The Lucky Dime Caper starring Donald Duck

Welcome to the second week of Disney's Month! Today we're looking at The Lucky Dime Caper starring the one, the only, Donald Duck! The Lucky Dime Caper is a platformer that came out for the Sega Master System in 1991, and re-released on the Game Gear two years later. I have both copies of the game, but decided to focus on the Master System for this review. I'll look into the Game Gear version another time.

Okay, does NO ONE see the woman blatantly staring through the window?!

The game starts off with Uncle Scrooge giving each of his nephew a lucky dime before Magica De Spell barges in, takes the children, and Scrooge's lucky dime with her leaving it to Donald Duck to rescue the day! Don't call the police or anything...

I hope you're a fast reader because the text will just fly across the screen. You barely have enough time to finish a sentence before the next line appears, and there's no way to slow it down. There isn't even an options menu! You just go straight to the world map once the opening is finished.

  Where did I put the bug spray?

After you select a stage to fly to you'll be taken to a 2D side screen to begin your advantage. At the start you have a hammer and a jump attack. You can get a secondary weapon that's like a Frisbee, but the hammer does a lot more damage.

Each stage has its own unique enemies to fight so you're never facing the same creature twice. This brings about a lot of interesting foils to Donald and shows a lot of creativity from the game makers. 

  The fish must be hungry.

There's a time limit on each stage that starts to change color the less time you have. The time limit is actually pretty slow and I can only recall it turning yellow once during my entire playthrough.

Be weary of enemies, because if you get hit two or three times you're done for. You start off with three lives and can find more by killing enemies. Another powerup you can find are little red stars. Collect five of them and Donald will receive a limited time invulnerability. Best thing about the game is unlimited continues. If you get a game over you won't start back at the beginning of the game. Once a stage is cleared it remains clear.

  You aren't worth it, guys. You just aren't worth it.

There are only seven stages in the game with no parts to them, so it's actually a lot shorter than Mickey Mouse. You can do a run-through of the whole game in twenty-eight minutes if you're skilled enough. The first three levels are about saving the nephews, and the next three levels are spent tracking down the stolen dimes, and then you go off to face Magica De Spell herself.

The bosses are fairly challenging and can lead on to “duh” moments when you finally figure out what you're supposed to do. On the third stage I kept running away from boulders until I realized I'm supposed to smash the statues to the left and right of me. Never felt like a bigger idiot. Magica De Spell is the easiest of them all. Her crystal ball can be destroyed by the hammer in a few hits and she cowers. If it's so important WHY DO YOU HAVE IT WIDE OPEN WHERE I CAN GET TO IT?!

  Stop! Hammer Time!

The graphics held up pretty well for a Master System game. At times I would have thought it was for the Sega Genesis. All of the stages are bright and colorful and characters like Donald are drawn exactly as they appear on TV. Bonus points for making the few cut-scenes in the game match the in-game graphics, also.

Everything is clearly defined and pleasing to look at, except the waterfall in level two. Do not stare directly into the waterfall on level two. I guess the bricks seen up above aren't better in that respect, but at least they aren't moving. There's a lot going on in each of the stages without it being too jarring. The game designers should give themselves a pat on the back, they did good.

  Not worth the price of admission, dude.

After flying halfway across the world to get his nephews and the dimes back, we return to Uncle Scoorage's home where he bestows Donald Duck's reward. A lucky dime! Wow. You're rich and all you'll give him for his troubles is a dime? That's kind of dickish. Mind you, that was only for getting his dimes back after the nephews. If Donald actually needed a reward to save his own nephews he'd deserve that level of trolling.

Wait, if Donald is their uncle, and Scrooge is their uncle, then where are their parents? You only ever see them with Donald or Scrooge, I don't think their parents have ever made an appearance, have they? Did they just dump them on Donald's doorstep one day and split? What a bunch of assholes!

  Fuck this shit!

Donald Duck is what you would expect going in. Just a whacky, fun platforming game with a lot of creativity. If you love Donald Duck or enjoy platformers in general then it's worth checking out.

That concludes this week's edition of Disney's Month. Stay tuned because next week we're going to the Pride Lands!

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