Not pony tails or cotton tails or...

March 25, 2013 1:35 PM

DuckTales the Video Game -- Remastered (SLYT)
posted by shivohum (50 comments total)

Bouncing on that stick is just so .....satisfying.

If they fuck with the moon theme however I'm breaking shit.
posted by The Whelk at 1:37 PM on March 25, 2013 [12 favorites]

Oh man oh man oh man oh man ohmanohman!

Me and that pogo stick cane, we go way back.
posted by RolandOfEld at 1:38 PM on March 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

Bummer, doesn't look like there will be a PC version.

Heh, I remember when the thought of running a game that looked that good, and ran that fast, on an IBM PC would have been risible. These days, I'm just a little bummed that I can't get a game I want on my preferred platform.
posted by Malor at 1:44 PM on March 25, 2013

If it's not one of the greatest cartoon theme songs of all time (I mean talk about Earworm!), I don't know what is.

The game itself was freaking awesome what little time I got to spend with it. Though do many people remember how hard it actually was? All those old games. Are they going to soften it up a bit for the modern era or will it retain its classic difficulty?

WHoO-ooo
posted by symbioid at 1:51 PM on March 25, 2013

Wait, it's just an old platformer with improved graphics?

I am disappoint.
posted by GuyZero at 1:52 PM on March 25, 2013

Not *just* an old platformer. One of the best ever.
posted by explosion at 1:54 PM on March 25, 2013 [5 favorites]

Bouncing on that stick is just so .....satisfying.

You're not just gonna leave that hanging there, are you?
posted by backseatpilot at 1:56 PM on March 25, 2013 [3 favorites]

I will freely admit that I am no connoisseur of platformers. I had just hoped for some higher level of modernization.
posted by GuyZero at 1:56 PM on March 25, 2013

This was the first game I cheated on with Nintendo Power maps.....I miss that magazine.
posted by samsara at 1:57 PM on March 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

Though do many people remember how hard it actually was?

I remember it being somewhat difficult, but with a learning curve that let you master it fairly quickly. I remember struggling with it for about a month after which point I was able to play it blindfolded.

If I recall, "Difficult Mode" only takes away items such as cakes and magic coins.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:59 PM on March 25, 2013

Not *just* an old platformer. One of the best ever.

I liked the game as well, but I wonder about porting a classic: so much of what makes a game great is feeling like the controller is an extension of your thoughts. They're porting this to three different consoles and at least two of them have controllers that are very different from the old NES controllers. The play mechanics are bound to suffer, aren't they?
posted by yerfatma at 2:00 PM on March 25, 2013

We got Duck Tales dubbed into Russian around '93-'95. I, uh, learned the theme song lyrics pho-net-ic-al-ly before I knew much English. I didn't think about it for a very long time until I discovered myself humming, "D-d-d-danger, look behind you! There's a stranger out to find you…"
posted by Nomyte at 2:04 PM on March 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

DuckTales is a good game, and I'm sure I'll enjoy playing it again. But it's also a bizarre relic of the NES era. I mean, critical to the core gameplay is this idea that Scrooge McDuck's cane can double as a pogo stick, and the levels seem to encourage the player to use this pogo stick as much as possible.

And yet in the source material — the DuckTales cartoon — I don't believe that Scrooge ever uses his cane as a pogo stick. I believe that this was something invented by the game developers in order to make the game a more interesting platformer. (If I am wrong, please let me know.)

In the NES era, most games had to shoehorn themselves into the platformer genre one way or another. So I'm not critiquing the design of the game — just the awkwardness of the licensing. And yet I doubt the game would be so fondly remembered if it weren't a licensed tie-in for an after-school cartoon.
posted by savetheclocktower at 2:04 PM on March 25, 2013

I chanced upon the thread about the announcement on NeoGAF and it was utterly bizarre to me how they were losing their shit over the possibility, but then I never got to experience the game when I was a kid. Loved the cartoon though.
posted by kmz at 2:10 PM on March 25, 2013

The remake has been made easier for "modern" gamers with an option to play it as it was back in the day.

To be fair, it is a pretty difficult game. I mean, I was super proud of beating it when I was five.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 2:11 PM on March 25, 2013

Did love Tim Shafer's quote in the trailer though.
posted by kmz at 2:11 PM on March 25, 2013

Personally the PAX reveal that got me the most excited was Transistor, from Supergiant Games. Bastion was one of my top experiences in a game ever.
posted by kmz at 2:14 PM on March 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

93 year old Alan Young is returning as the voice of Scrooge McDuck.

Did you know Scrooge McDuck's voice is Wilbur from Mr. Ed?
posted by unsupervised at 2:16 PM on March 25, 2013 [5 favorites]

Kids these days can't handle the failure of not having the skills necessary to beat a game within the rental window?
posted by wierdo at 2:16 PM on March 25, 2013 [3 favorites]

I had just hoped for some higher level of modernization.

As the Sonic and Mario series have shown, it is quite difficult to bring a 2D platformer into three dimensions without losing the feel of the original game. The modern Sonic games pretty much completely failed at it. The modern Mario games more or less succeeded, but even so Nintendo has gone back to the 2D platforming model from time to time (New Super Mario Bros., Super Paper Mario).
posted by jedicus at 2:17 PM on March 25, 2013

I watched this video last week and realized two things:

1. All these years I had mistakenly been thinking of Quackshot whenever anyone mentioned Duck tales. I played a lot of both, but I played WAY more Quackshot.

2. "Tales of derring-do, bad and good luck tales" O.M.G. I never thought to look up this line now that the Internet can answer any question and seeing it written in the subtitles was like a tidal wave of unexpected relief.
posted by SharkParty at 2:22 PM on March 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

The modern Sonic games pretty much completely failed at it.

To the point where the ones that are actually successful just flat-out say "okay, it's platforming time now, so we are switching to 2-D. Deal with it."
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:22 PM on March 25, 2013

SharkParty: " I never thought to look up this line now that the Internet can answer any question "

You heard it as "Daring do-bad and good luck tales", didn't you?
posted by boo_radley at 2:25 PM on March 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

I don't even know, actually... I think I just mentally mumbled something like "tales of daring do-right and good luck tales"

like maybe Daring was Dudley's stepbrother or something.
posted by SharkParty at 2:26 PM on March 25, 2013

I also thought the next like was actual words like "you put the danger right behind you" and not stuttering D-D-D-DANGER.

I'm getting a lot done today.
posted by SharkParty at 2:28 PM on March 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

I was super excited as I clicked on this and then...wait seriously? This is what it looks like?

Guys, this is the greatest non-mushroom-related platform game ever created for the NES. How can it's remake possibly be this cheesy and cheap looking? It looks like a low budget phone game.

I guess I am a crotchety old Scrooge, but I'd much rather just fire up an emulator and play the real thing.
posted by trackofalljades at 2:30 PM on March 25, 2013

I just mumbled something about "doo-dads."
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:30 PM on March 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

So I'm not critiquing the design of the game — just the awkwardness of the licensing. And yet I doubt the game would be so fondly remembered if it weren't a licensed tie-in for an after-school cartoon.

Maybe, but if I recall, the Bucky O'Hare game, also a highly acclaimed platformer, was and still is much better known than the source material from which it was licensed.

Meanwhile, the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, despite being licensed from a property that's still popular today, was an absolutely terrible platformer and is mostly forgotten apart from those of us who still have recurrent nightmares about dismantling the bombs in the underwater level.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:40 PM on March 25, 2013 [4 favorites]

WHY WOULD YOU EVEN MENTION THAT LEVEL
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:42 PM on March 25, 2013 [14 favorites]

> If they fuck with the moon theme however I'm breaking shit.

I came in here to type this very thing and I see the Internet is in good hands. GOOD DAY TO YOU ALL
posted by sidesh0w at 3:11 PM on March 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

My copy of this game had been irrecoverably damaged when I first got it. My parents must have bought it at a rental place. Somehow, the NES still let it play. The title screen was a mess of garbled @ and # signs, and the characters were jumbles of colorful corners. The music and the backgrounds worked fine, though, and my brother and I had fun guiding Glitch McBug to the end of the game. We did have to make liberal use of the Nintendo Power Game Guide, though.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 3:18 PM on March 25, 2013

Wii U, but no regular Wii release? What's the giant touchscreen controller gonna do for an old NES platformer?
posted by anazgnos at 3:26 PM on March 25, 2013

backseatpilot: "Bouncing on that stick is just so .....satisfying.

You're not just gonna leave that hanging there, are you?"

If it was just hanging, they couldn't bounce on it, now could they? Certainly it wouldn't be nearly as fun!
posted by symbioid at 3:28 PM on March 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

93 year old Alan Young is returning as the voice of Scrooge McDuck.

I was wondering if they were gonna do that, that's excellent news. I'd also hoped that they'd do a new movie or something with him before it was too late.

Did you know Scrooge McDuck's voice is Wilbur from Mr. Ed?

Yes, I remember recognizing his name in the Ducktales credits. Peter Cullen (Adm Grimitz, among others) was more obvious, though I only knew his name because the Transformers movie credits showed who played who.

There was a recent MeFi thread on the show (and game), for anyone who missed it.
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 3:48 PM on March 25, 2013

Whoa.. I remember really loving this game, but never particularly hearing anyone else rave about it.. this is the first time I've read that Duck Tales is considered an all time classic NES game.
posted by mediocre at 4:02 PM on March 25, 2013

I saw this posted somewhere else and it mentioned that "Jay Kaufman" would be redoing the classic music. Someone tell me that was a typo and they really meant JAKE Kaufman.
posted by kjh at 4:03 PM on March 25, 2013

I'll just leave this here.
posted by Buckt at 4:58 PM on March 25, 2013 [3 favorites]

One of my friends actually works for WayForward, the studio doing the update. He's not involved in this project, but he says it's pretty cool to work for a place that wants to do the game justice.
posted by chaosys at 4:59 PM on March 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

Though do many people remember how hard it actually was?

I remember it being one of the easier NES platformers. Like many games at the time, I beat it on one rental. After you've spent months conquering The Legend Of Zelda's second quest without aid, few NES games have much power over you anymore.

Did you know Scrooge McDuck's voice is Wilbur from Mr. Ed?

I did, but I learned it fairly recently. Keep going Alan Young! Rock on!

Interesting things about DuckTales, all from memory:
1. The game has many clever secret areas. Some of them you find Mario-style, that is, by straying up into the status area and crossing over the tops of walls that look like they should be impassible. Others are things like ropes that unexpectedly extend off-screen or walk-through walls. There are lots of invisible objects in the game, where if you walk in front of a location a treasure just appears, but the game makes good use of them. It's not showy, it's just a solidly put-together game in the classic Capcom style.
2. There are two million-dollar treasures in the game, entirely secret things that just give you a gigantic score bonus. You also get $1M for completing a level.
3. The size of the pile of loot in the ending depends on your final score. It's not hard to get the biggest pile though. Like many games at the time, it's easy to replay levels and "mint points," a design flaw of many NES games. If I were working on this, I'd be sure to fix that and give the game a maximum score that couldn't be gamed (although it should be noted, a couple of places the design relies on the fact that you can always earn more money by having toll gates).

Meanwhile, the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, despite being licensed from a property that's still popular today, was an absolutely terrible platformer and is mostly forgotten apart from those of us who still have recurrent nightmares about dismantling the bombs in the underwater level.

There are interesting things about it, but ultimately its framerate is too low to be really enjoyable. It plays somewhat like a Micronics production, an anonymous developer many companies turned to to make much of the Famicom's early library. It's definitely not up to form for Konami.

One of my friends actually works for WayForward, the studio doing the update. He's not involved in this project, but he says it's pretty cool to work for a place that wants to do the game justice.

I've noticed that WayForward often tries to do well by classic properties. They don't always hit it out of the park, but even their failures tend to be admirable ones. It's one of the few game companies I feel like I could work at myself without having to compromise any design principles. They's good peoples.
posted by JHarris at 5:32 PM on March 25, 2013 [2 favorites]

As someone who abused His friendship privileges playing this at Alan's house, I can say it wasn't ...hard, not Mickey's Adventure /Battletoads HARD but it was FUN. Like Jharris says, it encourages exploration in ways that normal platform era didn't, You could just bounce around and look for shit and always seemed juuuuust challenging enough to keep you engaged without being so hard you threw the controller down to go mess with the cat. It was the most fun platformer ever, thus all the good will it has among all us obstenible adults.
posted by The Whelk at 5:38 PM on March 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

The size of the pile of loot in the ending depends on your final score. It's not hard to get the biggest pile though. Like many games at the time, it's easy to replay levels and "mint points," a design flaw of many NES games.

With the exception of Transylvania which you revisit to get the skeleton key (for the mines) and later to fight the final boss, you can't go back to any of the stages once you've completed them. In some stages you can find Launchpad McQuack who will fly you home prematurely to unload your treasure and (I think) respawn many of the gems when you return. If your money total has a '7' in it, the trip back to Duckberg will include brief stopover in a bonus level where Gyro Gearloose lobs diamonds at you. Hitting all the available bonus stages was usually sufficient to get the biggest loot pile at the end.

not Mickey's Adventure /Battletoads HARD but it was FUN.

I hated Mickey Mousecapades because I could never figure out how to make sure Minnie got equipped with the throwing stars in the first level without repeatedly reentering that room until the treasure chest doesn't contain that annoying monster. There's really no point continuing on if Minnie can't throw stars because then there's no way to use her super NPC-invincibility against Black Pete's crazy stream of knives on the pirate ship.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:00 PM on March 25, 2013

The size of the pile of loot in the ending depends on your final score. It's not hard to get the biggest pile though.

There's also a sad ending if you finish with exactly $0.
posted by obscure simpsons reference at 6:31 PM on March 25, 2013 [3 favorites]

Ah, that's true now that I think of it RonButNotStupid. You can still mint points, but at least there's that aspect to it.
posted by JHarris at 6:48 PM on March 25, 2013

ducktales moon
posted by cman at 7:39 PM on March 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

Even as a kid, I thought it was rather brazen how the theme song took a dig at, presumably, My Little Pony.

But I guess the latter has had the last laugh. Way to go, Disney.
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 9:21 PM on March 25, 2013

I kind of want to hear the new game's version of the Moon theme.

Also obscure simpsons reference, I didn't know about the health refill for $3M trick.
posted by JHarris at 9:56 PM on March 25, 2013

it will not avail you, taco nazi
posted by Peevish at 9:43 AM on March 26, 2013

yay hi kjh!
I saw this posted somewhere else and it mentioned that "Jay Kaufman" would be redoing the classic music. Someone tell me that was a typo and they really meant JAKE Kaufman.

Yep! Soundtrack is actually just about done. I haven't been sleeping much in the past few months. And...

If they fuck with the moon theme however I'm breaking shit.
I came in here to type this very thing and I see the Internet is in good hands. GOOD DAY TO YOU ALL

..This kind of pressure is why. It's worth it, though. I work pretty hard to show my fellow game music fans a good time. Disappointment is not in the plan!
posted by jake at 12:57 PM on March 26, 2013 [7 favorites]

Hey guy! You have your orders regarding the moon theme. Don't make us sic NASA on your ass.
posted by JHarris at 1:02 PM on March 26, 2013

I got into it to help my little sister's past said moon level.

As a big brother that time, I was AWESOME!
posted by Samizdata at 10:39 PM on March 26, 2013