Song's of Future Past: DuckTales

These days life is like a hurricane. For the average 20-30 year old, they are either finishing college and starting their careers or settling down to start a family. Sometimes life gets to busy and people need a break. That's where WayForward comes in with their latest game DuckTales: Remastered, a remake of the classic DuckTales game from the Nintendo Entertainment System.

As I have stated many times before, I never had a wide variety of games growing up so I missed out on this game and never really paid much attention to it until a few years ago when I played I Wanna Be The Guy and got to the final stretch and The Moon began to play. Curiously I looked up the song and through it I found out about the DuckTales game. Using alternate methods, I gave the game a shot and found the game a difficult, but enjoyable experience. What really captured my interest in the game was the music.

While I missed out on some great games growing up, there was one cartoon that I absolutely loved and that was DuckTales. To me, the show represented when school was over for the day before homework called. For one half hour I would watch the adventures of Huey, Dewey and Louie with Unca Scrooge as they sought to make the rich duck richer. The show had brilliant writing, gorgeous animation and some of the best voice work in the 90's. When I finally was able to buy DuckTales ReMastered, that game took me back to the time of watching the adventures of Duckburgs First Family.

As I was playing through the game, I couldn't help but compare Kaufman's work with the original soundtrack by Hiroshige Tonomura. Both soundtracks are phenomenal so I decided what the factor would be was The Moon. I loved both iterations of the song, and while Tonomura's track is classic, Kaufman's take on the song is something special as it would not be out of place in a DuckTales episode or movie.

So in the end, which is the superior album? Kaufman's album is an incredibly faithful remake of original game. However, given the limitations, Tonomura had with the system, what he produced is some of the finest work on the 8 bit console. Both albums are great, but in the end, Kaufman's covers are the superior album. That's not to say Tonomura's work is bad and I wouldn't dare change it. Although I never grew up with the game, I have listened to it on a number of times and appreciate the music, but I do prefer Kaufman's take on the album.

While Kaufman's work won't rewrite the DuckTales history, It is still a great companion piece to the game and it compliments Tonomura's original soundtrack.

This is Daimo Mac and I am lost in the music.

Also of note. WayForward is doing a Kickstarter to fund their next game. I love the Shantae series and want to see this succeed so please donate today. You can find the link here.