This time it's QuackShot Starring Donald Duck, a little gem of a game that was released for the Sega Genesis in 1991. It was developed and published by Sega, which at the time was in the midst of a run that saw the company produce a string of high-quality Disney-licensed games for both its 8- and 16-bit consoles (the Master System and the Genesis). Among them was the criminally overlooked QuackShot, a delightfully entertaining action-adventure game that I was lucky enough to discover in the early part of the decade. I've been enjoying it ever since then.
I was introduced to QuackShot in 2011 by Youtuber The Great Clement, who Let's Played the game over the course of four videos. In the weeks and months thereafter, much of what I'd seen in QuackShot continued to resonate with me, and I began to eagerly look forward to a day when I could gain access to it--when I could get myself a copy of the game and explore it further in a more-personal setting. And since I wanted to do so legitimately, I held out hope that it would soon see a digital re-release on any of the current legacy-games services.
As time when on, though, there was no movement on that front, nor was there even the faintest hint that such a re-release could realistically occur. So once it became obvious to me that it just wasn't going to happen, I decided to give in and take the emulation route. And that's how I was able to gain convenient access to QuackShot, a game for which I could no longer wait.
I've since become intimately familiar with QuackShot. It's been a part of my life for a couple of years now, and I've been playing it pretty regularly. And all that time, I've been itching to talk about it.
Well, dear reader, the moment has finally come. Here and now, in April of 2020, it's time for me to tell you all about Sega and Disney's QuackShot. It's time for me to lovingly appraise it and thus explain to you why I'm so enamored with it.
So let's do it! Let's get a-quackin'!
QuackShot, you'll soon notice, takes heavy inspiration from the Indiana Jones series of films. Such becomes clear as you watch its intro, which begins to play just as soon as the Sega logo fades from view and robs the screen of its only source of illumination. From the resultant darkness emerges a spark of flame whose ignition serves to light up a torch and consequently the space in which our opening scene takes place (it's a subtle-but-clever transition). The torch's bearer is the incomparable Donald Duck, who is dressed up in explorer gear (fedora, leather jacket and backpack). As guided by the scene's mysterious-sounding, concern-inducing musical accompaniment, he cautiously traipses his way forward through a shadowy underground cavern. All the while, a cast list displays in the screen's bottom portion, naming all of the game's most notable characters.
Donald reacts with excitement when his eyes catch sight of treasure--a pile of gold coins, jewels and other artifacts. He joyfully charges toward it. Though, it turns out to be bait--part of a trap. As soon as Donald gets close to it, he falls into an unseen pit. This ends the scene and sets the tone for the upcoming adventure. We then cut to the title screen, where we see a map of the world with the game's logo superimposed over it. Donald runs in from the left and angrily fires a plunger at the "S" and then stands there looking annoyed--this while his nephews (Huey, Dewey and Louie) fly in from the right in a biplane whose attached banner bears the game's subtitle: "Starring Donald Duck."
So, as we're quick to discover, QuackShot has great presentation to it. It wastes no time in exhibiting for you its strong visuals, lively animation, and spirited music, all of which work in harmony to create a memorable opening scene. Together they make an excellent first impression and deliver a message that something special is waiting for you beyond that title screen.
That's exactly how I felt the first time I viewed these scenes. Hell--that's pretty much how I've felt about all of the Sega-developed Disney games that I've played. But so far, though, QuackShot has managed to impress me the most. I just love how this game looks and sounds.
So once we access the main menu and start our game, a second intro plays. This one provides us the details of the game's storyline, which is communicated to us via still images and accompanying text.
"So what, exactly, is prompting this adventure, my man?" you ask, humoring me with a sense of pity.
Well, my enthusiastic friend, here's what the scene tells us: One day, Donald comes across an old book in Uncle Scrooge's study. Its title is "King Garuzia's Great Duck Treasure." According to its text, Garuzia was once the leader of a great duck kingdom. Just before he died, Donald learns, Garuzia hid his most prized possession in a secret location.
As Donald flips through the book, he finds a map tucked into its pages; the map, he notices, displays clues as to the treasure's possible location. "Wow!" he exclaims upon examining it. "If I could find a treasure like this, I'd be richer than Uncle Scrooge!"
What he didn't know was that he was being surveiled the whole time. As he was reading through the book, one of Pete's goons was spying on him and heard everything. Oblivious to this fact, Donald takes hold of the map and heads home. The moment he leaves, Pete's gang begins to chase after him. Donald, still oblivious to their presence, begins to joyously sprint toward his destination and while doing so jumps over an open manhole; the gang members, however, fail to notice the open manhole and thus fall into it, the serendipity of which temporarily saves Donald's bacon and buys him some time.
When Donald arrives home, he sets off on the expedition. He takes Huey, Dewey and Louie with him. But just before he can take off, Daisy, his girlfriend, appears. Visibly angry, she asks about where he's going. "You were supposed to be at my house for dinner an hour ago!" she yells in reaction to having been stood up.
Donald replies that something very important has come up--that specifically he's going on a journey to obtain for her a special item, and he wants it to be a surprise. Feeling that his response is adequate, he flies off before she can properly respond. Though, she's clearly not satisfied with his answer; in fact, she's quite furious about the entire matter.
But for Donald, a much larger problem is brewing: Moments after he takes off, Pete's gang hits the sky in their own biplane and begins to tail him.
Welcome to QuackShot Starring Donald Duck!
We begin our adventure on the game's map screen. From here, we can choose our starting point, Mega Man-style. Available to us are three destinations: Duckburg, Mexico and Transylvania. Our choices are limited, yes, but only for now, in the early going; as the adventure unfolds, and as we complete certain objectives, more locations will open up.
QuackShot is an action-adventure game, yes, but it's not bound by genre's standard formulas; rather, it goes its own way and hits you with something new--with a type of structuring that I can only describe as "wonderfully unique." Here's how it works: The game's world is comprised of action stages, though it doesn't feature stage-to-stage progression, no; rather, each stage is actually an explorable "area" to which you return again and again and complete one section at a time.
Each selectable stage has a checkpoint into which Donald will automatically plant a flag. If at that moment you're unable to advance any further into the stage, you can make your exit by moving to within proximity of the checkpoint and calling your nephews, who will swoop down in the biplane, pick you up, and take you back to the map screen, from which you can then choose to travel to an alternate location; later on, after you've obtained a weapon or an item that you feel might be helpful in the stage in question, you can return to the stage's checkpoint, rather than to its starting point, and attempt to progress from there. Normally the supporting character encountered near the checkpoint will hint as to which item is needed, so you probably won't have to expend much mental energy in trying to deduce what it is.
So basically QuackShot's structure is similar to NES Strider's, except it's done very well.
Now let's talk about the stages, themselves. I'm going to be listing them in the order in which I tackle them, which happens to be the optimal order. This should keep the piece more focused (though, it's still likely to be extremely lengthy, since there's a lot to cover). Along the way, I'll explain how the game's controls and mechanics work.
First we want to head over to Duckburg, the ducks' hometown. This is the ideal place to test out the controls--to become acclimated to them--and learn about the game's basic mechanics. What we find is that QuackShot features fairly traditional platformer controls: You move Donald left and right with the d-pad and have him crouch by pushing down; we're happy to see that he maneuvers about smoothly and responsively.
You jump by pressing C; Donald's jumps carry him five blocks in length, and they reach a height of four-blocks-high; they can be fully modulated during their duration.
By pressing B, we can fire off a shot of our currently equipped weapon, and we can do so while standing or crouching. While standing, we can also fire it directly upward.
Donald has two weapons at the start: The first is his default weapon--the Yellow plunger, which stuns enemies if it makes contact with their vulnerable points; they remain in a stunned state for about five seconds. We'll acquire upgraded versions of this weapon during our journey. Our second weapon is the Popcorn Shooter, which requires corn ammo; it fires out five pieces of popcorn in a spread shot; popcorn shots, in contrast on plunger shots, completely eliminate enemies and thus knock them off the screen. Using popcorn to blast them off the screen is an ideal way to deal with minor enemies, though we might want to use it sparingly, since ammo tends to be limited and each shot consumes five whole bits of ammo; it's best, I find, to save our ammo for much-larger threats.
We hold the A button to dash--to get a speed boost that sees Donald's move at about one-and-a-half-times his normal pace. When Donald is dashing, his jumps gain more distance, the increased momentum catching him one extra block's worth of air.
And if we simultaneously push down on the d-pad and press the C button, Donald will execute a Mega Man-style face-first slide-dash that carries him eight blocks over. We can use this slide-dash to pass under lower-hanging ceilings and travel through narrow passages.
Otherwise, we can climb ladders by pressing up on the d-pad, though we can only do so from a standing position.
You can change the button-configuration in the pre-game options menu. I suggest that you do so and map jumping to B and shooting to A; this makes it much easier to simultaneously access the jump and dash buttons.
Our HUD stretches across the screen's bottom portion. Contained within it are four separate slots--four separate displays, which I'll list from left to right. There's "Power," which represents our health. We're provided eight units of health (in the form of apples) in total, though at the start only five units are filled; we can replenish our health by obtaining food items.
Second is our five-unit "Temper" meter, which manages Donald's special Quack Attack ability. When he picks up a pepper, one temper unit, as represented by a perturbed-looking Donald face, will light up and thus transform into a red-hued pissed-looking Donald face; when all five units are filled, Donald will automatically enter into Quack Attack mode, in which he angrily charges forward at great speed, his torso pointed forward and his arms flailing wildly. During this eight-second period, he's invincible and will eliminate any enemy with which he makes contact. He automatically climbs up walls when he smashes into them, I should note, though this aspect of Quack Attack mode almost never figures into the gameplay. (Fans of the Master System's Donald Duck: Deep Duck Trouble will be instantly familiar with the Quack Attack mechanic, since it was borrowed from that game.)
Third is our life-counter (labeled as "Donald"), which has a nine-life limit. We start the game with three lives. (Continues are unlimited, so you don't have to stress over your number of lives.)
Fourth is our unlabeled weapon slot, which displays our currently equipped weapon plus our ammo-total (if, that is, said weapon is powered by ammo).
Fifth is our unlabeled flag signal, which displays a flashing flag image whenever we're in proximity to a checkpoint and thus notifies us that we can call for transport from our current position.
Last is "Points," our points-counter, which increases any time we damage an enemy or collect an item. Honestly, though, points are useless, since there's no governing system--the game doesn't dole out extra lives or any other rewards when you reach certain milestones. The points-counter is only there for people who like to record personal high scores in action-adventure games about ducks.
As we traverse stages, we'll obtain a number of different items. These items are either placed in plain sight--usually seen hovering in the air--or dropped by stunned/eliminated enemies. In a very nice little touch: You can tell if an enemy is in possession of an item by observing its sprite; if it's drawn to where it has a satchel strapped or fastened to a part of its body, then you can be sure that it's holding an item! That's such a cool little detail. The game is filled with such details, all of which I'll be sure to mention!
Items available to us at the early going include (a) food, which replenishes health. There are two different food types: ice cream cones, which replenish two units, and cooked turkeys, which fully replenish our meter. (b) Money bags, which reward us points (1,000 points, to be exact). (c) Red-hot chili peppers, each of which causes one unit of our Temper meter to fill--or, rather, change in demeanor. (d) Corn cobs, each of which supplies us five bits of Popcorn Shooter ammo; we can hold up to 99 pieces of popcorn. And (e) Fedoras, which are the game's 1up symbols; if we grab a fedora, our life-total will increase by one.
If we press the Start button, we're taken to our inventory. When we're on this screen, we can switch between available weapons. Also, we can navigate our "Important Items" box, which displays the key items we've obtained during our journey and lists two commands that allow us to manipulate them in some way. There's "Look," selecting which allows us to examine the item, and "Use," selecting which allows us to employ its use on the gameplay screen upon returning to it. There's also a third, unrelated command labeled "Call the Airplane," selecting which allows us to communicate with our nephews and thus call for transport whenever we're within proximity of checkpoint.
I'll talk about the game's other items and mechanics as we discover them.
And, of course, Duckburg gives us our first view of the game's world. This is where I take a moment to tell you how great the game looks. First there's the character design and specifically Donald, who's very finely rendered; he's drawn to where he strongly resembles his cartoon counterpart, which is an important feat, since it lends the game a wonderful air of authenticity and makes us feel as though we're immersed in that same Disney universe we see in the cartoons and films. Also, the animation is terrific; Donald moves about and executes attacks and maneuvers using several frames of animation, each with its own detail (as he slides, for instance, his hat and jacket flap in the wind). And all the while, he's very expressive: As he maneuvers about and interacts with objects and enemies, he gasps, grimaces, shows concern, jerks backwards, and squeezes his eyes shut.
And, as is obligatory for games from this era, he exhibits an animation in which he expresses frustration with your inactivity; he turns toward the camera, leans forward with, puts his arms on his hips, taps his foot, and impatiently squints at you as if to say "Weeeell?" (So add QuackShot to the long list of 90s-era platformers that were in some way influenced by Sonic the Hedgehog.)
Enemies and supporting characters aren't animated quite to that same level, no, but they all look the part--look as though they've been ripped directly from an animated feature. All of it is very faithful-looking, which, again, works to provide the game great character.
So yeah--Sega really nailed it here. Its character design in QuackShot is topnotch.
So here we are in the city of Duckburg, which is home to many tall buildings, a few of which we see from up close as we traverse forward. Those directly in view are finely textured; theirs are well-rendered wood, brick and stone surfaces. Also, each exhibits its own unique window design; and certain windows even have the establishments' names displayed on them (which I'm always happy to see in games whose action occurs within city and urban settings)! The surrounding environment with the types of objects you expect to see in commercial area: apple carts, stacked boxes, barrels and trashcans.
Oh, and there's also the background work. I have to talk about the game's backgrounds. I have to take this opportunity to tell you why they represent my favorite aspect of QuackShot!
Really, there are a couple of reasons why my eyes are always drawn to them, as they were from the very first moment I saw the game in action. For one, they're beautifully drawn; even after the first dozen times you see them, they're still striking and breathtaking. I'd say that they represent some of the best background work you'll ever see in a Genesis game or in a 16-bit game in general.
Also, they feature a distinctive, gorgeous-looking style of shading, with each background sporting an attractive, visually pleasing blend of soft, light and pastel colors. We can see one of the best examples of such texturing here in Duckburg--in its background, which has on display the outstretched city and its assemblage of buildings; in its layers upon layers of buildings. Those in front are pale gray while each successive layer sports lighter shades of pastel yellow, and this works to create such a great feeling of depth--a feeling that buildings seen last in the order are miles and miles away from us. Together the overlaid buildings guard the distant cloud-filled sky, whose luminance, we imagine, provides them their sundrenched hue. And as the best city backgrounds often do, Duckburg's inspires feelings of wonder in how it speaks of bustling activity yet conveys an air of serenity. "What's going on back there?" you'll feel compelled to ask yourself as you examine the imagery.
It's a terrific opening visual. I just love it. And the game is filled with such backgrounds. And I'm sure that I'll have plenty to say about each of them!
Also, I have to stress that QuackShot makes great use of the Genesis' sound hardware, which is often criticized for how it produces tinny-sounding music and sound effects. You wouldn't think that such was the case if the first Genesis game you played was QuackShot, which manages to somehow transcend the console's limitation and deliver an aural feast. It features strong sound design overall and does especially well in terms of its music, which has some of the best instrumentation I've ever heard in a Genesis game; its every tune is finely-tuned and melodious and thus pleasing to the ear. That much becomes evident when we listen to Duckburg's musical theme--a smooth-sounding bluegrass-style piece that is both delightfully buoyant and very welcoming (you'll want to bop your head to it); it'll surely illicit a smile the first time you hear it.
Duckburg's game-opening tune sets a great tone and works hard to convince you that QuackShot has much more in the way of pleasing-sounding music. And you'll find that it certainly does.
So our first goal is to head rightward through the streets of Duckburg. Here, in this initial stage section, the action flows horizontally and strictly so. Mostly we traverse through the streets and platform our way over the aforementioned obstacles (apple carts, stacks of boxes, barrels, etc.). Along the way, we'll meet plenty of resistance; that is, we'll begin encountering some of the more-ubiquitous members of QuackShot's enemy cast. Those of their ilk include Pete's gangster minions, who remain stationary and periodically fire out tomatoes from their rifles (in another nice little touch, the tomatoes splat against and then slide down any wall or surface they smack into); weirdly, only some of them can turn around to face you if you move past them. All of them, however, can also crouch and fire, though they usually don't. I'm still not sure what causes them to do as much; sometimes they do it when you're positioned a level below them, but other times they don't. I don't know, man.
But don't worry about that--just shoot them and move on.
Otherwise, you have (a) gangsters who peek out of buildings' windows and throw down potted plants when you're directly beneath them; as they're technically background elements, they can't be damaged by your weapons. (b) Beehive-carrying buzzards that fly in from offscreen, usually high overhead, and drop their beehives when you're directly beneath them; a beehive will damage you upon contact, yes, and it'll cause further trouble for you by releasing four bees, all of which will give chase; your weapons can't hurt them, so you can only evade them--run away and scroll them off the screen. (c) Boxing-glove-wearing turtles, which run back and forth along platforms and generally obstruct you; if one such turtle senses your presence, it'll retract into its shell and become an invincible, unmovable object, and it won't reemerge until you move to another level, out of its line of sight. Note that you'll take damage if you make contact with the shell; also, if you make the mistake of slowly approaching a shell, its occupant will sneakily reach out from it and deliver an uppercut. And (d) happy-looking caterpillars, which dive out from and back into trashcans; some move strictly vertically while others jump back and forth between spaced-apart trashcans.
About a third of the way into this stage section, we find five peppers laying upon a set of windowsills. Here we're provided the opportunity to freely fill our Temper meter and test out our Quack Attack ability. If we put it to good use, we can bypass roughly half the stage (we'll have the most success if we're able to cleanly jump over obstacles, since the act of climbing them uses up precious milliseconds).
At the street's end, we locate our first checkpoint and thereafter meet an explorer-type bipedal dog character (he might have appeared in one of Disney's animated film, though I've never seen him before, so I don't know his name). He informs us that we can't continue on through the city if we don't have tools that will allow for us to climb high walls. So, basically, we can't advance past this point. All we can do, for now, is call for transport and head elsewhere--fly to different locations and seek both the tools we require and new places to access.
The first place we want to check is Mexico.
So we head east and touch down in ol' Mexico. This area is comprised of four sections, though we'll only be seeing three of them during on first trek through this stage. QuackShot's is your typical video-game interpretation of the country's landscape, yes, but it's also one that's attractive and alluring.
We're in a desert traveling along a rocky stretch of road. The environment around us is bursting with interesting visuals. In the front layer, there are lush cacti, each of which is striking a different pose (some are flexing while others appear as though they've been freeze-framed while running), and rock piles.
Then there's the beautifully rendered background, which gives us view of a sandy cactus field that stretches far into the distance. What really catches the eye is its cool parallax effect, which does a magnificent job of providing the field wonderfully distinctive form and rich character; its product is a background comprised of four separate layers, each of which scrolls at a different speed and does its part to provide the field a mesmerizing sense of depth. The field spills into the far-distant mountain range, whose craggy formations fill the skyline. And all the while, clouds scroll by automatically along two separate layers and at different speeds, which helps to produce an even-more-intense sense of extensity.
These awe-inspiring background visuals remain constant during our time here, which is great because they're amazingly enhancing, irresistibly pleasing and just fun to look at. Mexico's represents one of my favorite backgrounds in all of 16-bit gaming. I look forward to seeing it every time I play QuackShot.
Its musical theme has an obvious Mexican flavor. It's an upbeat tune that'll get your head swaying and make you think to yourself, "Man--it's good to be playing video games!"
So what we want to do here is travel right and maneuver our way up and around the surface's rocky slopes. At certain points, we have to traverse over pools of quicksand, usually by repeatedly jumping but sometimes by platforming across blocks that are being held up and tossed vertically by clawed desert inhabitants. Naturally, we'll sink into quicksand and die if we attempt to simply walk over it.
We'll encounter such enemies as (a) walking cacti, which are of course dangerous to touch; if we get too close to one, it'll break into pieces and toss its thorny segments in either direction, over long distances, and then quickly reform. (b) More stationary tomato-firing gangsters and beehive-carrying buzzards. And (c) scorpions that emerge from quicksand and toss around those aforementioned blocks, onto which you can jump (just be sure not make contact with the scorpions, themselves).
Mexico's second section features the same setting, though now the sun is blazing and consequently each environmental element is provided an attractive orange shade. It's a very pretty scene and, I'd say, a bit more absorbing than the last. You'll feel compelled to gaze at it--to lose yourself to it; and when you do, you'll be overcome with a sense of calm.
Don't get too comfortable, though. This place can be a little rough. The challenge entails platforming over series of deadly pits. There's some rudimentary platforming, yes, but there are also long stretches in which we have to traverse forward jumping onto and off of moving structures--those that travel back and forth and others that undulate.
The enemies here are especially troubling because they tend to clog up tight spaces and wreck Donald's jumping momentum, which usually results in him dropping into a pit. Doing this are the usual suspects: boxing turtles, buzzards, and tomato-firing gangsters. Otherwise, section two contains a uniquely encountered obstacle: dynamite detonators. They don't cause anything to explode, no, but they nonetheless have a worrying function: The moment you arrive on the detonator's right side, it'll send a flame trailing along the ground, so you have to prepared to react immediately, lest you'll be caught off guard. Under normal conditions, it's fairly easy to jump over the flames, though things tend to get dicey if buzzards are currently flying in, since most of the action takes place near the screen's top.
In the third section, we locate the Aztec ruins, though we're not able to enter them. We're told as much by a servant, who seems to recognize us. "Don't you know," he asks," that you need a special key to go into the ruins?"
She then says that a team of explorers returned to Duckburg with that very key. She notes that it's called "Hero Key." Donald thanks the "sweet senorita" for providing him this information.
Luckily, the stage's checkpoint is directly to the left of the ruins. We take advantage of this and call for transportation. Once we're back on the map, we head west, back to Duckburg.
And upon arriving at Duckburg's checkpoint, we ask the pipe-smoking explorer if he's seen the key in question. He reveals that the key is actually in his possession and then asks Donald, curiously, if he's a "hero." Donald replies in a rather unassertive manner, stating that he's "trying to be a hero." Though, this response is somehow convincing enough for the explorer, who hands him the key and wishes him good luck.
And now that we have the Hero Key, we can fly back to Mexico and open the door to the ruins!
After touching down at Mexico's checkpoint, we talk with the servant. She confirms that ours is the correct key--that indeed we can use it to open up the door to the ruins. We do this by moving to within proximity of the door, opening up our menu, highlighting the key, and selecting the "Use" command. If we perform this action correctly, a prompt will read "Donald used it..." And when we return to the gameplay screen, the door will slide open.
The ruins' opening section, we find, is a wide-open space that stretches in all directions. Its front layer is composed entirely of stone, its structures formed from interesting combinations of small and large blocks--those of which have images of skulls engraved into them. The surface of the scrolling background is textured with hieroglyphics, mesoamerican-style glyphs and symbols (all duck-themed, of course), and rows of fire-holder torches.
The musical theme, as such an environment dictates, is Egyptian-flavored. It's a quiet-sounding, understated piece whose mysterious tone creates a somewhat-uneasy-feeling atmosphere; it tells us to be cautious--to look before we leap.
We want to work our way up and around to the upper-right portion of this large room. We'll do this by traversing along both solid ground and troublesome slopes and by cleverly maneuvering around obstructive enemies and spike traps. At certain points, we'll have to ascend upward by jumping atop moving blocks (square platforms with duck faces engraved into them). Though, it's dangerous to approach these blocks when they're in their default state; during such moments, you'll take damage if you touch any part of them. What you'll want to do instead, once you realize that you can do as much, is stun them with plungers, doing which freezes them in place and temporarily nullifies their active hitboxes; when the blocks are in a stunned state, you can safely jump onto and off of them.
In these segments, there's some tricky timing involved. If you want to advance cleanly, you have to stun a block when it's in just the right position, lest thereafter you won't be able to jump up to a higher-positioned platform. If it's too low, you'll come up short on your jump; if it's too high, you'll hit your head on the ceiling and lose your jumping momentum.
As we work our way up the ruins, we'll have to contend with a number of enemies. First I have to mention the ruins' variety of small flame creatures--those that wave through the air, those that leap vertically, and those that team up with other flames to form a rotating flame wheel. Needing to maneuver around such flames is a repeated theme here; there will multiple instances wherein you'll have to duck beneath waving flames, jump over or pass beneath leaping flames, or pass through a flame wheel by moving into its center via an open space and exiting when that same open space rotates over to the other side. Flame wheels are always encountered on slopes, so the challenge of moving past them also entails a struggle against gravity; you'll have to continue pushing up or down on the d-pad to hold your position.
Otherwise, you'll come across (a) temple guards who pursue you while throwing torches with an arcing trajectory; when a torch hits the ground, it causes a flame pillar to rise up from the point of impact. And (c) Thwomp-like blocks that attempt to crush you as you crawl along narrow passages.
If you observe your surroundings while you traverse, you'll be likely to spot the entrances to secret spaces. You can jump up to and squeeze your way into these little nooks and crevices and grab the goodies that are hidden within (money bags, ammo and food). In doing this, you may even locate shortcuts, some of which allow you to skip half a stage or more.
When we arrive at the ruins' upper-right portion, we meet Goofy, who's also wearing explorer gear (maybe he's friends with that dog character we ran into in Duckburg?). He's happy to see us. When Donald asks him why he's hanging out here, in the ruins, Goofy responds by saying that he was "just looking around." While he was doing so, he found a strange note. He doesn't know what to do with it, so he gives it to us. Also, he says, he found a "funny plunger thing," which he also leaves to our care. "Maybe if you shoot it at walls and things," he says, "it will help you reach high places." He then tells us that Gyro Gearloose has been looking for us in Duckburg.
You know what's always seemed weird to me? These supporting characters and their inexplicable ability to effortlessly access the most dangerous of areas' midpoints and endpoints. How, exactly, do they get there? How, if they're obviously weaker and less-skilled than the main hero, are they able to endure the trials with which he or she would later struggle? And if they're able to do so that easily, why is the main hero even needed? Why don't the people in charge have Goofy and Gyro go out on these dangerous missions, since they apparently have zero trouble getting where they need to go?
It's just something I've always wondered.
So we take the note and "funny plunger thing," which becomes our new main weapon. Its actual name is the "Red Plunger," and it's the weapon we've been looking for--the one that will help us climb up walls. Red plungers attach to walls via suction, and they remain in place for about six seconds. Up to six of them can be present onscreen at the same time.
There's no checkpoint here, so instead we have to backtrack to the ruins' entrance. We'll face the same challenges along the way, only this time in reverse. Though, there is one significant change: Since the moving blocks no longer serve a purpose, they've been removed (thankfully, I say, since they would only serve to slow us down). The return trip doesn't take nearly as long as the climb, since we're mostly dropping down. Once we reach the ruins' entrance point, we can head outside, back to the checkpoint, and call for transport. And when our nephews arrive in the biplane, we can point them in the direction of Duckburg!
Before we move on, though, I have to take a moment to talk about why I'm so fond of this particular area--the Aztec ruins--and have been from the first moment I saw it. There's something I find fascinating about its level design. It's not amazing, no, but it has such an alluring quality to it. Specifically, it has a wonderfully raw feel to it, as if it were coded by people who were just learning to make games--by people who were talented but inexperienced (like, maybe, the young minds at Disney Interactive Studios, which was involved in the development of QuackShot). What this rough, unrestrained-feeling level design does is imbue the game with nostalgic resonance--afford Quackshot a first-generation, foundational feel even though it came out in 1991. Hell--I thought it was a Genesis launch game when I first saw it.
If you've been reading this blog for a long time, you know that I love games that possess that quality. And it so happens that Quackshot has it in abundance; and it's most strongly conveyed here, in the ruins, which I always look forward to traversing if not only to feel it and think about it.
Using our new Red Plunger, we can climb the wall to the right of the checkpoint, doing which takes us to the next section. Our climb takes us high into the sky and onto the rooftops of the surrounding skyscrapers. That same lovely background--the expanse of buildings--is still in view, and as eye-catching as ever.
In this section, as our means of access hinted, we have to use our new weapon to climb the sides of buildings and traverse forward along their rooftops. There are two ways to advance here: We can take the easy route in which we stick strictly to the rooftops (at first, you may not think that such is possible, since some of the rooftops are pushing up against the screen's top, which appears to be a barrier; it isn't, though, so you can continue traversing along them and do so largely unmolested), or we can take moderately difficult route in which we wind our way around the rooftops' lower ledges, which are clogged up by boxing turtles.
Looking to obstruct us are on-wall loudspeakers that periodically emit damaging sound-blasts in onomatopoeia form (the word "BOOM," rendered in a cartoony font) and commonly encountered enemies: gangsters, beehive-carrying buzzards, and the aforementioned boxing turtles, which are especially annoying here because of how they retract into the shells and congest the lower route's narrow passages.
If you climb to the top of the section's tallest building, you'll get a view of a cool little background visual: a Mickey Mouse blimp that scrolls along the sky. Sadly, it despawns and resets to its starting position whenever it moves out of the camera's view, so you won't see it at any other point.
When we enter the final section, we find that it's suddenly dawn and that consequently the background elements now sport new sienna shades, their surfaces coated with beautiful mixtures of pale-orange and -purple hues. This variation is even more striking than the standard view. It has a way of absorbing you--of stealing all of your attention. As you gaze into it, it begins to shape your thoughts, and immediately you're reminded of the summer nights you used to spend hanging out with your friends and playing games like QuackShot. That, I say once again, is the power of 8- and 16-bit visuals; there's nothin' like 'em.
There's a new musical theme, too: This one is fast-paced and has a frantic energy to it, which is appropriate given the challenge we face here.
Since there are no solid structures from this point forward, we must travel through this section via the otherwise-visible power lines. We start the process by jumping toward and grabbing onto a pulley that has been conveniently installed onto one of the wires seen directly overhead; once we grip the pulley, we'll continue holding onto it until we press the jump button.
And once we've attached ourselves to the pulley, it'll automatically begin to zip along the power lines and carry us across them; at a certain point, though, we'll have to dismount the pulley and jump onto the next pulley in line, since the initial pulley eventually hits an obstruction (an electrical current) and breaks off from the power line. And then we have to continue doing this--continue jumping from one pulley to the next to avoid making contact with electrical currents, which inflict damage and can potentially cause us to fall to our death. Since we're moving at such a high speed, our reflexes will be tested as will our ability to control Donald's momentum after he has dismounted from a pulley. If we panic at any time and thus lose our focus, we'll surely plummet into the abyss.
The power lines' path extends in every which direction--up, down and diagonally--and high enough to see the star-filled sky and its moon, which, naturally, has a face and seems to be enjoying itself. At a certain point, we're given the choice to remain on our current pulley or to jump onto an alternate one; both carry us across lines that are filled with goodies, though each contains a different variety of them; the current line awards us money bags while the alternate one supplies us health-replenishing food items.
When we reach the section's endpoint, we drop off onto rooftop and locate Gyro, who is waiting to greet us. "Donald, just the fellow I wanted to see," he says to his friend. "Would you please try my newest invention?"
He gives Donald bubblegum ammo, which turns his pistol into a Bubblegum Shooter, his third equippable weapon. It fires "exploding bubbles," Gyro tells him. He says, also, that Donald can return here to restock whenever he's short on bubblegum ammo; he'll supply us 50 bits of ammo, which is the max. Returning here won't be necessary, though, since bubble gum ammo becomes a standard item in the following stages.
Now we have to backtrack all the way to Duckburg's checkpoint. Thankfully, we don't encounter any platforming challenges during our reverse traversal of this section; instead, we grip onto a pulley that travels along an express route and quickly returns us to the entry point. Though, we do have to work our way across the rooftops section and face the same dangers.
Once we're back on the map, we choose to head east--to the only remaining destination: Transylvania.
Well, it wouldn't be a duck-based Disney adventure game without an uninviting Transylvania/castle stage.
Actually, the castle is our destination. We have to get to it by traversing our way through a dark forest. The forest's environments are of course murky-looking and drably colored--in a good way, though; in a style that provides this section an appropriately foreboding vibe--and its surfaces are choked by neglected, withered foliage. Its background consists of only a single layer, yeah, but the displayed visual is nonetheless a strong one. What we can't help but see is a collection of shadowy trees, all of which are twisted and contorted, as if they're caught in devilish poses--as if they were previously up to no good and decided to freeze in place the moment we arrived and thus create the illusion that they're not capable of motion. That they have faces makes the visual all the more creepy. As we travel along, theirs is a looming presence; we feel as though they're watching us--as though they're waiting to grab us the moment we turn away from them. It's all appropriately spooky.
The music is haunting in a gloomy, disquieting kind of way. Its presences exacerbates the sense that we're being watched--that danger is lurking in unseen spaces.
This, I say, is one of the best dark-forest settings in a Disney game. It's fun to look at.
So what we want to do here is head right, towards the castle. The platforming here is pretty basic: We traverse up and over sloped surfaces and cross a stream by jumping onto and off of the stony pillars that emerge from them.
We'll meet resistance in the form of (a) gangsters, who are now clad in tuxedo-cap ensembles; this variety fires out blobs that arc through the air and slide along the ground. And (b) the newly introduced bats (we can't have a Transylvania stage without them), which are first seen perched on branches in the background; when we move to within proximity of them, they suddenly emerge from the background and fly toward us.
At the forest's end is the area's checkpoint and our destination: the castle, whose entrance is unsealed. Donald recognizes the castle as Dracula's famous haunt.
We enter the castle and arrive at its main hall. As we survey our surroundings, we find that the castle has a predictably eerie atmosphere. The hall's stony surfaces sport faded-teal hues, which work to provide the place a comfortless feel, and its walls are decorated with spooky-looking mirrors, tattered tapestries that display images of bats, and portraits of the duckified Count Dracula, whose eyes, creepily, move back and forth as if they're tracking our progress. The background is formed from arched corridors and the darkened windows to which they point.
A few screens in, we come to a seemingly impassable obstruction. We're greeted here by a ghost, who hovers about the opposite side. The ghost informs Donald that he can blow up the wall (specifically its purple-colored bricks) with bubblegum ammo. It then asks him why he came to such a scary place. Donald responds that he's looking for King Garuzia's treasure. The ghost has heard of it; he says that Count Dracula possess the treasure map that leads to the treasure, though he doesn't think that the Count will give it up too easily.
We take is advice and blast away the wall with our Bubblegum Shooter. In the process, we learn of its true power.
This section is straightforward: As we travel through it, we alternate between climbing up walls and sliding our way through narrow passages. Along the way, we'll come across obstructions in the form of purple bricks and wooden barrels, both of which we can destroy with our Bubblegum Shooter. We want to take the time to destroy as many barrels as we can, since many of them hide items, including precious 1ups; though, some of them hide slimes instead, so we should keep our distance while firing, lest we risk being instantly damaged by the emerging slimes.
Castle inhabitants include (a) ghosts that appear from out of nowhere and fly forward in a wavy fashion; they're incorporeal, of course, so they can't be hurt by our weapons. (b) Skeletons that emerge from coffins and slowly stalk us; periodically they'll pull off their heads and toss them at us in a boomerang-like motion; they can jump up to higher platforms, so we won't be completely safe from them until we scroll them off the screen. And (c) more of those bats.
When we reach the hall's end, we drop into a gap that leads to the next section.
We drop down into a underwater section--into a submerged dungeon, it would appear. We deduce as much by examining its background elements: its chained scythes, wall shackles, and weapons racks populated with all kinds of spears. Though, it's a bit difficult to make out what, exactly, we're seeing because the water, which comprises the foreground layer, is darkly colored and has the property of a grainy checkered filter (which makes for the game's only unattractive visual).
Naturally, the gravity is different underwater. Our movement is slowed a bit, but we jump higher and farther and gain increased hangtime. The change in jumping momentum can be advantageous or detrimental depending upon the situation (it's good if you're looking to clear long spike traps, yes, but you don't want to be hanging in the air when you're sandwiched between swinging iron balls).
The submerged dungeon is a large, open area, and we have to escape from it by trudging our way over to its exit, which rests in the dungeon's top-right portion. There are multiple alternate paths, and they're worth seeking out because each is home to valuable goodies. No matter which path we take, though, we'll have to work our way through cramped passages and therein jump over or slide under spike traps, crushers, and the aforementioned swinging iron balls.
We escape into the castle's inner halls. It features the same decor we saw in the main hall, though all of its foreground and background elements now sport light-currant hues--with a little blood-red mixed in, appropriately.
When we look to our right, we see a rotund aristocratic ghost; he looks away from us and stares upward with a doltish expression on his face. Though, this is a ruse designed to convince us that it's safe to simply rush forward. It isn't. Contrarily, this chubby fellow will remain a constant threat to us as we progress.
What we have to do here is use our Bubblegum Shooter to break through certain structures and uncover a hidden elevator-type platform that'll carry us up to the section's true exit. If we simply continue heading right, all the way to the hall's end, we'll instead cross through a false exit and loop back to the start. All the while, we have to remain cognizant of the aristocratic ghost, which maintains his position on the screen's right half. It turns out that he's merely playing coy; every six seconds, he'll grin mischievously and then promptly turn and look to the left. If we're in motion at the time, he'll go on the offensive by splitting into a group of eight smaller ghosts, each of which will erratically fly about; they take up a lot of space and tend to dip low, so it'll prove difficult to avoid them and come away damage-free. If we want to prevent the split, we have to anticipate the aristocratic ghost's quick turn and prepare to say perfectly still--this for about four seconds, until he turns back around. If we attempt to slide-dash our way ahead of him, he'll immediately split apart and attack; and since the smaller ghosts can actually keep pace with us, it's foolish to even try to rush past him.
The elevator-type platform is hidden within the second structure we come across. We reveal it by clearing away the outer purple blocks.
The true exit's iron double doors take us to another hall. It contains more of what we've already seen. In the first segment, we have to traverse through cramped corridors that are filled with waving ghosts, which we can avoid by ducking into any crannies we can find; further ahead, we encounter more bats, coffin-released skeletons, and ghosts. At the hall's end, we have to scale a giant wall, on top of which is the exit. Though, there's a surprise waiting for us: seconds after we begin our climb, the left wall begins to close in on us. We have about 12 seconds to finish scaling it; if we fail to do so, we'll be crushed to death. The steel double doors found atop the wall take us to the next section.
This final hall is a repeat of the earlier aristocratic-ghost section. This time, though, the road is a bit bumpier; the room contains many hill-like structures and inclines on which we're unable to remain still. The rules are the same: Don't be in motion when the ghost looks left; don't try to escape by simply heading right, lest you'll loop back to the start; and find the secret exit. However, the designers mischievously betray our expectations here: There is no hidden elevator-type platform to find; we'll never find one no matter how many purple-brick-formed structures we clear away. What we have to do is not destroy these structures and instead utilize them; climb to the top of them and shift the camera up higher so we can locate an opening in the ceiling.
The passage we seek is situated directly above the middle purple-bricked structure. When we climb to its top, we find steel double doors; they provide us entry into the final room.
And that final room would be Count Dracula's chamber, the site of our first boss battle. Dracula's is a fairly simple pattern: He starts the battle by opening his cape and releasing four bats, all of which fly in our general direction and erratically flap about for approximately four seconds before returning to their master. He then floats his way over to the other side of the room and repeats this attack. Afterwards, he can change things up a bit--either elevate to a higher position or remain in place between attacks--though his mode of attack remains the same: open cape, release bats.
Dracula is vulnerable when his cape is open. We can damage him with all of our weapons and do so from any angle. It's best to use the Popcorn Corn during this battle, since its spread shots cover a lot of ground and can eliminate the bats. If you decide to use the plunger, instead, you'll find that the best strategy is to hit Dracula from below and then quickly slide-dash away from him before the bats can get to you. He'll succumb after he's been struck five times.
Defeating Dracula earns us the real treasure map. We don't have to wait long to put it to use, since exiting the room via its double doors somehow instantly transports us back to the stage's checkpoint. The real map, we find, has four additional locations marked on it. Our first stop is going to be the far-right destination--a place called "Maharajah" (whose name is undoubtedly a reference to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). Basically we're heading to India and specifically to its ruler's palace.
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