Game Review - originally written by Spinner 8

The first in the painful series of Dragon Ball Z RPGs. I dunno, people seem to like them, and it seems to follow the DBZ storyline faithfully, but, like many anime games, it doesn’t really dwell on who the hell anyone is. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be thinking “who the hell is this Kami guy, and where did he come from?” constantly. But I’m sure if you love DBZ like most people seem to like DBZ, then you obviously won’t have a problem with this.

I’ve said elsewhere that DBZ RPGs like this one are incredibly random and bad and not fun and the stupid cards are just stupid. But since I was forced to play this game for more than five minutes, I checked up on some places so I could figure out what the hell those cards were all about (the RPGClassics shrine was amazingly helpful in this regard). And then I set to work playing. And you know what?

This game isn’t that bad.

The number at the top-left indicates the card’s Attack power. On the map screen it’s also how many spaces you can move (no more, no less). The symbol in the middle usually doesn’t mean much, but if it matches the character who’s using it, their attack is stronger. If it’s one of those funky X-looking symbols, they can use a special attack. And the symbol in the lower-right is the card’s Defense rating (in RedComet’s translation it’s a Roman numeral). Battles are essentially random, but if you have another character adjacent to yours, both will participate in the battle. Which is good, because you’ll get your ass kicked at first if Goku and Piccolo don’t stick together. Seriously, I thought these guys were supposed to be badasses. And one little Kankousen and Goku’s dead. Pfff.

One of the best licensed games from the NES library, without a shadow of a doubt, would have to be the original DuckTales game. It may be a very basic platformer that doesn’t do much but promote the show that it is based on, but it still remains pretty fun to this day, isn’t too hard so that anyone can jump in and have a good time with it, has plenty of replay value with being able to select any stage in whatever order you want, and has some of the best music that you could hear from an NES game. People look back on the game fondly to this day and absolutely love it, and in addition, people also love the remake of the game that was released over 20 years later. But, one thing that many probably don’t realize was that, there was actually a game in-between those two releases. Kind of a shame that nobody talks about it that much, but it was a late NES title, and the show that it was based on had already ended, which means it was essentially sent to die right out the gate. But either way, this forgotten game was the generically named DuckTales 2.

Like many, I myself didn’t really know about DuckTales 2, and by the time that I had finally discovered that it was a thing, I was well familiar with both the original game as well as its remake. I was curious as to why nobody brought up this particular game when people bring up the DuckTales game, so when I got The Disney Afternoon Collection, I decided to finally give it a shot. After playing it again, I would say that the game isn’t quite as good as the original game, but for a sequel, it is still pretty great. It may not do too much new when compared to the original game, and it still has some of the same problems as that original game, but it still ends up being a fun time all the way through.

The story is, what else, about Scrooge McDuck trying to get rich while facing off against Flintheart Glomgold, which was pretty much the same plot as the original, but it is DuckTales, so I can’t expect too much more from it, the graphics are about on the same level as the original game, but the sprite work for characters and enemies are given more detail this time around, making for an overall better looking game, the music is fantastic, of course, giving off the same whimsy and charm that the original soundtrack did, along with the sound effects also being golden, but none of the tracks really reach the heights as some of the previous game’s best, like The Moon track, the control is about the same as the original game, but there are some noticeable improvements this time around, such as the pogo jump being easier to pull off in this game, and the gameplay is very similar to the original as well, while adding several new additions to make it seem like not just a barebones sequel.

The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of Scrooge McDuck once more, take on a set of five different levels that take place around the world, defeat plenty of cartoony baddies by either bouncing on them with your pogo stick or hitting them with numerous objects scattered around the place, gather plenty of health items, upgrades to help you out, and all of the money that you could possibly hold in your pockets along your journey, and take on plenty of simple, yet fun cartoony bosses that will test you to see if you have what it takes to take all of the treasures for yourself. If you have played through the original DuckTales game, or even the remake of it, you pretty much know what you are getting into here, but to its credit, not only does it still manage to be fun to this day, but there are also those inclusions that make it more interesting and in depth then its predecessor.

First off, at the end of each level, you are given the option to purchase stuff from a shop, which not only sells typical stuff like extra lives and health items that you can hold along your journey, but also items that can increase your health and give you a continue whenever you die. Not only are plenty of these items pretty useful to have, but they also greatly benefit the whole game, as they actually give the money that you collect some actual purpose rather than just… you know, being there. May as well do something with those millions of dollars rather than just keeping it all collecting dust in a safe, y’know? In addition to this, there are also optional collectibles in the game in the form of pieces to a treasure map, and when all of them are found, it will give you access to a sixth hidden stage, which will also lead you to the true ending of the game. This is an inclusion that I REALLY love, and is a great alternative to getting a better ending in one of these games other then just getting a fuck ton of money for the heck of it.

But, if none of that is enough to sell you on this game, then what we have here is, all in all, a very similar adventure to the original. Nothing too major about the main gameplay has changed to where it can be seen as a significant step up from the previous game, and it goes about the same way as you would expect. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for big fans of the original game, but for those who are wanting something more out of these games, this sequel isn’t gonna give you that. Not to mention, two of my gripes from the previous game are still present in this sequel: the game is too short, and the game is too easy. Once again, that isn’t automatically a bad thing depending on who you ask, and there are some optional goodies there that you can go for to extend game-time, but for a sequel that was made 4 years after the original, it does kinda suck that they couldn’t have added just a little more meat onto these bones, maybe with a side of difficulty alongside it.

Overall, despite not changing up the gameplay too much, as well as still being too short and easy, DuckTales 2 is still what I would consider an underappreciated sequel to an NES classic, and a great game in general, one that will give fans of the original more of what they loved, and even give newcomers a fun little romp with this group of duck-billed heroes once again. I would definitely recommend it for those who loved the original game or its remake, as well as those who love NES platformers, because this game will definitely give you what you are looking for in both of those departments. Although, before I go, I gotta say… Launchpad constantly referring to you as “Uncle Scrooge” like one of his nephews is pretty freaking weird. I dunno if he is trying to hit on him, or he has other intentions, but either way, I am very uncomfortable right now.

Game #415

Man. I love fish, I love animals, I love taking pictures of both of these, and I loved Endless Ocean on the Wii. This game is not like the originals. I started this game with a higher opinion of this than I think a lot of people, it was fun, kind of clunky mechanically, but the core was strong enough to be a good time. The more I played though, the more baffling decisions I encountered. There’s so many axed modes and features from the Wii game that this feels like if you ported the idea to an iPhone game more than a third entry of the Endless Ocean series, which sucks. I got my money’s worth out of it, and overall it’s fine, the features cut are things I could overlook if the game was as good as the originals and it’s just not. Not to mention, I have encountered so many glitches that halt progression, and even gotten softlocked out of the ending from what I can tell because one of the items I need to complete the 99 tasks you have to do to pad the game out to hell and back just didn’t spawn in the already rare randomly generated formation, all of this just makes me wonder how this game was okayed in the state it’s in, missing any of the typical “shine” from a Nintendo published title, with things that scream a lack of QA testing.
Overall the lack of an aquarium mode the change to randomly generated maps from set maps, making exploration a lot more tedious to get what you want, and just lack of good QOL features… makes the game all in all very disappointing.