WayForward days continue with this remake of a NES classic. I have no nostalgia for the show or game personally, so as far as I’m concerned it’s a perfectly cromulent cartoony retro-style platformer with a fun central gimmick.
I was struck first by the graphics in this remake, with lovely smooth 2D characters in hand-drawn animated style… contrasted with the environments and backgrounds, which have a colourful but quite different slightly-low-poly 3D look. It’s an odd choice, but oddly evocative of retro sensibilities, and oddly charming.
As for the gameplay, it’s mainly very faithful to the original 8-bit game. Our hero Scrooge McDuck chooses from five stages which act like miniature Igavanias, finding treasure and such. His main method of attack and traversal is a pogo-style jump with his cane, which not only damages enemies but adds height to his jump and lets him bounce safely on some hazardous surfaces. It’s a fun and unique core mechanic but can be tricky to do consistently, unless you play on easy mode, which simplifies the pogo controls and gives you infinite lives: highly recommended, especially on mobile with its touchscreen controls.
This remake adds to the five levels with new intro and finale stages, plus augmenting the existing ones with new sequences and context. It also has a lot of voiced cutscenes, showing off the fact that the voice cast from the 1987 cartoon are reprising their roles. This gives it a shot of authenticity, which isn’t always a good thing if you find the nephews annoying. Personally I found it hard to relate to a protagonist who’s a greedy billionaire whose goal is to plunder historical and cultural artefacts and constantly insults all his friends while doing so…
To be fair, part of the added context in the remake is to change some boss encounters to being the result of misunderstandings, and have the treasures be willingly handed over to Scrooge. Certain cutscenes also have softer character moments, which I gather is part of the point of the Scrooge character. The late Alan Young certainly does a good job bringing the ornery Scottish duck to life, as do the WayForward animators. But still, he’s solidly part of the 1% and consistently grasping and stingy, and it’s hard not to be a little uncomfortable about that!
Ahem. Anyway, this game probably hits a lot harder if you have “the nostalgia” with its authentic presentation and many side characters popping up. I glazed over those parts myself, but had a nice time with the classic Capcom action and WayForward enhancements. Also: my playing this is just so timely, as it’s recently been removed from digital storefronts, so you can no longer get it legitimately. Sorry!