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Thursday, August 15, 2013

Returning To Duckberg: A Series of Entries On DuckTales Remastered Part 2

 Duckberg has changed, no wait it hasn't. Fondness for the show remains in every cut-scene. I've now played through all the levels beating two and being beaten back from winning some at the boss fight that sadly with and old-school feel restarts you out of the level you're in with no progress saved. It's hard, but games were much harder in the 80's. I've been seeing some other reviews dismiss the game on that and for shame. Sure, the game is hard, but in the true spirit of it it's meant to be hard. All those writers are well ... lame and I guess suck at video games. I find MegaMan extremely harder than any of the gameplay in this title.

Each level has it's own style and feel. The ones I've beaten so far "The Amazon" and "The Moon"  have their own distinctive look thanks to WayForward's remastering of the art for the game. The cute squid aliens on the moon, I don't even want to pogo jump on them. I want to kill every living creature in The Amazon, bees and spiders and stupid gorillas. I hate them all! They think the own the place, but I Pogo jump right on them and knock-em out.

I don't want to knock-out Huey, Dewey, and Louie, my precocious little nephews who drop by for cut-scenes, drop one-liners or get caught for the story to keep going. They're voice-acting and animation bring you back to the show that makes you wonder why Disney Channel is mostly sitcom tween shows and has no major cartoon block like they did in the 90's on local KCAL 9. They just don't have those stories anymore. Their cartoons are even about tweens. We want shows with talking animals getting into complex situations.

Complex situations like fighting a giant rat on the moon! This game is still based on a original Japanese made game and as I've written earlier the concept of Scrooge jumping on enemies like a pogo stick is just insane. How they came up with that as gameplay is beyond any normal thinking. The same goes with going to the Moon, no thoughtfully explained with Oxygenated-Taffy being chewed. When Gizmo Duck show up, I kind of wanted a cameo by Darkwing Duck too, even though the missle parade Gizmo had going was impressive enough on it's own.

Going back to normal thinking, why am I killing adorable bunny rabbits. In the Himalayas level you must strike down the cutest little bunny-wabbits. The game also forces you to watch where you jump, if you land in the snow your a sitting duck and start shivering. You can be taken out by a bunny or a goat at this moment. Diversity of enemies including small woodland animals doesn't stop there as robots, aliens, mummies and more are their to pounce on you.
Gameplay changes again when you go on cart rides and half to dodge and jump to safety to make your full trip. This is a fun change of pace and even Scrooge let's out how fun it is.

It's hard when you fail at this, I've gotten to some boss fights and loss and now have to go all the way back through the entire level. It's challenging and makes you really have to perfect your platforming skills. I am fearful of Magica De Spell and the insane level of difficulty she will give me with fire, shooting magic and transforming into a bird even though, she's already a bird.

more entries to come