DuckTales -NES- 6.5

December 21, 2024

I just beat DuckTales for the NES on easy mode, and got the normal ending. I was a big fan of the cartoon show back in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, but I never played the game that is based on the show until now. DuckTales the videogame is fondly remembered by many retro gamers, but I think it’s a bit overrated.

DuckTales plays like a lot of action platformers on the NES, except that Scrooge McDuck can bounce on his cane like a pogo-stick. It’s a neat nuance that gave DuckTales its own unique brand of platforming for its time. There are five levels, and you can choose which order to tackle them. You find jewels to add to your bank account, but they don’t seem to make a difference in the game unless you earn enough money to unlock the secret ending, which is only slightly different from the normal ending. Ultimately, the main objectives in each level is to find the correct path to reach the boss, defeat them, and progress to the next level. There are also extra lives and health expansions hidden in secret areas, and these are very useful.

The pogo-stick bouncing is fun, but Scrooge is limited to only that when directly attacking enemies. He can also whack stationary objects with his cane while standing next to them, but that only comes in handy against the mummies with the ball&chain and when you toss rocks at spiders. It’s really just the pogo-stick bouncing you use to attack 90% of the time. It’s pretty simplistic, and the only upgrades Scrooge gets are health expansions.

There is freedom to explore in each level, as well as the freedom to pick which level to go to next. However, I did not have much incentive to explore simply to find more jewels, so I just wanted to reach the end level bosses, most of whom were fairly easy to defeat. The levels were also quite short, and only having five of them, you can knock this game out in a good half-hour once you know where to go. I suppose there is some replay value with the different difficulty settings, but beating the game once on easy mode was enough for me.

I had a decent time with DuckTales, but I have played much better games from the NES library before. The character models and graphics are beautiful, and the music is pleasant enough. The jumping mechanics were a little different, but nothing revolutionary. The gameplay still boils down to bouncing on top of the enemies’ heads and making it over the next gap, which is fun, but it’s pretty standard stuff we have seen from countless games of this console generation before. And I appreciate the encouragement to explore, but I just wish there had been more motivation to do so outside of collecting more jewels. I rate DuckTales a 6.5 out of ten. It was okay, but it does not strike me as especially memorable.