DuckTales (NES)

DuckTales is an NES game based on the classic late 80s Disney cartoon. Over the years, it's become rather well-remembered and praised by game critics and fans of the show. WOO-OO!

A remake was released in 2013 that, among adding several new elements, reunited the remaining voice talent from the show.

Sub-Pages#

Prototype Info Prerelease Info Notes Bugs

Unused Graphics#

NES Controller#

The graphics and 2×2 metatiles are all that remain of this NES controller, found amongst the ending cutscene data in the US and European version. The graphics were overwritten in the Japanese version. The B and A buttons use a separate palette, though the actual color values have not been found.

Bomb#

It's... a bomb. Its original purpose is unknown, as it has no associated sprite data, though a similar object did appear in Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (which could be picked up and thrown at enemies and dim-witted partners). Bombs would later appear in DuckTales Remastered as part of a new encounter with Flintheart Glomgold in the Himalayas.

Scrooge's Wagging Tail#

Scrooge's tail was supposed to wag while ducking, as seen in the February 5th prototype. This was removed in the final game for some reason, though the graphics remain. His tail does wag while ducking in Remastered.

"Secret" Bad Ending#

Watch on YouTubeThere is an ending that can only be seen by completing the game with $0, but it is incredibly difficult to get without cheating:

1. Arrive at Dracula Duck's chamber with a total money amount divisible by exactly 3,000,000.
2. Take damage.
3. Press Select to restore your HP (this costs $3,000,000).
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until your money is completely drained.
5. Defeat Dracula Duck and recover the treasures.

If you did it right, you will see an ending announcing that Scrooge has lost his fortune, which even features a unique animation not seen anywhere else. Considering how difficult it is to pull this off, this method of accessing it seems more of an unintended consequence of the cheat. It would seem that Capcom had originally planned some other way for Scrooge to lose all his money, or just added this as a sort of "catch-all" in case it happened.⁷

Unused Text#

The following text is located at 0x13C26 in the ROM:

HERE'S A
GIFT FOR YOU
OH KING OF THE
TERRA FERMIES.

Perhaps the King of the Terra Fermies originally occupied Louie's spot at the entrance to the African Mines, and you had to bring him a gift (rather than a key) to pass? Nevertheless, the line was blanked out in the Japanese version.

Debug Leftovers#

Holding Up on the second controller while falling into a non-lethal pit warps Scrooge to the top of the screen, a leftover debugging feature present all the way back in the February 5th prototype (alongside many other debugging features that were removed in the final game).

Regional Differences#

Title Screen#

America	Europe	Japan

The Japanese version fittingly uses the show's original Japanese title, Wanpaku Duck Yume Bouken. (Strangely enough, this is the only DuckTales game to make this change, with the sequel and even the Game Boy port of this game retaining the DuckTales name.) The logo now lacks the winking Scrooge head, and recolors all of the options to white. The American version strangely doesn't list the release year in the copyright text, something that every other release (including the May prototype) does.

Gameplay#

The European version increases Scrooge's movement speed in an attempt to compensate for the lower framerate of 50 Hz televisions. As a side effect of this change, Scrooge can just barely jump over the large gap in the second part of the Amazon without assistance from Launchpad.

Ending#

US/Europe	Japan/Prototype

The Japanese version uses the ending screen from the prototype, which is the only bit of Engrish text (aside from the title screen and status bar) in the game.

References#