Darkwing Duck (NES, 1992)

Darkwing Duck was one of the many shows/things I was into as a kid. Like HUGELY into. That said, I don't know how long I was a fan of this show. It might have been like a month or something. Either way, it was memorable. I liked it for the same reasons I liked Carmen Sandiego and Dick Tracy, it had a cool roster of bad guys with their own gimmicks and whatnot and a crime-fighting hero trying to apprehend them all (but never actually seeming to).

I don't know what happened with the show or what the overall mythology was. Were there multiple seasons? Did new Big Bads get introduced? I don't know. I didn't even follow the TMNT lore that deeply and TMNT was the biggest thing on the planet.

In any case, this is a game that I 100% would have begged for if I'd had an NES as a kid. Probably near the top of the list for it too. This, Power Blade, Mega Man 3, Metroid, and Super Mario Bros 3 are probably the first things I would have gone for. ...that is, if I didn't burn through the game budget getting terrible Terminator games.

This is one of the bunch of super-good Capcom action games based on Disney shows that we got in the early 90's. I'm playing this on PS5 with the Disney Afternoon Collection which has six of 'em with trophies and boss rush challenges / time trials.

I like how he casts a huge shadow, despite being small in stature.

He is the terror that flaps in the night! This brings back so many memories.

The first Nintendo Power I ever bought had this on the cover. I've still got it, and it is beat up. You can tell I read this like crazy circa the 3rd grade or so.

I remember this very sharp and almost life-sized picture of a Game Boy, and how much I wanted one at the time. Definitely wanted it more than an NES, because being able to take things with me had a ton of appeal. I also remember Batman punching a tank. This whole issue was great, probably one of the better ones from that year, with some super colorful games in it. Especially the SNES section, which managed to make Xardion look good.

This is one of the many NES games with a stage select, something I was into as a kid because it meant you could try different levels if you couldn't beat one of them. There are a few special weapons (gas cannisters) with limited ammo, ala Mega Man, but unfortunately none of said special weapons are very good. Thunder Gas is at least good for firing diagonally, while Heavy Gas is just sort of bad. Arrow Gas is the only one I actually use, and shoots a decently-powerful arrow that can also be used as a platform if it hits a wall.

This series borrows liberally from James Bond movies, and FOWL is their version of SPECTRE. It's basically the syndicate / nexus of the bad guys on the show, led by Steel Beak (who is a parody of another James Bond character, Jaws).

The stage select is different from most games of the time in that it gives you a choice of 3 stages, then 3 more once you're past those, rather than all 6 at once. This allowed them to make the second set of 3 significantly tougher than the first.

Quacker Jack...now that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Always saw him as being the weakest of the show's bad guys, kinda how I saw Cut Man in the Mega Man show. Like physically weakest. Their Raditz.

Pretty much immediately, you can tell this is more or less a Mega Man game. DD can fire 3 shots at a time and they're basically Mega Man bullets.

Nintendo Power coverage. They loved to have full map layouts for games where most of the levels were straight lines. I gotta say, though, reading this in the 3rd grade, about a game I didn't have on a system I didn't have, got me more excited than literally anything does in 2024. It's hard to convey why.

We've got some reskinned Mega Man foes, like these stationary guys who are shielded until they throw their projectiles. Rather than getting weapons from defeating bosses, you get special weapons from picking them up, like the one at the top of the screen here. Like I mentioned, though, there are only 3 special weapons and none of them are all that good.

There's a sub-goal of collecting diamonds in the stages, and as far as I can tell all this does is increase your score so you get more lives (and you can rack them up quickly). So far the main difference between this and Mega Man is that you can only take four hits in this game, regardless of what you're taking hits from. That's a pretty short life meter, but if you crawl through the stages carefully, it's very doable.

Quacker Jack is some sort of jester-duck, and he may be IMO the "weakest" of the bad guys but he's a real pain in this game. Most of the game's challenge stems from the boss fights, and this first one is probably the toughest. A) Because you're not used to the way boss fights in this game go yet if you do this first, and B) Because the fight is just a PITA regardless.

When I played Kirby's Dream Land for the first time back in 1993, I had a lot of trouble with the boss of Level 2 (Lololo and Lalala). Why? Because it had 3 different planes to jump between, with a fast-moving enemy also moving between them. Well, EVERY boss in this game, just about, is basically that fight on 'roids. They tend to have multiple floors that they leap between, while some other hazards menace you. In this case there's a hand throwing things from the top, and for some reason they also put some spikes up there.

Next level is a city. NES games loved city levels. Robocop 3 for the NES is one big city level, and this issue of Nintendo Power made that game look amazing too.

One nasty section is this part, where you have to run to stay balanced on a wheel as it rolls across the spikes. Most games would just lock your character onto the wheel as it rolled, but not this one, and it rolls fast.

There's a cool mechanic here where you pump balloons to blow 'em up and then use them to get across pits. Capcom was, for the most part, on point with this game.

Arrow Gas functions just like the Super Arrow in Mega Man 5. It's actually identical to it, so they literally just ported it over from that game (or vice-versa).

Wolfduck (who I don't remember at all from the show) is much easier than Quacker Jack, because you aren't dealing with multiple floors. It's a bizarre fight where he runs back and forth and transforms into a small puny duck between charges.

Right here is where you leap over him from the high ground, then turn around and blast him before he charges again. Easiest fight in the game. This one should have been the "first boss" (aka the stage it defaults you to).

Liquidator...that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. I liked this guy a lot because he's basically the T-1000 and can melt down into a puddle.

This level is a sewer level, which of course is the worst kind of level. Nothing really interesting about this one, but it's inoffensive.

9 lives accumulated and I haven't even been playing that well. This game is quite tough, but it's also super-generous with extra lives. While this game has a rep for being difficult, I think it's easier than most of the NES Mega Mans.

The sewer level contains some single-tile platforming, which I remember being freaked out by as a kid. One of the first games I played was Super Mario Bros and I remember there being a single block over a pit at one point early on in the session (the people I played with used warp zones, so it was a later world) that freaked me out good. Much like Nintendo Power making things seem awesome, maybe it's a "you had to be there" situation.

All of the bosses do this momentary pause before the fight starts (another Mega Man ism).

Not only does he melt down into a puddle, he also fires water droplets upward. Another tough boss, but not as bad as Quacker Jack. I think QJ might be the toughest boss of the first three by a good margin, which makes it unfortunate that he's the one the game indicates you should start with.

Yanno, kind of wacky that I'm starting 2025 by playing an NES game on the PS5. What else do I have on this thing?

WHOAAAAAAAAA

Black Myth Wukong might be the best-looking game on the system. I imagine it's huge in China since it's based on Journey to the West, which is basically their Lord of the Rings. It tells the story of Sun Wukong (aka, literally, "Son Gokou"), the heroic monkey with an extending staff and a flying cloud mount.

Man, this resolution, these light effects... absolutely stunning. Good luck to your framerate, though. The eventual PS6 port of this game is going to be bonkers good.

What else is on here?

WHOAAAAAA. Modern 2D RPGs are getting pretty sick, too. Here's Octopath Traveler II.

I think this Throne woman might be the most attractive pixel-art RPG character of all time.

Oh yeah, Darkwing Duck. Right, back to that.

Bushroot...that's a name I haven't heard in a long time.

This level is basically Wood Man's stage, only way more annoying.

Mostly because of these pink flower-turrets that launch very quick projectiles that seem to always land.

There's also the old 90's action game staple, a waterfall with cascading log platforms.

Bushroot is another multi-floor, annoying-as-hell boss fight. Once you get their patterns down, none of the bosses are really that bad, and the game rewards you for staying moving and being aggressive rather than defensive.

The next stage is Moliarty, or in Mega Man parlance, "Construction Man"

This stage is the tower in the middle of the city, so it does something different by being heavily vertical. This is one of those games where once the screen scrolls upward, it can't go backwards, so the bottom of the screen becomes a pit.

Moliarity is the new toughest boss in the game, or at least I thought so at first. He's got a trio of turrets around the room that fire shots at you, while he himself runs around like a maniac. It's total chaos and I died a bunch of times.

Thanks to Nintendo Power, I find out that you can destroy the turrets with VERY precise shots to that little gold circle. This disables them from firing temporarily and causes Moliarty to drop everything and go to that turret to repair it. This gives you a few seconds to blast him with impunity and makes this one of the easier fights.

Megavolt, the electric rat, was a pretty oddball character. I remember thinking that he stole some heat from Negaduck due to their similar names. First couple times I watched the show I thought Negaduck's name was Negavolt and that he was the one with electric powers.

That boat is supposed to be in the distance, but it looks more like a tiny boat sitting in the pit.

This stage is pretty bland and consists mostly of sailing around on moving hangers.

Megavolt is probably the most "standard Mega Man boss" out of all of them, and leaps around the room firing spark projectiles. He's like a more-agile Spark Man.

With all six levels downed, the FOWL headquarters unlocks. Wily Fortress, this ain't. It's one level and it isn't that bad. This is a really short game.

More Nintendo Power. Moliarty (who they misname Moriarty) has the most unique level / fight by far.

I definitely support leaving Bushroot's stage for last, since it's the one I had the most trouble with out of all of them.

As is tradition, they don't show anything from the final stage. Don't remember Steelbeak being the big bad guy of the show, and thought Negaduck was the big bad. Still not sure how much of the show I actually watched.

Steel Beak's Yacht is the final level. What is he, an insurance CEO?

This stage is full of these cannon-mounted guys which feels more like something out of Mario Bros 3. It's a pretty derivative game, and over quickly, so I'd say this one is mostly for the hardcore Darkwing fans.

After dealing with a bunch more of these shielded guys, I reach THE TOUGHEST JUMP IN THE GAME:

Pull this lever to make the platform below pop out, then you have like one second to fall off, jump onto it, and jump to the right before it retracts.

Common foe in the last level is this duck with sunglasses and a leather jacket, firing a laser gun. Is this a Terminator series reference?

Blast them a few times and they turn into metal duck endoskeletons and charge at you! Yeah, it's a reference.

Better to jump over them and run, because if you keep blasting them, they lose their lower half and their upper torso starts leaping all over the place, chasing you and probably doing way more damage.

After more treacherous platforming, the Poor Man's Wily Fortress comes to an end with...

Steel Beak himself is a pain in the ass, and summons an infinite supply of drones to fly down and menace you. The drones tend to fly down right where you need to climb up onto those wall-hangers, too.

Once I get onto the top left wall-hanger, I'm lined up to both blast Steel Beak AND the drones as they fly down.

The second phase has him running around on the floor firing shots, with a few HP left, and you get a full heal between phases. Shockingly easy final boss. This was like Temu Doctor Wily.

Steel Beak teases a sequel...that we never got. Very surprised there was no Negaduck in this game. I always considered Negaduck to be the real Big Bad of the show, as the archnemesis / pallette swap of our hero. He's basically Protoman except full-time bad. But nope, he was nowhere to be found. Maybe they were saving him for the sequel? Steel Beak, by comparison, is kinda lame, but I get that they were going for some heavy James Bond vibes there with SPECTRE and so forth.

Credits roll, and end with DD crashing his motorcycle and flying off, possibly to his death. We don't know, the screen freezes.

Despite the prominent placement in my first Nintendo Power, this was the 97th game I ever beat. Here's what I said about this game in the big list of games I've beaten (which I need to resume) -

#97 Darkwing Duck (NES) – Spring 1999

This was on the cover of the first Nintendo Power I bought, Volume 36. So I was pretty enthused to finally get to it. NP made the game look amazing and it ended up being one of those things I'd draw in notebooks in school. Well, seven years later I got to play the game via ROM. Surprised it was even this far down the list, but I had to get to those Mega Mans and the other classics.

Turns out it's a Mega Man 3 clone (yeah, that one specifically) where they cranked the difficulty way up. Regardless, this is something I pretty much had to play due to the NP association. I fumbled my way through it and finally got to find out who Stage 7 was (the final big bad), as NP didn't give that away.

I actually made a big mistake here: Nintendo Power actually DOES give away who the villain is. Not sure why I even said that as it's an odd thing to point out to begin with, especially when it's incorrect.

Some interesting statistics here. We can see the completion rates of the individual games on The Disney Afternoon Collection, which are all shockingly low. Did most people just buy this collection and not actually play it? Regardless, it's in a weird order: Duck Tales, Duck Tales 2, Tale Spin, Chip and Dale, Chip and Dale 2.

Tale Spin is the least-played at a meager 4.9%, which isn't surprising to me because I remember the Tale Spin show being the one that nobody I knew except me actually watched, and it seemed sort of like a B-show to all the others. Which is too bad because it had an awesome villain, uber-wealthy mob boss tiger Shere Khan, which literally means "King Tiger" in Hindi. Wonder if he's in the game.

I expected Duck Tales to be the most-played of the bunch, since it's first and has always been the most talked-about by a mile. However, it isn't! This is a big surprise. The actual winner is...

...Chip and Dale 1 at a hefty (for this group) 15.7%. The sequel is ALSO ahead of Duck Tales with 9.3%. Whoa! Who knew Rescue Rangers was actually the most popular of the bunch? Or at least on the NES it was, or at least with modern retro gamers it is.

Kinda disappointed that only 2.2% of players actually finished all six games on this set, since they're probably a combined ten hours of game time to beat. Well, one of these weeks I'll put my money where my mouth is and play the other four (none of which I've ever played before) so that's going to be interesting.

In the meantime, here's the other one I played (a while ago), Ducktales for the NES.