Ducktales 2 - Better than the original

[Dracos]

Ducktales 1 was a pretty neat game, so it went without saying that I promptly hunted down Ducktales 2 to see how it would go.  Let's just say I wasn't disappointed.  Capcom again came through with the product, lending their excellent design skills while maintaining the vigor of the original and improving upon the overall feel.

   Ducktales 2 worked largely on the same premise as the first with some added tweaks all over the place to make it even nicer.  This time, on top of a set of treasures, the kicker of the adventure is this scrap of a treasure map that Uncle Scrooge discovers with his nephews to old rich McDuck's treasure.  Simple as the first, it gets you started with five spots on the map to go questing complete with little narratives by your pilot on the treasure there.

   Like the first, Scrooge is not precisely the most capable of folks.  In fact, his repertoire of moves remains completely unchanged with the mighty golf swing, pogo attack, and pull being the only things he can do.  On the upside?  The game includes upgrades for these abilities, letting them go further in what can be accomplished with them.  This is achieved by finding Uncle Scrooge's personal inventor friend in some of the levels and getting upgrade modules from him that'll allow Scrooge to move bigger objects and shatter harder stuff with his cane.  He's a tough old duck.

    What's more relevant is they polished up the game design something nice.  The timer?  Gone.  Limits on times you can go back to levels?  Gone.  That annoying guy who laughs at you for only making 6 million dollars?  Well, he wasn't there in the first place.  Anyhow, levels are tighter this time around with more focused design and more helpful friends.  The puzzle design is turned up a full notch to great effect, with often two or three layers behind secrets and a big hunt for map pieces running through the entire game.  Basically, it's a good mixture of complicated secret design combined with letting the game be accessible at all levels, complete with ducktales 'easy', 'medium', 'hard' difficulty levels to help.  Really a good show there in that and basically lets the level design shine out with both reasons to revisit levels and no restrictions on doing so.

   The game's music is about on the same tier and the graphics are pleasant enough for the few hours it can take.  It's another example of really tight game design, short, sweet and enjoyable.  Again, something I'd recommend everyone takes a look at.