Scrooge McDuck decided he didn’t have enough money after all.

Look at that shiny gold!

To Beat: Reach the ending
To Complete: Beat the game with the best ending
What I Did: Completed the game with all endings
Played: 3/12/18 – 3/15/18
Difficulty: 3/10
My Difficulty: 3/10
My Video: DuckTales 2 Longplay with Best Ending

It’s another milestone of my Take On The NES Library project, sort of. DuckTales 2 is not the first sequel on my list. That goes to Super Mario Bros. 2. However, DuckTales 2 is the first direct sequel, in the sense that it is basically the same game. Milestones are going to be harder to find the longer I go into the project, so I like pointing them out and celebrating the ones we have. DuckTales 2 doesn’t do a whole lot in changing the formula of the original game, but I think that’s okay. NES DuckTales is quite good, and more of the same shouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.

For more information on the background of this series, check out my DuckTales review.

DuckTales 2 was first released on the Famicom in April 1993. The NES release in North America followed in June 1993, and a PAL release followed later in the year. It was published by Capcom. Make Software is credited as the developer, although from what I can find, they may have only been responsible for the sound engine in the game. My belief is that Capcom and Make Software co-developed the game. That is pure speculation on my part just because of how similar this game is to the original DuckTales which was developed by Capcom. A Game Boy port followed in November 1993 in North America and December 1993 in Japan.

Travel the world in search of treasure again!

DuckTales 2 is a side-scrolling platformer where you control Scrooge McDuck. The story begins with Huey running to Scrooge with a torn piece of paper. They figure out that it is a portion of a treasure map left by the late Fergus McDuck. Naturally, they want to try and rebuild the map so they can locate the lost treasure of McDuck. Scrooge and company start an expedition to five different locations both to find the remaining portions of the map and to collect highly guarded treasures along the way.

The game controls the same as the first game. You walk around with the D-pad and you can duck by holding Down. The A button jumps. While jumping, if you hold Down and B you use your cane as a pogo stick. You bounce high off the ground, and this is how you defeat enemies and pass over spikes. If you walk into a wall or solid block for a little bit, you will see Scrooge stand in place for as long as you hold the direction button. If you press B in this state, he will swing his cane like a golf club and whack the object next to him. You can also jump with A in this state and then swing your cane to hit objects off the ground. You can press Start to pause.

A few features were added to DuckTales 2. Scrooge’s cane is used to hook certain objects. Perform the golf swing on these things to grab onto them with the cane instead of hitting them. You can then hold the opposite direction on the D-pad to pull on them. You can drag certain blocks on the ground, as well as pull switches and activate objects. Release the B button to let go of your hooked object. There are hooks above the ground that you can grab onto simply by jumping to them. Press A again while hooked to jump off or press Down to fall.

Scrooge’s cane is more versatile.

At the start of the game, you see a map of the game world. There are five levels and you can play them in any order you like. Simply use the D-pad to move a cursor to the different stages. The icon next to a stage will show Scrooge’s face if you have already completed the level once. Otherwise, it shows the treasure you can find guarded by the boss at the end of the stage. Launchpad will read some information about the level you selected. You can choose to play that stage or switch to a different one.

There are three equipment upgrades you can find. You can speak with characters by walking up to them. Normally they give you some advice about the level you are in. In certain levels, you can find and talk to Gyro and he will give you an adaptor upgrade for your cane. The hammer adaptor gives you a more powerful golf swing, the iron adaptor gives you a stronger pogo jump, and the power adaptor lets you pull heavier things. They are applied automatically when you get them and they are permanent. Now you can break or pull certain blocks that hide treasure or other paths you can explore.

Like in the original game, you can find different items in the stages. Sometimes enemies will drop jewels that add to your money total at the top of the screen. Small diamonds are worth $1000, large diamonds give you $10,000, and red diamonds yield $50,000. Items mostly come out of treasure boxes, both small and large, that you can open by bopping them with your cane, either by pogo jump or golf swing. Boxes may also hide ice cream cones that restore one point of health and cakes that refill your entire health meter. Extra lives in the shape of a small Scrooge also appear occasionally inside a treasure box. A couple large treasure boxes hide special treasures that are worth a million dollars each. Also, each stage has one large treasure box containing a piece of the treasure map. The difficulty level chosen on the title screen influences the items you’ll find. The harder difficulties have fewer health recovery items, replacing them with jewels.

Check every nook and cranny for the map pieces.

DuckTales 2 features an item shop. Like in the first game, each level ends in a boss fight and you earn a treasure worth a million dollars. Combine that with your earnings from the stage, and then you get a chance to spend it in the item shop. Two items in the shop are ones you can bring into the stages. The cake acts just like the cake item from the treasure chests, but this one you can use anytime. Pause the game, then use the D-pad to scroll through your items to select the cake. The other item is the safe, but unlike the cake you don’t have to use it through the menu. The safe lets you keep your money earned if you lose a life within a stage. Normally you lose your accrued cash when you die. You can buy extra lives and a continue globe that lets you continue if you run out of lives. The extra energy item adds a point to your maximum health. You begin with three points and can buy two of these items to get up to five health. You can also buy a piece of the treasure map, but this isn’t always for sale.

Here are the five stages in the game:

Niagara Falls: This is the first level in the list and not a bad one to start off with. This level has water in it that you can cross on a life raft. Knock the raft into the water and smack the wall while standing on the raft to push it to the other side. There are logs falling down the falls that you must cross, as well as a crumbling bridge.

Bermuda Triangle: This stage takes place on a ship near the Bermuda triangle. This level has barrels that you can smack with your cane that sometimes give diamonds. One neat object is a cannon that you can fire by hooking with your cane and pulling a cannonball loose. There are also conveyor belts that you can drive by pulling them with the cane.

Behold the rare spring blossom!

Mu: This level takes you below ground passing through the ruins of past civilization. There is an ancient city here that can give you something special if you can find it. There is a flower that you can tug on with your cane to springboard you across a large gap. It’s the only one in the game but it’s neat.

Egypt: This pyramid level is the most maze-like stage of all. It has several looping paths and hidden floors. There’s a lot of treasure for the taking if you are willing to look for it.

Scotland: This stage is a large castle, and there are plenty of knights and spikes to contend with. One enemy here is a floating hand carrying a lantern. It shows up a lot and sometimes you can bounce off it to reach treasures.

There’s a bit more to play past these five stages. Scrooge’s rival, Flintheart Glomgold, appears on the pirate ship. You have to go there and deal with him to beat the game. If you can find all seven pieces of the map, you get to play one additional level containing the lost treasure of McDuck before the final showdown.

Snakes and quicksand are a dangerous combination.

This was my first time playing DuckTales 2. It’s one of those late lifespan NES games that is both fun to play and very expensive to buy. A loose cart sells around $125 these days. It has been near that amount for several years now. The first DuckTales game was popular enough that DuckTales 2 seems to have sold decently well for a 1993 NES game. I say that because it is easier to find than many of the other expensive NES games. I have seen a few copies for sale in stores since I’ve been looking for games, and I can’t say that for other games this costly. It’s also the most expensive NES game I’ve owned more than one copy of. I bought my first one for $100 on eBay, and the other I found in an eBay lot of six games that I bought for $60 total.

I struggled a little bit more playing DuckTales 2 than I would have expected. I got Game Over a couple of times while I was l learning the levels and looking around for secrets. I suppose it’s easy to be careless when you aren’t focusing solely on surviving and beating levels. Once I committed to buying the health upgrades and whatever else I needed, I didn’t have any problems beating the game after that. I got the normal ending of the game with plenty of lives to spare.

Getting the best ending like I wanted took a little more effort. Through normal play and exploration, I found all of the map pieces but two. The one in Niagara Falls I thought was very well hidden. I found that one last though I found it on my own. The map piece in Egypt gave me real trouble. To get it, you have to solve a puzzle that opens a gate leading to the map segment. There’s a clue before the area that gives you the hint needed to solve it, but I just couldn’t figure it out. I tried everything I could think of and got nowhere. I had to look up the solution to that one online. I gave it my best try so I have no issues with looking up the answer, even if I prefer not to.

These lantern hands show up in tricky spots.

Just like in the first DuckTales game, there is a third, bad ending if you finish the game with no money remaining. There’s a clearer path to the ending in DuckTales 2 because you can spend extra money in the shop, and you spend in smaller amounts than in the first game. If you need some extra money to balance it out, or simply more chances to buy in the shop, you can leave a level through Launchpad. This lets you keep the money you have earned in the stage plus lets you shop again. You can do this as many times as you want. I was able to get the bad ending on my second try. This means I got all three endings in DuckTales 2.

I think DuckTales 2 is a little bit easier than the first game. I rated DuckTales a 4/10 and gave DuckTales 2 a 3/10. Most of that difference is due to the ability to purchase additional lives and continues. Another difference is that I believe you can earn unlimited money in DuckTales 2. In the original, you could only leave with Launchpad once per stage. Here you can revisit a level you are good at, take the money or any extra lives you can find, and leave with Launchpad as many times as you want. It’s grinding made easy. The difficulty of the levels themselves are roughly the same in my mind. It’s not a complete pushover of a game but it shouldn’t take experienced players very long to beat.

DuckTales 2 is a great NES game, but doesn’t offer as much as you might expect from a sequel. The graphics, music, controls, and gameplay are all top notch. It’s the kind of quality you would expect from a Capcom-published NES game from the 90s. The upgrades are nice and help add a bit of exploration to the game even though it can be a little tedious replaying stages. The levels all have a good amount of secrets to find, as well as branching paths and some neat obstacles to interact with. It’s a fine game, but it does feel just like the first DuckTales game. I appreciate games like DuckTales 2 that give you more of what you want. I know not everyone feels that way. Plus, it’s hard to recommend buying the game when it’s so expensive and is over so quickly. It’s worth a play any way you can manage it if you like DuckTales.

#78 – DuckTales 2 (Best Ending)

#78 – DuckTales 2

Jump, hop, and bounce your way all over the world, and make a fortune in the process!

DuckTales! A-woo-o-o-o-ooo!

To Beat: Reach the end credits
To Complete: Beat the game on Difficult setting with the best ending
My Goal: Complete the game
What I Did: Completed the game
Played: 1/10/16 – 1/13/16
Difficulty: 4/10
My Difficulty: 3/10

The world of Disney and its many franchise characters have held a place in the public consciousness for nearly 100 years. In the late 1980s and 1990s, Disney would have a prolonged period of success in both feature films and animated TV series which just so happens to coincide nicely with the NES era. It’s no surprise then that Disney and Nintendo would converge into something special, and perhaps there is no better proof of that than DuckTales on NES.

DuckTales, the animated TV series, ran from 1987-1990 and spanned 100 episodes over either three or four seasons depending on how you want to slice it. The series centers on Scrooge McDuck, the richest duck in the world, and his three grandnephews Huey, Dewey, and Louis in their various adventures which often revolve around either obtaining more treasure or protecting his wealth from the bad guys. The series was the first Disney cartoon produced solely for syndication and that approach paved the way for other Disney daytime cartoon series to follow suit in the following years.

Whoa! I didn’t know this could be so risqué!

DuckTales on NES, however, was not the first Disney property to appear on the console. That honor belongs to Mickey Mousecapade. Capcom published Mickey Mousecapade but the game was actually developed by Hudson. Starting with DuckTales, Capcom developed the rest of their Disney-published games themselves, and all of these titles are widely recognized as fun games for the console. Many members of the team that created Mega Man would go on to work on DuckTales.

DuckTales is a side-scrolling platformer game where you take on the role of Scrooge McDuck as he goes off on a worldwide (and briefly interstellar) treasure hunt. The main feature of the game is Scrooge’s cane which is primarily used as a pogo stick. Holding down and B while in the air deploys the pogo stick allowing Scrooge to bounce higher than a standard jump, defeat enemies, and traverse hazards that would damage Scrooge when touched directly. There are five levels to start with and each level can be chosen to play in almost any order. Each level is open ended and contains branching paths, hidden secrets, and a boss fight at the end. The object of the game is to complete the levels while amassing as much treasure as you can find.

Let’s look at each level in a bit more detail:

The Amazon: This is a pretty straightforward level. Cross through the jungle, optionally go underground, and then climb up through some ruins. The middle portion of the level can be bothersome as there are bees that fly in a sine wave that spawn where they are likely to knock you right into a pit. Toward the end of the level there is a requirement to pay money to spawn a platform needed to proceed, but if you are an intrepid adventurer you can skip it without needing to pay, as I did when I played!

A good place to practice dealing with the bees

Transylvania: This is the most maze-like level in the game. There are a few branching paths as well as mirrors that teleport you around the level. There is also a hint that points out an “illusion” wall, and all that means is there is a fake wall you can walk through to proceed forward. There is also a mine-cart section hidden away in this level where you just ride along and jump out right before you hurdle into a pit!

Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around.

African Mines: The first time you enter this level you get booted out pretty quickly because you need a key from Transylvania to proceed, so the game sends you back there to search out the key. Once you get that, you’ll find a level that is mostly linear. Hidden in this level is one of two hidden treasures that really boosts Scrooge’s money count, and there is also a huge shortcut that will allow you to skip most of the stage. Otherwise, there are a couple of tricky portions you will have to contend with.

It’s a bad time to forget swimwear.

Himalayas: This level starts out above ground under complete snow cover and if you try to pogo into the snow you will briefly get stuck. Pretty clever! The middle part of the level takes place underground with lots of spiders that zip down to hit you when you attempt to pass. This level has a lot of places where you could fall and die which makes this level a bit more difficult than the rest.

Oh Scrooge what have you gotten yourself into!

The Moon: This level starts off on the surface and there is an alien spaceship that you must explore to find a couple of items that more or less amount to keys needed to reach the ending stretch. Okay, one of the items is literally a key, and the other is a remote control. It’s more interesting than I’m making it out to be. I would be completely remiss if I didn’t mention the iconic music track that plays throughout the stage. This song always seems to come up in any discussion around the best NES music and I can’t argue with that as it’s one of my favorite game tunes as well. I particularly like this arrangement of the song!

Good music helps distract from all of the danger!

When all five stages are finished, the last stage opens up which unfortunately is yet another trip to Transylvania with a different boss at the end. This is the biggest letdown in the game but it’s really the only glaring negative thing about it either.

I have to admit that I have never really watched DuckTales much on TV and I also do not have much history with the game either. This is one of those games that I was aware of but never owned and I didn’t bother going out of my way to get it. When I really started collecting NES again for good, DuckTales may have been the most significant omission in my collection at that time considering the quality and recognition of the game as well as the relatively cheap price. I ended up buying my copy at my local game store for $10 which was a price I couldn’t pass up. The game would later come up as part of the Nintendo Age weekly contest that I participate in and that’s when I really spent some time getting acquainted with the game.

Even though I haven’t played that much of DuckTales compared to the other games I’ve played so far, I do have a personal story about it. Back in 2009, my best friend lived a few hours away and I would go up with some friends to spend the weekend at his duplex every now and then. One of the activities we came up with was racing random NES games on our laptops to see who could beat the game the fastest. We did this maybe three or four times and one of the games we did was DuckTales. From what I remember I won every race we did except for DuckTales. I chalk that up to my inexperience with the game relative to my friends. I think now I could perform way better!

So many spikes!

At this point DuckTales is a pretty straightforward game for me, even on the Difficult setting. The only difference I see between difficulties are the types of item drops you get from the chests. The endings are not dependent on the difficulty settings anyway. The endings are determined by the amount of money you have at the end of the game and you need $10 million to achieve the best ending. I took my time and explored everything I could remember but I only ended up with $9.5 million. There is a bit of a trick to getting more money that I ignored. In most levels you can find Launchpad and if you talk to him you have the option of leaving the level to choose a different stage. If you do that, you get to keep all the treasure you found and the level resets completely so that next time you can collect all of the money again. Doing this at every opportunity makes it easy to reach the $10 million mark.

So, back to the drawing board. My second attempt went much smoother but it ultimately ended in disaster. I fell victim to an undocumented feature. Huh? It’s not listed in the manual but there is a way to refill your health in case it is running low. When the game is paused, pressing Select refills your health but it costs $3 million. I accidentally pressed Select when trying to unpause the game and I spent that precious money. I was on The Moon which was the 5th level I was playing and I had no opportunity to grind out enough money after that to eclipse the $10 million mark. Another attempt gone to waste!

I didn’t completely run out of money like this but you get the idea.

My third attempt was more or less the ideal run. There are some other ways to squeeze even more money out of a run, but I ended up with more than enough money to get the best ending. I was feeling pretty good so I decided just for fun to make one attempt at getting the bad ending. Yes, DuckTales has a bad ending and it is quite difficult to pull off. You need to finish the game with no money at all. This seems impossible since beating each boss gives you an unskippable treasure that adds $1 million to your score. However, with some creative money collecting and spending all of it on health refills, the game can be finished with Scrooge completely broke. Now the typical way to do it is to not grab any money at all except for the boss treasures and one of the two large hidden treasures. That leaves Scrooge with $6 million that can be spent on two health refills. The downside is that each level needs to be played perfectly and each level must end with less than 10 seconds remaining on the clock because every 10 seconds turns into $1000 at the end of the stage. With that method there is perfect playing combined with a lot of waiting, so I chose a different strategy. I played the game normally and had my money set up to be close to $6 million right before the boss of the last regular stage. From there I would time the treasure grab after the boss is defeated so that I would end with the exact amount I need. I had it all set up and it would have worked out, except that I died at The Moon boss on my last life. I guess I should have paid more attention to grabbing extra lives along the way!

DuckTales was remade in 2013 by Wayforward as DuckTales Remastered. Now I have no experience with the remake at all, but it came out on a bunch of platforms and I’m sure I will spend some time with eventually. I bring it up because it has an interesting tie back to the NES. Capcom sent out some promotional material for the release of DuckTales Remastered consisting of a lunchbox with promotional paperwork inside along with a gold DuckTales NES cartridge. It’s not just some kind of showpiece but rather an actual working copy of the game. There were only 150 made so they are hard to come by and expensive, and it makes for some interesting discussion among NES collectors whether or not this game is an official release.

Simply beautiful

DuckTales on NES is really a charming, fun game that looks to be relevant to the source material. It was a great cartoon series and an equally great game. It is also coming back to relevancy. Not only did it receive a recent remake, but also there is a new DuckTales animated series in production slated for a debut sometime in 2017. I suppose the saying is true that everyday they’re out there making DuckTales!

With DuckTales completed, I have now finished the first ten games of Take On The NES Library! Hooray! Now the real fun will begin as the project shifts from games I specifically chose to games that are chosen at random. If you want to know more about how I designed my master list, check out my Methodology page that explains the overall selection in far too great of detail. My list has been set for many months but by now I have mostly forgotten where certain games reside in the list. I’m excited to start jumping into the unknown. The blog posts may take a different tone for games I haven’t played. This is always a work in progress and I hope you’ll stick around to see where we go from here!

DuckTales – Best Ending

#10 – DuckTales