Ducktales Remastered
First impressions
I´ve been playing a lot of well regarded 2D platformers recently (Mario 3, SMW, Megaman 2&3, Super Meat Boy, Shovel Knight...) and even if I found some flaws in each of them, it was clear on every case why they were regarded as great games. But then I reached the next item in my list: Duck Tales Remastered.
The pogo stick mechanic is good, but I´m not capable of finding anything that makes me want to play the game. In fact I´m feeling like I constantly want to drop it and that it is wasting my time and doesn´t properly value it. Apart from the problems not related to gameplay (constant cutscenes totally breaking the pace of the game), these have been the worst offenders to me: Bad hitboxes on hazards: This is specially obvious in the Amazon stage, where one stray pixel of the spikes is enough to hit you. Obstacles that force you to wait: The mummies in Transilvania or the spiders over spikes in the Amazon force you to wait until you can kill them/pass through. This is specially atrociuos as if you loose all lives you have to repeat the whole level from the beginning, so it became really frustrating. Which brings up the next point: Why design the obstacles based on timing if you´re going to make the player repeat them over and over again when he dies (and he will die)? This game would have benefitted a lot from a design more oriented towards speed running, with obstacles thought in a way that a player that has already beat them once could easily find another way to get over them quickly. I haven´t found any mechanic progression or interesting obstacles thus far. Everything seems to derive from the same basic mechanics but doesn´t do anything interesting with them, it doesn´t twist them or try to add something new. All obstacles are either based on waiting for the correct time to push forward, jump or attack without going any deeper or having any other consequences. It feels like the intro stage shows everything there is to the game and the rest is just repetition under a different coating. The diamonds are infuriating: They spawn after you go through their location, so you have to constantly take 2 steps forward and 1 backwards to collect them. I started caring about them before I finished the intro level.
The game is difficult, I´m dying a lot, but I have no problem enduring death and retrying until I get better. I´ve finished many games more difficult than this one, if they ever gave me reasons to keep on trying and I´m not finding any of those reason in Duck Tales.
I´ve only played 4 levels (intro, Amazon, Transilvania and a bit of The Moon) but I already feel like I´ve had my share of this game. What am I missing? Why is this game so well regarded? I really can´t think of any reasons why anyone would willingly choose to play this over any other good 2D platformer.
Playing on easy
OK, so I tried the game in Easy and wow it really is much better now. The only differences are that enemies now deal half damage and that you have unlimited lives, so you no longer need to replay the whole level when you loose all lives. This makes the bad hitboxes much less frustrating. Also, instant deaths are not so bad now. IMO it´s a bad idea to put a limit in lives in a game focused on exploration, before I was too afraid to loose one of my precious lives trying to go after secrets, it really changes the way you play the game. Specially bad idea if there are instant death obstacles.
I played the African and the Hymalayan levels and I actually found them fun. I specially liked the mix of patterns of the rabbits and goats in the snow level, along with the restriction of getting stuck in snow if you pogo on it. I replayed the Amazon level and I enjoyed it a lot more this time. Also, I liked a lot the boss there. On the bad side, the game seems too easy now, there´s no real danger of dying apart from instant-death obstacles, There are no real challenges that require skill, enemies feel more like a small nuance than a real danger, specially if you find some of the heart upgrades. An intermediate setting between easy and medium with infinite lives but less health (and better hitboxes) could´ve hit the sweet spot.
The levels are a bit repetitive and the challenges don´t seem to follow any kind of progression: in the Amazon level you can find a secret room almost at the start where you have to bounce on 4 of those green creatures that jump from the water. They didn´t come back until much later in the level and the challenges they were used in were nowhere near the complexity of that first challenge, it felt a bit weird. Also I missed one piece of the engine in the snow level and had to retrace a big part of the level, when with a small modification of the level layout I could have gotten back in seconds...not something I liked, the layout felt a bit lazy.
I set hard pogo on but nothing changed and the option appears disabled in the settings now, maybe it´s not available in easy difficulty?
I´m not able to make small bounces, the controls feel really unresponsive when trying to do it. Big flaw as this limits severly the movement palette. Some challenges doesn´t seem to take this into account. The pogo bounce also failed sometimes if landing on the border of a platform.
This game is nowhere near Mario, Meat Boy or Mega Man, but at least I´m enjoying it now. It shows some bad design decissions here and there though.
Wrapping up
So I finished the game, I liked the last level a lot! Specially the last bossfight and the run to the top of the volcano. I don´t know if the complaints about this last run only apply to the original, but in this version I had no problem doing it on my second try.
One thing I liked about this game were the bosfights: the lunar rat was a bit simple, but the rest, with special mention to the Africa and final bosses were very good.
Not much to add to my last post, I ended enjoying the game :)
PS: The credits were awesome!
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