Platforms: PC, PS4 (reviewed), Xbox One
Developer: Digital Eclipse
Publisher: Capcom
MSRP: $19.99
Introduction
If you were growing up in the early 90s, there's a big chance that you were already a fan of Disney's Afternoon programming, which consisted of various shows like TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, Gargoyles, and DuckTales. There's also an equally big chance that if you had an NES in the late 80s and early 90s, that Capcom's Disney platformers were a part of your collection. These licensed platformers were the epitome of great games, and could be considered Capcom's "licensed golden age." Now, the Disney Afternoon Collection brings six of those fantastic games from four of those classic franchises: DuckTales (both games), TaleSpin, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (both games) and Darkwing Duck.
What you're getting
Like the Megaman Collection, this bundle contains ROMs for six of the aforementioned games, which means you're playing the games like they were intended when they were originally released on the NES back in the day. DuckTales Remastered did a wonderful job at recreating the original DuckTales game with a fresh new coat of paint, but the Disney Afternoon Collection allows you to play the games as if they were preserved in a time capsule from the early 90s.
There aren't really any sort of filters that will make the game look drastically different, but since you are playing on HD displays, the pixelation is smoothed over. If you want to retain that traditional CRT look, you do have the option between a TV and a Monitor filter, which adds some scanlines on top of the gameplay. You can also adjust the size of the screen, keeping it in its original state, fill the screen in 4:3 format, or stretch it out across the entire widescreen. The last option definitely looks the worst, so I'd recommend sticking to the other two.
The biggest and easily most welcome addition, given the "NES Hard" difficulty level, is the Rewind button feature. With the press of L1 (on the PS4), the game will immediately start rewinding exactly what you just played, making those unfortunate deaths or bad timing trivial matters. Sure, it somewhat softens the difficulty that these games had back in the day, but the feature is welcome and does eliminate some of that headache of constantly dying, especially if you have young kids playing games for the first time.
Speedrunners will find the Boss Rush and Time Attack mode a welcome addition as well, complete with a timer so players can constantly try and top their best times.
For trivia buffs, there's also a Musem feature, similar to the one found in the Mega Man Collection, which lets you listen to all the music from the games (which is all totally rad) and check out various concept art.
So what about the games?
I'm sure it's no surprise that a lot of the games we played when we were kids are looked at through rose-tinted glasses, but some of them truly hold up still until now. The most evident of the bunch is DuckTales, which thanks to its Remaster a few years back, opened the game up to an entirely new audience, while still preserving the difficulty and challenge that made the game great, to begin with. The Same thing holds true for the original version of both games. DuckTales 1 and 2 are easily the best platformers of the Afternoon Collection, with the Rescue Rangers games coming in at a close second. If we were comparing these games to other popular Nintendo games, then DuckTales would be closest to a traditional platformer like Super Mario Bros., while Rescue Rangers would mirror Super Mario Bros. 2 a bit more, with its pick-up-and-throw mechanics found in both games.
Darkwing Duck is one of those games I remember liking a lot more as a kid, but replaying it now, finding it slightly more aggravating. It's other NES game equivalent would be Mega Man, as you can tackle its stages in any order, though you must clear the initial three first, to unlock the next three. However, its weapon system more closely resembles Contra, as your weapon bullets change depending on the type of item you pick up, though the variety in Darkwing Duck is a lot lower.
And then there's TaleSpin, the odd-game-out. It's a scrolling shooter, where the screen is constantly shifting, whether it's to the right or down, and players pilot an airplane, shooting enemies down. This one doesn't control as well as the other games in this collection, and it's no fault of said collection, but rather a fault of the original game instead. TaleSpin probably benefits the most from the Rewind button, as this game easily gave me the most trouble.
The total package
For $19.99, you're getting four stellar games, one OK game, and one game probably not worth playing, except for only once, so you can say you've played it. That's still a tremendous deal, especially given that these were some of the best platformers of the NES era. And just because they're now almost three decades old, doesn't mean they still can't be enjoyed, especially by an all new audience that might have never been exposed to them before. Yeah, I'm talking about you Generation Z!
