather you want to or not. In Transylvania rather than just finding the mirror that takes you to Magica for the boss fight you now have to find runes and beat up Beagle Boys. Not only does this make the game feel artificially longer, but each item you find is connected to a story scene making the game seem like really drags. It’s this that makes Duck Tales remaster not has special has its NES counterpart.

Duck Tales Remaster is not a bad remake of an NES game, it’s just not has good has the NES game it’s remaking though. The NES game was perfect, Remaster is just merley good and because of that not has worthy an addition to a collection has the original NES game. I think the problems with this game could have been avoided if they follow what I call the George Lucas rule. You want Han to shoot first fine, but give fans of the original the same upgraded treatment to their movies without the changes. If this had a classic mode that open up after the remastered story mode this game wouldn’t get half the complaints against it that it gets now.