Capcom Demos ‘DuckTales Remastered’ And ‘Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies’ [SDCC 2013]

When I was nine years old, I literally begged my parents for Capcom's Ducktales game for the NES. It was all I wanted for Christmas, and fortunately for me, it ended up being one of the greatest games of the era, to the point where it's still my gold standard for games built around running to the right and jumping on bad guys' heads. That said, you can imagine how thrilled I was when Capcom announced that they were doing a new "remastered" version for the current generation of consoles, and after getting a chance to play it at Comic-Con, I'm even more excited for it now.

The main different between the new version and its NES counterpart -- aside from the obvious upgrades to the graphics, of course -- is that they've actually put a bit of a story into it. Each level opens with a cutscene where a fully voiced Scrooge McDuck explains to Huey, Dewey and Louie (or in the case of the Himalayas, Launchpad McQuack) just what it is that they're looking for in the level.

The boss fights have little cutscenes too, and it's clear even from the demo that they went all-out in trying to capture the feel of the cartoon with them.

Speaking of boss fights, that's another place where there's been a definite change. Most of the levels are based pretty closely on the NES version, but the boss fights have been upgraded with a whole new set of actions that add a nice layer of extra challenge, even for someone who could play through that game in his sleep. There are a few new areas, too, and remixed versions of the classic game soundtrack (also one of the greatest of all time), including a slightly dubstepped up version of the music from the Transylvania level. There are also new sub-quests in each stage that encourage players to spent more time exploring each level -- and, not coincidentally, racking up cash for the money bin while they're at it.

I played through Transylvania and the Himalayas, as well as a little bit of the Amazon Jungle stage, and had an absolute blast. I was hoping to see (and hear) a bit of the Moon, too, but obviously they're keeping that one under wraps until the game actually comes out.

While I was there, I also got to check out Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies, the new game about everyone's favorite spiky-haired defense lawyer. I'm a huge fan of the Ace Attorney franchise, and the big deal in this one for me is that it marks the return of Phoenix Wright to the lead role. I'm pretty sure that no one could possibly be a fan of that second-rater Apollo Justice, but if you are, don't worry: he's in there too.

More like "shouldn't you not be in this game because you're terrible and I hate you," right?

I played through the courtroom demo (there's also one about investigating crime scenes), and it's got the same mechanics of cross-examinations and pointing out contradictions that fans will recognize from the earlier entries in the series. The twist this time is Phoenix's new assistant, Athena, who has the ability to analyze the emotions of the witnesses, which lets you point out when someone is, for example, happy when they're recounting an event that should make them sad. Like, say, a murder.

These games have a lot of murders, you guys.

I hesitate to say that it's more of the same because it's got such a bad connotation, even when "the same" is fantastic, so I'll just call it a "return to greatness" instead. It's definitely something that I'm looking forward to, so... no objections here.