While I am a personal fan of the 8-bit era, to a bias extent, I have to say that the remastered version sets out to do what the original DuckTales game tired to do. With “better” graphics, sound, story, and mechanics; remastered makes the original Ducktales feel all the more ancient. Not to say the original didn’t have its own charm to it, but in all honesty this is the defining version of the Ducktales game. Wayforward even added a new beginning and ending level instead of going back to the Transylvania, as well as give the game a gallery filled with artwork and even music from both “versions” of the game. And while Wayforward made the control easier to deal with, with the new “hard pogo” option. The levels still remain very much the same challenging levels as they were in the NES version, sometimes even harder considering the new patterns given to each boss, and the final level that consists with a 3 part final battle. Perhaps, the only real drawback to the new one compared to the old one is the scenes that constantly take place during some of the levels. While it is nice to see the old cast back together and voicing the same characters, it gets quite annoying hearing the same lines said over and over again.
Course when someone tries to fix something, sometimes different problems emerge, and the same is the case for the remastered version of Ducktales. The majority of the problem goes to the boss battles and the hit detection on the pogo stick overall. The Yeti battle comes to mind as one of the worst returning battles because the way the artwork looks compared to avoiding getting hint. While it was easier to tell if a sprite would hit you, the artwork really just doesn’t lend itself to see where you will get hit or not; it took me a while to notice you could walk underneath the Yeti because it really didn’t look like you could comparing the artworks together and the time it took to walk past the Yeti. It’s the only boss battle that I actually had a really hard time judging what to do simply because the way the game looked. The other problem has to do with the final battle. I personally don’t mind the Duckula fight, as it’s fairly easily to memorize the patterns once you get going, but having to do it over and over again just because of the last two sections really pisses me off. In the original, the only thing you had to do was beat Magica da spell and Golum Gold from getting your #1 Dime, but here you have to “escape” in a small section after getting your dime back. The only thing that the escape scene adds is a few stupid and difficult jumps at the end that can cause you to redo everything just because you can easily miss them. I honestly thought I beaten the game once I got the Dime only to find out I had to escape the volcano too. And when I did finally escape, the area was so small that it really felt like it was added as an after effect. Its just so easy to die at the escape scene that having to fight Count Duckula and Magica duo feels like nothing compared to racing against the lava at the end. And the thing that makes it worse is that it really has nothing to do with platforming, but it has everything to do with climbing up chains and then falling toward the next chain, which to begin with is a very hard thing to and hardly seems fair or fun. Really at the end of it all I just really question the volcano escape scene, as it felt unnecessary and cheap after doing all that work in defeating Count Duckula and the Magica Duo only to be undone by some chain hopping gone a rye. Also why the pogo stick sometimes doesn’t exchange blows correctly is beyond me.
Final Thoughts:
Aside from a somewhat jarring final 3 part battle and hit detection confusion with the artwork; Remastered is what the original DuckTales longed for all these years, and even a little bit more thanks to a few more levels and a gallery of goodies. It’s a excellent blend of cartoon based storytelling, mixed with great gameplay, songs, and graphics. It’s still one of the greatest platformers out there, although you may be a bit more irritated once the dialogue wears out its welcome.