DuckTales (video game)



"Wait Uncle Scrooge, you need a suit out there! How are you alive? You need heat, also air. That's gotta be one expensive cane You are up on the moon, looking for treasure, you've gone insane."

- Brental Floss, "Ducktales WITH LYRICS"

One of the most frequently cited followers to No Problem With Licensed Games and one of the most widely-beloved platformers on the NES, DuckTales was released in 1989 and developed by Capcom, the same team responsible for the Mega Man franchise, as another product of their licensing deal with Disney. As such, it's no coincidence that DuckTales shares many of the defining features of the Mega Man games: Unique gameplay mechanics, nonlinear level selection and incredibly catchy music.

The story is barely even there: Scrooge wants to gather even more treasure to further solidify his status as the richest duck in the world, while also seeking out the Five Lost Treasures scattered all over the world. Scrooge's adventures lead him from the Amazon rainforest and a Transylvanian castle, to the Himalayan mountains and all the way to the Moon.

A sequel, DuckTales 2, followed four years later in 1993, featuring Scrooge on another treasure hunt, this time to find the pieces to a map leading to an even bigger treasure. For all intents and purposes, the game made many significant improvements to the previous game's formula (such as upgrade skills hidden in certain levels, and plenty of clever optional puzzles), but was not as popular as its predecessor due to its late release, being widely overshadowed by 16-bit games on the Super NES and Sega Genesis. The two games were also ported to the Game Boy.


 * Bottomless Pits: Often found.
 * Cane Fu: Mostly you attack others by jumping with it and it also doubles as a pogo stick. Sometimes, it can be used to hit and pull objects.
 * Collision Damage
 * Death Throws
 * Duck-Eating Plant: They're located in the Amazon in the first game and Niagara in the second game.
 * Everything Fades
 * Everything Trying to Kill You: Giant crabs, bees, monkeys animated armor, dragonflies, birds and the bees etc.
 * Fake Platform: A few traps in the first game. The second game has them in Egypt levels.
 * Floating Platforms
 * Glowing Eyes of Doom: Amazon level boss in the first game. Hopping statues in the Egypt level of the second game.
 * Goomba Springboard: Scrooge's pogo attack lets him bounce off of enemies, though he doesn't bounce any higher than if he had bounced off of a platform.
 * Haunted Castle: Transylvania in the first game, Scotland in the second game.
 * Heart Container: Two per game. In the first game, you'll find them within stages. In the second game, you'll have to buy them.
 * Hyperactive Metabolism: Ice creams and cakes heal instantly. Strangely, cakes are missing in the levels of the second game and can only be bought at hefty price (at least for a cake).
 * Inexplicable Treasure Chests: They're everywhere and no one has opened them for some strange reason. Often they are even hanging in the air.
 * Malevolent Architecture
 * Money Spider: Enemies will often drop diamonds or ice creams when defeated.
 * Multiple Endings: Both games change their respective endings depending on how much money the player collected and whether or not they found the secret treasures. The first game in particular has unique endings depending on whether the player finished with over $10,000,000, no money at all, or anywhere in between.
 * 1-Up: One of the items you can find.
 * Rewarding Vandalism: You don't open treasure chests, you destroy them.
 * Sidetrack Bonus: Secret treasures can be found that way. Alcoves are also prone to contain treasure.
 * Spikes of Doom: They often take form of natural hazard. Your pogo-cane jump provides protection against them.
 * The Spiny: Those aforementioned plants.
 * Super Drowning Skills: Being an anthropomorphic duck won't save you.
 * Temporary Platform
 * Treasure Is Bigger in Fiction: Just look at all those diamonds.
 * Yellow Lightning, Blue Lightning: Yellow in these games.

The first NES game provides examples of:

 * Bedsheet Ghost: In Transylvania.
 * Big Boo's Haunt: Transylvania.
 * Everything's Worse with Bees: In the Amazon, there are large bees...or wasps.
 * Frictionless Ice: In the Himalayas. It even speeds you up when walking on it.
 * Giant Spider: In the Himalayas and Amazon.
 * Ground Pound: The Amazon level boss does this.
 * Indy Escape: A few sequences will have you outrun or outbounce a giant boulder.
 * Invincibility Power-Up: The magic coin.
 * Jungle Japes: The Amazon.
 * Minecart Madness: Minecarts are found in the African Mines.
 * Rodents of Unusual Size: Moon boss.
 * Rolling Attack: African Mines boss.
 * Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Himalayas has this.
 * Space Zone: The Moon
 * Stalactite Spite: Icicles in the Himalayas.
 * Timed Mission: Although usually with plenty of time when not exploring.

The second NES game provides examples of:

 * Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The bonus level, the Under Ground, takes place in the sewers.
 * All That Glitters: In the end, all your treasures sink to the bottom of the sea and Scrooge says that it's good to still have friends. However, the treasure was saved in time.
 * Animated Armor: One of the enemies in Scotland.
 * Attack Its Weak Point: Glowing part of the Mu boss.
 * Build Like an Egyptian: Egypt.
 * Commonplace Rare: Cakes can be bought with a hefty price and are much more expensive than safes (which are also slightly more expensive than ones in real life).
 * Crate Expectations: Niagara Falls. Justified in Bermuda since it takes place on a cargo ship.
 * Gang Plank Galleon: Bermuda.
 * Gotta Catch Them All: Map pieces.
 * Helping Hands: In Scotland, holding lanterns, though unless you're using them as Goomba Springboards, they're anything but helpful.
 * Mineral MacGuffin: The secret treasure. Strangely, it's worth the same amount as the other end of the level and secret treasures.
 * Quicksand Sucks: In Egypt.
 * Tempting Fate: "We'll never get by the mast. Look at it!"...and lightning strike destroys the block.
 * Underwater Ruins: Mu. You can raise the whole place though.