‘Disney Afternoon Collection’ is totally worth your time

Image: Capcom

There are six very excellent reasons to pick up the Disney Afternoon Collection immediately. Here they are:

DuckTales
DuckTales 2
Darkwing Duck
TaleSpin
Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers
Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers 2

Back in the early ’90s, Capcom released a string of good-to-excellent video games based on Disney characters. They were primarily NES titles, and they all sprung from cartoons that made up the popular after-school block of TV known as “The Disney Afternoon.”

This new Collection on Xbox One, PS4, and PC is great for a bunch of reasons: a new rewind feature that lets you perfect speedrun strats or just cheat your way to the end; Time Trials and Boss Rush modes that offer new ways to engage with each game; and an assortment of digitized relics that give you a peek behind the scenes.

There’s also the fact that, for 20-plus year old ports, everything runs great.

None of that matters, however, if the games themselves aren’t worth your time. I’m here to explain why they are.

DuckTales

Of all the games in this collection, DuckTales is probably my personal favorite and I’m guessing I’m not alone.

The side-scrolling adventure sends a treasure-seeking Scrooge McDuck off to an assortment of exotic locations most of which you can tackle in any order in his quest to become the world’s richest duck. Between the memorable bosses, hidden treasures, and multiple endings, there’s a lot more to this game than it first seems.

DuckTales 2

DuckTales 2 didn’t mess with its predecessor’s successful formula much, and that’s perfectly fine.

You still play as Scrooge McDuck and you’re still after all the treasure. Levels can be tackled in any order, though the sequel lets you revisit them at your leisure. This backtracking is especially cool thanks to another sequel innovation: cane upgrades.

Improving Scrooge’s cane a puzzle-solving, combat, and locomotion tool opens up access to new areas. And just like the previous game, there are multiple endings to chase.

Darkwing Duck

Disney’s crime-fighting vigilante is like a cross between Batman and Inspector Gadget. Looks and acts like a badass, but frequently falls ass-backwards into solving crimes. The NES game sends him after the nefarious crime lord Steelbeak and his six henchman, all of whom are terrorizing different parts of the city.

Darkwing Duck is simply a strong action-platforming game. You have to shoot up enemies with your gas gun while navigating tricky jumps and an assortment of environmental puzzles. It takes fewer risks than either DuckTales, but it’s an enjoyable and often underrated game.

TaleSpin

TaleSpin is the biggest oddity in this collection. It’s not a bad game, but it’s also the only one of the six that isn’t a side-scrolling puzzle-platformer.

Instead, the NES version of TaleSpin focuses on the strengths of its stars: Baloo and Kit Cloudkicker, a pair of freight-hauling bear pilots. You spend the bulk of the game flying around in Baloo’s plane, the Seaduck, and shooting up enemies.

Like DuckTales 2, TaleSpin let players soup up their ride with a variety of upgrades that can be purchased between levels, using money collected throughout the game.

Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers

Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers takes a page from DuckTales in letting players tackle levels in any order. The heroic rodents first set out to locate a missing kitten, but their focus eventually shifts to rescuing a kidnapped friend from who else? Fat Cat.

Fundamentally, the game is a side-scroller just like the others (save for TaleSpin). The big twist in Rescue Rangers is co-op play. Chip and Dale can play together, which completely shakes up the feel of the game. Definitely grab a friend to join you for this one.

Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers 2

Rescue Rangers 2 is another “more of the same” proposition. It ditches the open-ended level selection of the first game in favor of a linear sequence which better suits the new story. But the gameplay is fundamentally the same.

The big difference comes when you’re playing co-op: now, each of the rodents can pick up and throw their partner, just like they would the crates and other objects scattered around each level.

Rescue Rangers 2 is the weakest of this bunch. It’s not a bad game, but unlike the other sequel, DuckTales 2 it doesn’t go far enough to differentiate itself from its predecessor. That said, it still benefits from the same crafty level design and infectious chiptunes that characterized Capcom’s Disney games of the early ’90s.

MouseVirals - Everything Disney

Thursday 20 April 2017