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Outline

Duck Tales is a side-scrolling platform game for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was first released in the United Staes in 1989, making its way to Europe and Japan a year later. The game is considered to be one of the most well-loved NES games of all time, with its great music, colourful graphics and tight, non-linear gameplay, a trait which it shares with developer Capcom's similarly well-received Mega Man games.

Plot

As anyone familiar with the Disney television series of the same name will be able to tell you, Scrooge McDuck is one rich bird. Not one to shy away from public displays of outlandish opulence, he enjoys nothing more than swimming in huge great piles of jewellery and gold coins, diving in amongst his hoarded treasures with glee. One might imagine that Scrooge would be content to simply wile away the hours wallowing in his accumulated fortune, but this is one duck whose thirst for coinage simply will not be sated, and he spends his time during the game travelling to various exotic locations around the globe in an effort to become even wealthier. The various places that he goes to, which can be played in any order, include Transylvania, The Amazon, The Moon, African Mines and The Himalayas, each with their own distinct music, enemies and graphical presentation.

Gameplay

The player controls Scrooge McDuck as he traverses the five areas of the game on his search for more money. Scrooge cannot touch or jump on the enemies without losing health, and so he must rely on his trusty walking stick which he uses to pogo on top of enemies heads, and to collect treasure and items that he finds locked up in little floating treasure chests scattered around the world. This unique take on the standard "jump on fools' heads"  gameplay mechanic is one of the game's most distinctive features, and encouraged many players to forego the act of walking entirely, in favour of continually pogoing around the levels like madmen. Scrooge could also use his impressive pogoing ablities to get past nefarious spikes and other hazards, keeping his fragile webbed feet away from danger as his cane did all the work.

Music

Duck Tales is another one of the many NES games that is routinely lauded for its superior score, with its five levels all containing looped tracks that are ludicrously catchy and which persist in the minds of players even twenty years after they last played the game.