NES #3: Duck Tales

It's a little hard for me to be objective about Duck Tales. This is a game that I've basically been playing for 20 years, and it's connected to many of my fondest childhood memories. Because of this I'm not sure if it's really a great game or not. It sure seems like it is. It has great level design and very memorable music. At the same time though it is very short, and it has an odd attack, but that doesn't hurt its score much in my book.

I have no idea why Capcom was able to make good games out of licensed characters while every other company failed. It makes me wonder why people kept licensing to companies like LJN and TH*Q who always put out horrible games. Capcom has some real licensed gems, and Duck Tales might be my favorite one. If you've never played this one before it's nothing particularly revolutionary. You start out with five levels to choose from at typical NES locations. There is an ice level, a space level and so on. All the major Duck Tales characters make appearances except for poor ol' Duckworth, but the only playable character is Uncle Scrooge. He attacks by hopping around on his cane. You also go around collecting treasures and ice cream cones. If you're a good gamer you can probably start from scratch and have the whole game beat in an hour or two.

So why do I love this game so much if it all sounds so unremarkable? Maybe that's because when I think of NES one particular type of game stands out in my mind. Thanks to Super Mario Brothers the NES was largely defined by it's side scrolling platform games. No system did them better or more often. Duck Tales is a great example of a platform game done well. It is well designed and colorful with many hidden treasures to find and a decent level of challenge. There is just something satisfying about a game that excels when it is supposed to. Duck Tales is just that type of game, and I really enjoyed completing it again.


So for my next game I'm not 100% sure what it's going to be. I'm already starting to feel a little fatigued and it's only been two days. Duck Tales almost froze on me again, but I think I got it just in time. I might try to go through a game I haven't already beat a dozen times just so that I don't feel like I'm repeating myself. I'll get back to you on that one.