We’re going straight to the money shot with this DUCK: Dangerous Ultimate Cartridge Kidnapper review and telling you that it’s one you want to check out if you like WarioWare: Smooth Moves or SPOOKWARE. If quick-fire minigames aren’t your thing, then perhaps consider hoisin duck or Howard the Duck instead. It’s definitely better than the latter, though I did like the 80s movie. I don’t care what the internet thinks.
There’s a story to this arcade collection made by Duck Team, and that’s one that isn’t too different from Jumanji. Alright, it’s a lot different. You play a series of duck chums who lock horns with an evil spirit that curses a game cartridge and has their souls by the feathers unless they’re able to beat all 100 or so games.
Each duck lines up to do their fair share of 10 games (and many other variations, as there’s a healthy selection of difficulty modes). There’s no particular narrative arc that’ll have you comparing this to Watership Down, as it’s essentially the same for each player as they have a bit of banter with the cartridge and then will have their own artwork between stages.
Some of the games in DUCK: Dangerous Ultimate Cartridge Kidnapper make sense, some not so much, others pay homage to other video games (and sometimes quite subtle), and other are simply batshit crazy and will take multiple attempts to understand what you need to do, then many more attempts are trying to get your timing right, as they’re effectively the most challenging of the bunch.
It’d be arduous to go through and describe each and every one, but you have nine random games that range from cheerleaders jumping to a beat to collecting falling objects from a building site, a la a Game & Watch experience. While it’s easy to be flippant and say the games are confusing and a roulette on how to play, each of them does have a brief description of what you need to do, and depending on your skill level, you can trial via a practice mode.
Difficulty levels will determine your experience in DUCK: Dangerous Ultimate Cartridge Kidnapper, as the easier levels allow you to skip the boss levels if you’ve accumulated enough ducks, and from my experience, sometimes that’s a good thing, as most of the boss stages were drawn out and not as fun as the others. That’s subjective, of course, but for me, these were the weakest areas of DUCK: Dangerous Ultimate Cartridge Kidnapper.
On top of the ridiculous amount of stages and difficulty levels to make the game oh so much more replayable, there are a host of extra features that include cosmetics such as the bezels that occupy the screen, through to a retro effect that’s not quite scanlines or VHS but somewhere in between.
What I like best about DUCK: Dangerous Ultimate Cartridge Kidnapper is the proper pick up and play attitude of the game, and that, should it get too easy (or hard), there are plenty of get-out clauses or ways to make it even more challenging. The visual style is also a massive standout as it reminds me of the public domain games on the Amiga (an accolade in itself), and generally, the charming aspect of the game. Well, it certainly isn’t going to the actual minigames because some of those are a pain in the arse. In short? Really good quickfire gameplay, and for that reason, a recommendation.
