May 2018 Game of the Month: Quackshot Starring Donald Duck

[lilbud]

@meleu I updated the text for the GOTM challenge

[lilbud]

You know, that...wasn't terrible

I had a blast playing Quackshot. Great music and graphics, Donald felt a little slippery to control but otherwise a great game

[pjft]

I hadn't played Quackshot before, though I had my eye on it and was just waiting for the right excuse to give it a shot. I played a bit yesterday, made it through the first 3 levels (to the point where we get the map and a few more levels open up) before having to call it a night.

It's a nice game, not too hard, and has enough variety to keep it from becoming repetitive. I hope to find some time to finish it during the month! Thanks for naming it game of the month - great choice.

[mediamogul]

@lilbud said in May Game of the Month: Quackshot Starring Donald Duck:

Great music and graphics, Donald felt a little slippery to control

The graphics are very nice. Sega really had a knack for stellar visuals during this time. Unfortunately, I just haven't really taken to the overall game myself. Donald is indeed a bit slippery on the ground and his aerial maneuverability when jumping is also somewhat unwieldy. It's not that it makes the game particularly difficult, but at the same time, I just haven't had that much fun playing it. That combined with the static enemy AI just had me wanting a bit more of a challenge from Pete and his gang.

Obviously this is just my personal opinion, but I feel that these particular issues are almost non-existent in Disney Interactive's release of 'Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow' only a few years later. Still, I'm really glad to have tried it out, as the box art and screen shots have caught my eye for years, ever since I first saw the flap hanging in the video game aisle of Toys 'R' Us.

[ruckage]

@lilbud said in May Game of the Month: Quackshot Starring Donald Duck:

You know, that...wasn't terrible
I had a blast playing Quackshot. Great music and graphics, Donald felt a little slippery to control but otherwise a great game

Glad you enjoyed it in the end, well done for the achievement.

@mediamogul said in May Game of the Month: Quackshot Starring Donald Duck:

Unfortunately, I just haven't really taken to the overall game myself. Donald is indeed a bit slippery on the ground and his aerial maneuverability when jumping is also somewhat unwieldy. It's not that it makes the game particularly difficult, but at the same time, I just haven't had that much fun playing it.

We can't all enjoy the same games, but you gave it a try at least. The sega developed disney games all had a similar look and feel to them even if the gameplay differed and I personally really enjoyed them all (Megadrive version of Castle of Illusion being my personal favourite).

I've only briefly played Maui Mallard and wasn't sure about it, I'll maybe have to give it a proper go at some point.

[lilbud]

Thought I'd post this for Y'all.

When fighting the final boss, wait for him to throw his sword. Hit him with the popcorn gun, jump behind him and switch to the bubble gun. shoot bubble the second he stops flashing, repeat until dead. The rocks will never fall from above, making the achievement of the month laughably easy.

[mediamogul]

@ruckage

I've played 'Castle of Illusion' a little more and although there are similar flaws, I believe I was much more taken with the theme, being darker in tone. Considering the amount of releases over the years, it speaks to Disney's enduring brand quality that most of their games are generally well thought of.

[jwbmonk]

I can't seem to get cheevos to work for this game it just says "there are no achievements" this is the only game I've had this issue with

[meleu]

@jwbmonk you're probably using an incompatible ROM.

Check the OP on the RetroAchievements forum topic for this game: http://retroachievements.org/viewtopic.php?t=41

[mediamogul]

@jwbmonk

I had the same issue. This was also the first ROM I've noticed to be incompatible for me as well.

[meleu]

@mediamogul we did a massive clean up on the last couple of months. We had so many cheated ROMs linked to games. I mean patched ROMs changed to have infinite lives/money/ammo/whatever...

We also unlinked many ROMs where the RAM doesn't behave like in the ROM used by the achievement developer.

Also, there's a big chance that many actually compatible ROMs were unlinked in this process. But if you guys are pretty sure it was working before, you can post the checksum of your existing ROM in the forum topic of the respective game and also the exact name you have for it and a developer will review it with you to see if it is compatible. Reporting on our discord server gives more visibility for this request. https://discordapp.com/invite/TdfC3r7

[mediamogul]

@meleu said in May Game of the Month: Quackshot Starring Donald Duck:

But if you guys are pretty sure it was working before, you can post the checksum

It might be a good idea to see if @jwbmonk and I are using the same ROM. I'll post the checksum of mine here a bit later today.

[mediamogul]

Ok, my CRC32 Checksum is a5c946b3.

This is for the (UE) ROM dump. Judging by the forum link above, only the (W) ROM dumps are currently compatible.

[meleu]

@mediamogul Yeah, your ROM is incompatible...

We recommend achievement developers to choose NTSC USA release ROMs if available, because 60 FPS is a smoother gaming experience. PAL European releases run at 50 FPS, and are to be avoided in most cases. NTSC Japan releases also run at 60 FPS , but is only the best choice if the game was a Japan-exclusive release. Needing to resort to a PAL European release game should be a last resort case (Europe-only exclusive), and is typically a very select few unique games from the entire console's library.

[mediamogul]

@meleu

Isn't (UE) the same ROM classification as (W) depending of whether or not you're using 'Good' or 'TOSEC' releases? I had read in the past that these particular titles adjust their timing based on region detection.

[cyperghost]

@mediamogul This is very interesting ;) ROM Suffix Explanations
For sure (W) should be (JUE) ;)

[mediamogul]

@cyperghost

So, I guess the final question would be, are (UE) and (JUE) viable for the RetroAchievements, seeing as how they, alongside (U) and (W) are all NTSC compliant?

[mediamogul]

@meleu, @cyperghost

I believe I figured it out. The full name of the 'Good' dump in question is:

QuackShot Starring Donald Duck (UE) ~ QuackShot - I Love Donald Duck - Guruzia Ou no Hihou (J) (v1.1)

After studying up on the 'Good' naming conventions, the (UE) is meant to denote the English title that precedes it, whereas (J) denotes it's Japanese name. So, it looks like this ROM is in fact a (JUE), making it the same as (W) in TOSEC. I guess there were never any other regional versions of 'Quackshot' released other than this one. I'll make a report to the discord server when I have some time.

[meleu]

@mediamogul you can also give me the md5 and I link it to our database. And then you can test it to see if it'll work. There's an easy cheevo for this test: getting 5 peppers in Duckburg.

[obsidianspider]

I don't go for retro achievements, but I really enjoyed this game. I played it on my Genesis and while a bit confusing at parts, I had a lot of fun. Did anyone else think it was a bit odd that the powerup to give you full health was a cooked duck? (Ok, maybe a chicken or turkey, but still.)