Darkwing Duck / DuckTales 2
Darkwing Duck
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I am the gamer that beats classics in the night!
I am... Darkwing Nick! |
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That damn bridge, that damn Quacker Jack.
Damn... |
The last of the three games that I actually played back
when I owned a NES, and the one that made me curse my life away with the myriad
of Quebec blasphemes I knew at the time. Yes, this is probably the hardest game
in the collection, although that might just have to do with the gameplay mechanics.
Oh wait, no, even once you know how to play, it’s still pretty hard.
Darkwing Duck is tasked by the head of super-secret
organization S.H.U.S.H. to take down the members of evil team F.O.W.L., which
has been causing various acts of mayhem around the city. That’s all we need for
the story! Launchpad McQuack will helpfully bring Darkwing where he needs to
go, and then let him do the rest. Let’s get dangerous!
Heh, can you believe Darkwing Duck is the one Disney
TV show I never watched? DuckTales, Chip’n Dale, TaleSpin… yup, saw them. DW? Unfortunately not. Not that this would have helped, outside of providing some backstory and info on the various characters and villains...
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| Thanks, my bottomless magazines! |
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| Hang in there ducky! |
Darkwing Duck can
jump and shoot bullets. He can protect himself from projectiles thanks to his
cape if you press Up. That’s right, he has a bulletproof cape! I mean, capes
aren’t recommended for heroes anymore, but if they’re that useful… Going
around, DW can also find new weapons, which can be activated with your Select
button. They’re actually not that useful because their ammo is very limited,
but they can be good to get out of a few troublesome areas. However, DW’s main feature is
that he can hang underneath platforms and other items that can be grabbed, such
as street lights and wall fixtures. It’s absolutely required in order to beat
even the first level, so you’d better get used to it! On top of that, by a
simple press of the Down and Jump buttons, DW will drop down from a platform he
stands on, hanging from it instead. Turns out to be necessary to destroy some
of the enemies on the way.
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| It's a shell-shocker. |
For, you see… much like DW and his cape, most enemies in this game can protect themselves from harm. For a platform game, this takes “Attack its weak spot”
to a whole new level! Whenever you encounter an enemy, they’ll use their own
strategy. That turtle? It can only be hurt when it tosses its
shell at DW like a boomerang. That robot? Only its head can be harmed to reveal
the mouse inside, which is then defeated with another bullet. A lot of enemy weak
points are located a little high, forcing DW to do a very short jump to shoot and hurt them. Thankfully,
many of them are located in areas where DW can jump to avoid the enemy
attacks, or drop down to hang from the platform they’re on. Yes, many mooks in this
game are defeated by doing this, so you HAVE to master the controls quickly.
(And of course, most of them take multiple hits to go down!)
Add to this that the enemies are frequently located in
levels filled to the brim with platforming traps, such spikes or endless
pits, and you’ll see that they make up quite a dangerous combination!
The game’s progression works this way: Three levels
open for DW at the beginning. Once he has beaten them all, three more open.
When those are beaten, we move on to the seventh and last level.
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Doesn't look like it, but this is one of the toughest
bosses in the game. It's the Joker to DW's Batman! |
Want more difficulty? How about the bosses? They’re
all tough. Some are tougher than others, but they’re all tough. Their
difficulty ranges between “Not Easy” and “Oh God This Is Hell”. For added
bonus, one of the very first bosses is quite the wake-up call regarding
difficulty. Let me tell you about Quackerjack. Yes, that Joker wannabe.
Okay, hear this out: The fight happens on two platforms one above the
other, and a ground floor. As soon as DW jumps on the one Quackerjack is on, the evil clown duck
will move to a different platform, giving you a split second to
shoot and hit him (usually allowing only 1 point of damage as a result, while
bosses have a lot of HP). Quackerjack is tall, and will hurt DW if the latter
is hanging from a platform – but still small enough that if DW is hanging, his
bullets will go over the jester’s head. To top it all off, Quackerjack’s
sidekick, the Banana Brain puppet, is located on the highest ledge (which has
spikes) and will constantly follow DW, dropping bananas when he’s got a good
aiming angle. Did I mention DW has only 4 Hit Points?
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I hate these goddamn egg chicken robots!
As for Steelbeak... eh, he's easier on his second phase. |
That’s probably the toughest boss in the entire game,
but the others are no slouch either. The final boss, Steelbeak, also has a very
nasty technique where DW must climb up fixtures to get to him, and jump to
shoot and damage him, all while avoiding or killing the criminal’s spherical
robots, which sometimes shoot bullets too and respawn very quickly. Gah! And
there’s a second phase past that point! This game’s developers are evil, I swear.
This quest takes us to fight many members of Darkwing
Duck’s rogues gallery, including Megavolt, Reginald Bushroot, the Liquidator, and
Professor Moliarty… Oh, and some were-duck who was never in the show and turns indestructible when the full moon is out –
and the only reason we have a chance against him is that he's fought during a cloudy
night, with the moon hidden at regular intervals.
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Crates! Your friends when you're a chipmunk...
Your enemies when you're a duck. |
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| These mice are wearing armor. Non-mouse-sized armor. |
However, while the game definitely offers a challenge,
it’s anything but bad! The controls take a moment to get used to, but the game is fair afterwards. Darkwing Duck’s measly four Hit Points often prove to
be more than enough, and while ungodly difficult, the game is at least
merciful. Every level has a checkpoint screen. If DW dies while fighting the
boss, he will respawn at the boss fight. And while losing all of your lives is
an instant Game Over, you've got infinite Continues, and
you will always resume at the start of the level you lost your last life in (though
on the Game Over screen, you can also choose to go back to the level select menu to pick a different level to
play). That's fair. Enemies will frequently drop
items, such as gasoline (to refill your secondary weapon ammo), heart
containers (sometimes even health kits, which refill all of DW’s health!) and,
on rare occasion, extra 1-Ups represented by DW dolls. A doll of the main
character is an extra life? I wonder where they got that idea! That was in the first DuckTales game, no? They should sue! ... ... ...Oh wait, same company.
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This level had genie ducks in lamps, and ducks shooting
fire, flying on magic carpets. You'd expect another Arabian
Nights theme for the villain - nope! It's the
electricity-based villain Megavolt instead. |
As with every other game in this collection, the 8-bit
art is truly fantastic, making every character from the show perfectly
recognizable (if sometimes not quite identical in shape, like a Quackerjack who
appears as more buff, or a Steelbeak who’s surprisingly small). As for the
music, it’s pretty great as well.
If you’re looking for an actual challenge, Darkwing
Duck is the game to try. It’s quite possibly the hardest game here. While it
adds a lot of difficulty to the platforming aspect, the fact that most enemies
can protect themselves is a nice touch, one that was seldom-seen in platform
games at the time. The levels are fun to explore and keep you on edge, as you
must always be careful to see what’s coming, and the boss battles are creative
and require quite a bit of quick thinking and dexterity on your part. This one
is worth playing – but can you beat it? (Hell, if I can, I’m sure you can.
Practice makes perfect!)
DuckTales 2
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Time for an adventure, my nephews!
As if the previous one hadn't been dangerous enough! |
So I thought Darkwing Duck was difficult… It’s not the
only difficult game in here! DuckTales 2 greatly improves on the first in
just about every way, including difficulty. Much like in the original, we have
levels that can seem linear at first glance, yet encourage exploration –
perhaps even moreso.
The nephews find a piece of an old map in Scrooge’s
money bin. A map that belonged to his uncle Fergus, a map that will lead to a
great treasure – that is, if they can find the remaining 7 pieces scattered in
many parts of the world! Each land has its key treasure worth a million
dollars, yet again, and of course they’re guarded by bosses. Once again, we have five locations: The Niagara Falls, Scotland,
Mu, Egypt and the Bermuda Triangle.
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| Unbreakable blocks? What is this magic? |
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| Hang in there ducky! (Take 2) |
As with any good sequel, the developers took cues from
the criticism directed at the previous game and added many improvements to this
one. For starters, Scrooge’s abilities. You no longer need to press B+Down to
go into a pogo cane jump. Pressing B will suffice. Originally, it was impossible to make Scrooge swing his cane to destroy blocks located
higher. Here, if he stands next to a wall, he gets in cane-swinging pose, after
which you can jump, then press B to swing. This lets Scrooge break stuff that
would have otherwise been too high for him – whether it’s blocks or treasure
chests. In the first you could also only swing your cane to push things forward
– here, some blocks are made so that you can pull them with your cane (and thus
decide where you want to position them). Not all blocks can be pulled at first,
some are too heavy. Finally, when you find Launchpad McQuack, you can use him
to go back to the level select screen. That doesn’t seem like much, but the
screen he appears on will also always be a level’s midway checkpoint. Ah, Launchpad.
I trust you more as a checkpoint than as a pilot.
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Oh cool, thanks!
...Wait. How can you upgrade a wooden cane? |
However, not all blocks can be destroyed at first – in
three levels, you have to find and save Gyro Gearloose, and he will apply three
upgrades to your cane. One will let Scrooge break some tougher blocks with pogo
jumps, another will let him break the same type of blocks with a cane swing.
The last upgrade will give Scrooge more strength to pull heavier stuff around
in order to solve puzzles. In two of those levels, Gyro appears before the midway
point, so I recommend you get Gyro’s upgrades, use Launchpad to return to the
level selection screen, beat the level where Gyro appears past the midway point
(it’s the Bermuda Triangle), then beat every level. Once the upgrades have all
been found, the order doesn’t really matter.
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The map of Mu Island, as made by StarFighters76 and posted on
GameFAQs. If it doesn't look mazelike, then you haven't explored
that level by yourself. |
At first, the levels feel a lot more linear than in
the first game, but that’s a lie; they’re actually far, far more complex. They’re
almost miniature Metroidvanias. I’m not kidding! Each level has plenty of
secrets, whether it’s the usual stuff like jewels popping out of nowhere or
chests that appear magically – but we also gain access to plenty of larger
treasure chests, which may contain rubies, extra lives or additional special
treasures (each worth a million, and there’s two of those secret treasures in
the game). Each of the five levels also has a piece of the treasure map,
usually hidden cleverly and forcing you to REALLY explore the level. Some of
those are behind blockades that require Gyro’s upgrades to overcome. Then some
others are located behind puzzles, like the one that requires to pogo-jump on
four blocks, in a certain order, a precise number of times on each block (A
nephew communicates that info earlier in the level, so if you’re bored by NPC talks,
you’re out of luck). The second puzzle happens on Mu Island, and solving it
raises the land above sea level, allowing Scrooge to visit some lower areas
that were blocked off. Eeyup, this duck can't swim.
When you complete a level, you get the money you found
on the way to the boss, and then you enter a shop menu. The items there are so
expensive. Here’s what you can get:
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Why do I have to buy a new safe before every level anyway?
Why can't I just get a bigger safe? |
-One map piece (1 million $);
-Two additional Hit Point dots (750,000$ each, described as "Special Energy");
-Extra lives (800,000$ each – huh, didn’t know you
could monetize resurrection!);
-An extra continue (500,000, but you can only have one
until you use it up; also, I didn’t know multiple resurrections would be less
expensive than a single one!). Also, as soon as you use one, the game reopens on the shop menu, so if you have enough money, you can buy a new one;
-A cake, which you can access from the Pause menu if
you’re low on health at any moment. EXTREMELY useful, but still rather
expensive (150,000$). That is some caviar cake if I ever heard of such.
-Last but not least, the most annoying gameplay
mechanic here, a safe. Yes, a safe. If you don’t buy one, during the next level
you walk into, your money won’t be saved if you die. You’ll restart with 0$,
and remember that any magical appearing jewels won’t respawn unless you leave
the level and come back. The worst part might be that you never start the game
with one; you can only buy one the first time you return to the level selection
screen. And just in case you die, you have to buy one before every level you go
in! It’s thankfully cheap (50,000$), but it really is the worst aspect of the
game. Sure, you get a guaranteed million dollars each time you kill a boss, so
that's helpful when the shop menu opens, but still…
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Pay attention to the orange stones.
I like these puzzles where you have to figure out the
connections between a screen and a later one. |
On top of all that, the game has some cutscecnes made of dialogue, even if it’s mostly Scrooge talking to his nephews, niece, and
terminally-crashed employee. The nephews show up frequently in the level, and
are more useful here as they help Scrooge in solving the puzzles. It kind of
annoys me that Launchpad takes three dialogue boxes to describe every level
before we enter it, but I suppose it’s good for those who like some
world-building. Since the entire
point this time is to visit levels and discover their secrets, you need to take
risks. They usually pay off if you listen to the clues – work smarter,
not harder! That’s for the levels.
How are the bosses? Well, for the most part,
they are relatively simple yet again – most of them have only two means of
attacking, which are somewhat easy to predict. The last boss, a parody of the
T-1000 from Terminator, has only one way of attacking (outside of ramming into
you), which involves him clinging to the ceiling and kicking downwards at you.
Not so bad, you say? Did I mention he does that almost as soon as you just over
him, ready to pogo-jump at its head? It will usually hit you faster than you
can hit it.
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Rocks Falls, Everyduck Dies.
Scrooge isn't just anyduck, thankfully. |
This game also has, hands-down, one of the hardest
bosses in the entire collection: The Golem Duck from Mu Island. Okay, hear
this: This guy cannot be destroyed as it’s made of rocks, its weak point is the
red sphere in its center. It walks across the screen, stops, and will either
blast us with its arm cannon or make rocks fall. The rocks are hard to avoid,
because they seem to fall exactly where Scrooge is. Three rocks at a time, all
in your vicinity. One will stay on the field. The Golem can’t move across the
screen until it’s been cleaned of the fallen rocks. To hurt the Golem, you must
throw a rock at it with your golf swing, which breaks its weak point free.
Then, pogo-jump on the red ball. The Golem’s attacks are faster than yours, so
you’ll frequently be swinging to throw a stone at it when another one falls on
you. Thankfully, if you do well, you can damage it many times in a row. Five
hits and it dies, and thank God, because it really is a fucking frustrating
boss.
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Scrooge is still smiling, because he knows he is gonna beat
up Flintheart easily.
Or so he believes. |
Collecting all the pieces of the map opens a new
level, the basement of the castle in Scotland, where you can rematch the
level’s original boss (who has new evil tricks) to receive another great
treasure. After all five main levels have been beaten, a pirate ship appears in
the Bermuda Triangle, with Glomgold on it saying he has kidnapped Webby, and
will only let her free in exchange for the treasures found. After the final
boss, it all depends on how much you’ve collected: If you only have the main
five treasures, you get a normal ending where the ship sinks, along with them.
If you’ve found the secret treasure of Scotland and all treasures, you get the
best ending. If you end the game with precisely 0 dollars, the McDuck name is
shamed by Glomgold. Good work!
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Even pirate ships are full of loot to plunder!
Oh wait, that should have been our first destination. |
Is this game better than the first DuckTales?
Honestly… I am tempted to say yes. The first one has a nostalgic value, and is
still beloved by many, but there have been so many improvements for this one
that I can’t help but see it as superior. It’s a shame that it’s not nearly as
well-known. Six levels instead of five, bosses that can be actually quite
difficult, tons of secrets, and exploration being rewarded more than ever. It
even has puzzles! Nothing to say on the 8-bit art and the music, it’s still
great. The improvements to the gameplay mechanics add a lot – sure, some things
are difficult to grasp, and if you don’t read the instructions you might wonder
how to do some things at first – although, wasn’t that true of the pogo jump in
the first place?
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Suddenly, Duckinator 1000.
Yet all it does is reach to the ceiling and kick at you.
Would be easy if it wasn't so fast. |
The addition of items that can be saved for in-level
use (such as the cake), and the need to look for upgrades offered by Gyro, give
this game a unique dimension. Sure, you could buy upgrades in TaleSpin, but you
had to follow a certain order of levels, you weren’t given such freedom of
exploration. In fact, you’re encouraged to grab all the upgrades first, then
play every level, in order to find all of the treasures, including the map
pieces. The increased difficulty is also welcome – although the game is still
fair, rewarding your exploration by letting you buy extra lives and continues
between levels, so that you don’t have to start over.
All in all, a very fun game. Join me in the next part
as I take a look at the final game in the collection: Chip’n Dale Rescue
Rangers 2!
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