DuckTales (Prototype, Nintendo)
|
|
First, the necessary prerequisite before dealing with anything Huey, Dewey, or Louie: DuckTales! Woo hoo!
This anecdote is going to make me look bad, but here goes. For my senior high school yearbook, there was a space below my name and picture for a senior quote, and I submitted the following as a “witty” nugget of what I believed at the time to be high karat brain gold: “If the country changed our national anthem to the DuckTales theme, more of us would know the words, and we would be a prouder nation for it. -Anonymous.”
Ever find a piece of writing you composed ages ago, a snippet of something you once thought was wise and worthy of the Thought of the Day on an upscale tea bag, then read it again and cringed? This quote does that for me. Every time I open the yearbook I have to see this; I have to experience this quote. My high school memories are filled with sweat, fear, awkwardness, tears, sad realizations, and a DuckTales quote. Zack Morris shoveled a load of bullshit; this is the real life. Fucking DuckTales quote is the real life.
Look at me getting all Molly Ringwald. I’m not a neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie! SHUT UP. No, Dad, what about you? Fuck you. No, Dad, what about you? FUCK YOU!
It’s been said many times before, but it bears repeating until the ducks come home: DuckTales has one of the best original soundtracks on the system. The “Moon Theme,” in particular, inspires me to float off the ground and fly, and The Advantage’s cover of the track sends my soul to some transcendental state where flowers bloom out of hands and top-hatted ducks pogostick on the moon’s surface.
I am in love with the DuckTales “Moon Theme”.
I’m not going to fill up space detailing DuckTales; if you were young when the NES was out and didn’t play this game back in the day, shame on you. If you still have not played this game, get off the damn site right now. If there was ever enough reason for someone wanting to become a parent (the ticking of your biological clock and carrying on the torch of the human race to a new generation notwithstanding), it’s to introduce a very young child to DuckTales. Get a child, any child – steal a child – and get a Nintendo and DuckTales going. You and me, we can change this world, one little girl and little boy at a time.
Just don’t do anything that would make Nancy Grace horny.
It helps to point out that another well-known DuckTales prototype exists, one with many documented differences from the released version. This other proto has an official Capcom logo sticker, a common occurrence with many Capcom prototypes (like my Adventures in the Magic Kingdom). It’s been my experience that if you find the Capcom sticker, there’s a good chance that there will be changes to the game.
Mine lacks the sticker. I think it’s safe to say that this is the final release of the game, and it was most likely used for sample purposes. I couldn’t find any differences during my multiple playthroughs. After dumping the game and running it through GoodNES, it is the same as retail.
Instead of a Capcom sticker, there’s some writing on a plain white sticker inside my cart, writing that turns out to be the partial tile of the game in Japanese characters: 
(the full name being 
, or Wanpaku Dakku Yume-boken).
Though the inside is in Japanese, the words “DuckTales US-Ver” with a checkmark are on the front of the outside cartridge. Like all of the other prototypes in this Christmas special, this DuckTales is in the NTSC format (the North American release of the game). However, I have seen this kind of checkmark before on PAL prototypes, like Batman Returns and Parodius, so the exact origin of this prototype remains unknown.
Japan, Europe, America – this game, like Scrooge McDuck, has traveled around the globe. It’s been like a hurricane – a real duck blur.
Woo hoo?
Nintendo Player's mission is to help preserve lost retro gaming history. The site digs into the past in an effort to uncover insightful game development stories and document historical gaming artifacts.
