I've almost beaten the game a few times now, but the final stage is really a bitch. I'm at the point where I feel that I know the stage and the boss well enough to get to the end with all my lives, but I'm still not really confident I'll beat it because of the stupid rope jumping in the escape at the end.
Playing the final stage over and over has also led me to a very unfortunate conclusion: Ducktales Remastered is not a very well designed remake. It might be full of heart, but in their earnest passion to pay "true" homage to the original, I feel that they have also missed a large part of the point in the original game's design. Ducktales can be challenging at times, but it was ultimately a game about open discovery and secrets. The stages were designed to have many optional areas for completionists to explore, and secret areas which reward players for finding them.
There's still some of that in the remake, but Wayforward's insistence on making the majority of optional areas into actual parts of the progression have mostly ruined that feeling. This artificial extension of the stages also makes the pacing feel more bloated at times, and makes replays more frustrating because players cannot customize how they feel like playing the game depending on their mood (Do I want to explore everything and get tons of money today? Or do I want to try for a speed run and head straight for the bosses avoiding all the powerups and cash?) and are instead forced to play everything, each and every time.
The problems with the stage pacing and the artificial difficulty getting in the way of the fun is best highlighted in the final stage which is a Wayforward original. It is devoid of anything which makes Ducktales the fun and joyful game it is to play, and instead capitalizes on all the more frustrating parts of the game instead to make a "hardcore" experience. There is no exploration, there aren't many secrets, there is no balance of easier segments which are fun to play and shows off new enemies along with harder segments which require more effort. Every area requires "effort", and is designed in an in-your-face-look-how-hardcore-this-is way. Spiked floors, pitfalls, killer rocks, minecarts, etc.
The stage itself is extremely linear, but still long, the boss battle is relatively challenging the first time you fight it, with several new patterns to learn, and after the boss fight there is a short climbing race, which would qualify as a fun post-battle wind down epilogue like the original - not too challenging, but something a bit different and plays on the humor of the source material. Instead, here too Wayforward has to ruin the pace and tone of the original by adding yet another area after this. An actual escape as the deadly lava rises. Every mistake here means certain death, and unless you have a large stock of lives left, it could mean redoing the entire stage all over again entirely, just because you slipped on a rope. And there are many, many ropes to slip from.
I have nothing against hard games, and I actually love fair and fun challenges designed to make players learn things about a game and get better at it. But by the end of the game here, I feel the point has entirely been lost. It's not longer about designing a series of challenges which are fun to overcome and feel satisfying when you figure it out. Instead it's about seeing how many times they can punch the player in the balls. The last thing most players want to see after winning the final boss fight and feeling great, is some extra instant death platforming and rope jumping which could result in nullifying their accomplishments before this. Truly a case of how less is sometimes more.
