Quackshot



Quackshot: Starring Donald Duck is a platformer developed by Sega in 1991. It stars the titular Donald and his young nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie on an Indiana Jones style hunt for treasure.

Whilst in his Uncle Scrooge's library Donald stumbles on a treasure map belonging to King Garuzia, the ancient ruler of the Great Duck kingdom. Believing this will make him rich beyond his wildest dreams, he sets off with his nephews treasure hunting. Unknown to him however, Pete learns of his plans and set about following his every move in hopes of stealing his riches.

Aside from the game's enjoyable platforming, the player could take on each available level in whatever order they saw fit. However the end of each level lead to a "dungeon" entrance that could only be accessed with the right item or weapon. The player could call in his nephew's plane to whisk him off at this point and return to the entrance when he located the required items in other levels. Essentially, most levels could be beaten in any order but the "dungeons" and final levels had to beaten in a specific order to progress.

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This Game Provides Examples Of:

 * Abnormal Ammo: Your arsenal consists of a Plunger Gun, Explosive Bubblegum Bubbles, and a powerful Scattershot Popcorn. Enemies fire tomatoes, toxic gunk and even throw beehives at you.
 * Back Tracking: The checkpoint flags avoid this happening for the most part. You simply fly back to the end of a level to access a new section, when you gain the means to progress. But there are two clear examples of this. When you gain the red plunger off Goofy or the bubblegum ammo from Gyro, your forced to head all the way back through the level to a flag to get picked up in the plane. The sections aren't that long so it's a minor case.
 * Big Bad: Pete, who was actually literally known as "Big Bad Pete" at the time.
 * Bittersweet Ending: Subverted. Sure you defeated Pete and the final boss but for all your efforts it turns out
 * Big Boo's Haunt: Dracula's Castle is filled with ghosts as is the haunted Viking Ship.
 * Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: The hot chilli item sends Donald into a rage where he is temporarily invincible.
 * Bubblegloop Swamp: Transylvania has you make your way through an evil swamp to reach the castle.
 * Build Like an Egyptian: Egypt and its pyramid dungeon containing the "Staff of Ra".
 * The Cameo: Kaa appears as one of many snake mooks and Shere Khan as a boss fight in India. Goofy and Gyro Gearloose both provide the player with new weapons.
 * In a certain area in Duckburg, you can see a blimp, with Mickey's face on it, flying in the background.
 * Capital City: Duckburg.
 * Crouch and Prone: From a crouching position your able to dodge projectiles and perform a ground slide, which not only lets you slide under things but is faster than walking, or even sprinting.
 * Dracula: One of the games bosses.
 * Event Flag: Unusual literal form. When Donald reaches certain points in levels and meets characters, he is told that a certain event is occurring in another level, or he can now get a certain item in another level. When this happens, Donald usually marks the spot with a flag. The flag actually represents a checkpoint he can go back and forth between via an airplane, but it's also an Event Flag because once Donald puts that flag down, the event in the level has occurred.
 * Furry Confusion: One of the power-ups you can collect to heal youself is roast duck. Then there's the fact you need to grapple onto Pete's parrot henchmen to fly across distances. Apparently ducks are the only anthropomorphic birds around not blessed with flight.
 * Horny Vikings: All the vikings featured on the "Viking Ship" level, alive or undead.
 * I Have Your Nephews: Pete kidnaps and ties-up Huey, Dewey & Louie in order to exchange them for the diary. Donald immediately relents and trades them for the book.
 * Invincibility Power Up: Collect enough chili peppers and it maxes out the temper meter sending Donald into his trademark berserk mode, making him temporarily invincible and faster.
 * Jungle Japes
 * Locked Door / Plot Lock
 * Minecart Madness
 * Only Smart People May Pass: Several items require a bit of thought to get to. But not that much.
 * The Problem With Licensed Games: Averted. As with quite a few Disney platform games of the era, Quackshot was actually pretty good at the time and is still quite fun even these days.
 * Polar Bears and Penguins: Penguins in the North Pole.
 * Red Herring:.
 * Shout Out: Indiana Jones gets a lot of references in the game. It's clearly the major inspiration for the game.
 * The start screen (pictured above) is in the style of the Indiana Jones lettering.
 * Donald's outfit is similar, sans pants of course.
 * The Genesis/Mega Drive cover even had him surrounded by snakes.
 * A minecarting & Maharajah's palace level much like in Temple of Doom.
 * The sought after diary that reveals the treasures location.
 * Pete is dressed like the villain René Belloq from Raiders of the Lost Ark and like Belloq is constantly out to steal the hard earned treasures from the protaginist.
 * The final sequence before the last boss involves a scenario exactly like The Last Crusade's "Leap Of Faith".
 * The Final Boss is a crusade Knight who looks a lot like the one guarding the grail.
 * Slippy Slidey Ice World: The North Pole. Complete with Penguins.
 * Super Not Drowning Skills: Sure Donald can't fly but he's still a duck that can handle a very long time under water in Dracula's castle. Making what would have been a frustrating section enjoyable.
 * Temporary Platform: Certain enemies like floating blocks briefly become this when struck plungers. There's also the crumbling and burning away variants too.
 * Took a Level In Badass: Donald jumped a notch in this game. On the villain side of things Shere Khan of all creatures. Who actually breathes fire during his boss fight! Talk about conquering your fears and using them against your enemies.
 * Treasure Map: King Garuzia's map sets the game in motion.
 * Under the Sea: A booby trapped, spike ridden section of Dracula's castle makes up the obligatory underwater level. Dracula really didn't want people getting to him it seems.
 * X Meets Y: Donald Duck meets Dr. Jones
 * You All Look Familiar: All of Pete's dog henchmen look like him, cousins maybe?