Woohoo!
That’s the catch cry of DuckTales and the very sound that escaped my mouth when DuckTales Remastered was announced at PAX East earlier this year. If you’ve never listened to our podcast or read my “Life as a Gamer” features you’d be unaware of how deep my love for the original game goes.
It’s one of those special, nostalgic childhood games that holds so many great memories that even when replaying today, it still holds up. In “Life as a Gamer Part 2,” I wrote, “I recently bought a copy off eBay and played it again. All of those old feelings flooded back, and suddenly — if only for a few minutes — I was once again five years old, cross-legged in front of the TV trying to figure out just how something so wondrous could exist.”
So you can see that the announcement of DuckTales Remastered was a very big deal for me. I was excited and at the same time, nervous, anxious and filled with trepidation. How could a remake ever do the original justice? What if they ruined it? These questions and more swirled around my head, even after seeing the trailers. Sure it looked great, the characters had voices and it seemed like the same old game with a fresh coat of paint. But, would it hold a candle to the original?
From my hands on at E3, I’m ecstatic to report that the answer looks to be a resounding “YES!”
E3 2013 was my first time in attendance and the experience is almost indescribable. It’s an overwhelming assault on the senses. Your eyes are drawn in all directions by brightly lit booths, massive screens and even zombies. Your ears pull you in even further directions as the call of a legion of speaker boxes and gameplay units is like the song of the Siren. I avoided all temptation though, because I was on a mission. I had a date with destiny and a duck named Scrooge.
Weaving in between the hundreds, nay thousands of attendees early on the first morning I found the Capcom booth and found a row of unoccupied DuckTales Remastered demo units. It felt like fate. The planets had aligned. The remake of one of my all time favourite childhood games — one of the reasons I became interested in gaming — was to be the very first game I played at my very first E3. Grasping the controller and pressing the Start button was a very special moment. I’m not ashamed to admit that there were tears in my eyes. It was joyous and once again I felt like I was a five year old. The sights and sounds of E3 faded away to nothingness, all there was, was me and DuckTales.
Absolutely everything about DuckTales Remastered is faithful to the original. I was able to play through both the Amazon and Transylvania level at E3 and they looked, felt and most of all played flawlessly. Scrooge can still pogo with the best of them, his golf swing hasn’t lost any of it’s power and the enemies are just like I remembered. Of course everything is a lot smoother and shinier.
In motion the game is pure eye candy. It literally looks like an episode of the DuckTales cartoon, except you’re in control. There was no period of adjustment for me. I simply picked up the controller and was playing. It’s a testament to the team at WayForward that the game can feel so fresh, yet so familiar. There are differences, but they serve to make the game even more fun or simply more logical. Speaking with producer Rey Jimenez from Capcom and game director Austin Ivansmith from WayForward shed some light on what’s gone into DuckTales Remastered to make it such a faithful adaptation.
“Well, some of the more direct challenges early on are how you make a game that is a bit bigger and bit longer. A bit more appropriate for modern day gamers.” said Ivansmith, “In terms of the levels, we used the blueprints off the Internet as our basis and just filled in little sections and would say ‘This section could be a little longer and let’s do more of the same thing, that’s kind of fun.'” Ivansmith made it very clear that the development team worked really hard to ensure the remake stayed true to the orginal, “It’s incredibly faithful, there are only two are three things that I could point out that I could say ‘No that is different, that is different, that is different’ and it’s very intentional.”
One important thing I noted while playing was that DuckTales Remastered is hard. Really hard. That’s a good thing. One of the things I’ve always remembered about the original — aside from the pogo and the golf whack — is the difficulty. It’s so hard in fact that I couldn’t even complete the Amazon level on Medium difficulty.
Ivansmith told me that difficulty was a focus during usability testing. “When the adults played it they played on either medium or hard. A lot of them were dying on the levels and getting kicked back to the hub world. They’d go and play a different level and we were like ‘Oh man. I hope it’s OK. I hope they’re not upset that they’re dying.’ Then we asked them afterwards what they thought and would they play on an easier level and they’d say ‘Oh no. That was good. I died, it was my fault I need to go back and do it again.'” Jimenez added, “It’s actually good to hear…I’ve been reading a couple of reports from E3 with folks saying ‘I got to play it and it was just as hard I remember.'”
Aside from the way it plays — flawlessly as I said earlier — the most important aspect of DuckTales Remastered is how it sounds. The sound of the pogo stick is potentially the most important sound effect in the entire game, something which Ivansmith was acutely aware. “With the sound effects, especially for the pogo and the climbing we have to use the original sound. I remember we first got the game together and we had a place holder sound in there that was just some other spring and it was awful.” For the game’s soundtrack, WayForward’s in house composer Jake Kaufman — who’s composed music for dozens of video games — has created something really unique.
I noted that the soundtrack sounded 8-bit and both Jimenez and Ivansmith were quick to point out that it definitely was not. “It’s not 8-bit, it’s a completely new arrangement” Ivansmith said, “That’s the beauty of Jake Kaufman…He has a way of doing the tones, like in Transylvania there’s a lot of guitars and he knows how to tune those just right”. Jimenez added “He’s able to arrange modern instruments in a way that sound like if you hear you think ‘Oh this is an 8-bit soundtrack.’ No it’s not, but it sounds like an 8-bit soundtrack.”
DuckTales Remastered was very close to the highlight of my first E3. The feeling of nostalgia while playing was simply unmatched and although I was only able to experience two levels I went back time and time again. DuckTales Remastered is very pretty, sounds perfect and plays amazingly. It’s mind blowing that such a simple game — jump, pogo and golf whack — can still be so much fun. In this day and age of endless shooters, needlessly complex games and streams of violence it’s a delight to be able to play a platformer that’s both charming and fun. DuckTales Remastered has something for everybody, whether you have kids or are a big kid yourself. I for one can’t wait until it’s released, because when it does I’ll be more than happy to let my 5 year old self come out to play again.
Look out for our full interview with Rey Jimenez and Austin Ivansmith, coming soon.
DuckTales Remastered will be available for PC on 13 August, PS3 on 14 August, Wii U on 15 August and Xbox 360 on 11 September 2013.
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