PrinceWatercress plays Lucky Dime Caper Starring Donald Duck - The Longplay

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PrinceWatercress plays Lucky Dime Caper Starring Donald Duck - Part 4 of 4

It's time to face Magica DeSpell and get our dime back!

Magica's Castle

The silk hats are skeletons. When you jump over the hats, they'll come out of the ground with the hats on their heads and throw bones at you. Run straight to the right at the bridge at the start, and the bones won't hit you.

The forks float upwards for a second before coming at you prongs first.

Just like in the igloo in Antarctica, you can leap into gaps in the ceiling to make your way up the castle.

The ghosts just fly back and forth. They're really easy to get rid of.

The green platforms will do different things. Some will move in a specific direction, others move in a pattern, and others will just simply disappear. You'll have to know which one does what in order to get through this castle without taking damage. Some of them will take you dangerously close to spikes, especially spiked ceilings which you'll have to duck under in order to survive.

The red spiked balls are spikes that can move back and forth.

The paintings of Magica will crush you much like the Thwomps in Super Mario Bros. 3, but they start moving long before you get close to them. You can jump on top of them to get past them if you need to.

Be careful as you make your way through the castle, as it is possible to go backwards. When you reach the roof of the castle, go right instead of left, otherwise you'll be needlessly backtracking. Also, you'll see the ghosts flying around near the top of the screen swooping down at you when you're close enough.

Green ghosts will pop out of the mirrors when you pass by them. They look very similar to the thin ghost in the classic Lonesome Ghosts cartoon. If you keep going, though, you'll evade them for a while, but they'll eventually catch up you in a matter of seconds. Go ahead and hit them with your weapon if you have to. 

The suits of armor carry a double-edged spear in both hands. Be patient as you wait for them to lower and rise accordingly. They always drop the left spear, followed by the right one followed by both.

The blue balls bounce into each other and make a clanging noise as they touch. Be ready to jump over or duck under the balls to avoid them.

The candles' flames will drop to the floor, making it slightly more difficult to get around. When you reach the room that has them, go right and take the high road. Do not take the lower path; otherwise, you'll have to do the whole candle section again.

When you reach Magica, you won't be able to do anything to her. Instead, you'll have to destroy her crystal ball. As you do this, she'll summon lightning bolts that move down and towards you and bombs that drop straight down from the sky. The crystal ball goes down after a few hits, and after you destroy it, you'll get Scrooge's lucky dime back as Magica admits defeat. You can jump on it numerous times, but unless you have a weapon to sacrifice a an extra hit, you're going to die doing this. Nevertheless, this is the best strategy.

Afterwards, Donald gets his reward, and you've won the game! Congratulations!

PrinceWatercress plays Lucky Dime Caper Starring Donald Duck - Part 3 of 4

In this episode, we find the nephews' dimes, then find out that our own dime is in Magica DeSpell's castle.

Egypt

The scorpions move back and forth, and the sandworms will only get you if you stay in the quicksand for too long (which only moves if you don't jump across it and stay still).

In the second section, you'll see spears come out of certain walls and also deal with blocks trying to drop down on you. Keep moving to the right when you see the first set of blocks on the ceiling, and keep nudging to the right on the second set so you can move away accordingly and learn the layout.

You'll see a door midway through the second section. If you enter it, you'll see some chests. Attack the chests and see what you get. Beware, as a few of them are mimics that will leap towards you and try to bite you. If you're lucky, you can get some 1-Ups out of the proceedings. Don't worry about the ceiling coming down and killing you. You automatically leave the room after a set amount of time. 

In the third section, you'll see scorpions falling from the ceiling. Avoid these and make your way through all the quicksand.

In the fourth section, avoid all the blocks that fall from the top of the screen. They fall in one of two pre-determined patterns, so they're not going  fall the same exact way every time. When they stop falling, go up the blocks and jump into the top of the screen to leave the room. Thankfully, these blocks do not instantly kill you if they fall on top of you.

You'll then be at the top of the pyramid for the fifth section. Go through one of the doors and get past the traps inside to find the key. Take it back to the double doors with the keyhole and you'll fight the boss. If you stick to the top route, you'll be able to enter the second and fourth doors there for power-ups one last time, and you can keep entering them to stock up on lives. (The first and third doors lead to nothing.) Be sure to run back and forth when you come back out of the room so you can center the camera.

The crow here will summon snakes. You may have seen these in one of the rooms in the previous section, but if you didn't: they'll poke their heads out of the pots and you'll have to avoid them. Those are just the small ones, and the crow doesn't summon them. Instead, he summons a huge one that spits some sort of gas at you. The notes that come down are his attack, but you can jump on his head three times to get rid of him. The flying disc makes this boss battle easier, though. You now have the second dime.

Antarctica

Pay attention to where the snow falls. When the snow falls, the wind blows, and Donald will be pushed in that direction. This will be necessary to make some of the jumps in this stage, as some gaps will be a bit too long for you to clear otherwise.

Donald will be freezing here, and if you lose a life in this stage, Donald will be frozen solid before he drops down the screen.

You'll see a bunch of yetis walking and sliding around. Using your weapon is a better choice here, since they sometimes slide around and your jump could miss. The ones that slide around are easier to beat.

Some of the pits of frozen water contain swordfish that jump in and out.

For the second section, Donald enters an igloo. In this igloo, there are multiple paths, and you'll be dealing with snowmen that form walls of either ice cubes or snowman heads. If you don't have a weapon, you won't be able to break the ice cubes. If you see the snowmen, kill them off.

As you make your way inside and outside and back again, you'll see the yetis walk out of doors and also walk in from the side of the screen where the entrance to the next screen is, so be careful.

The crow here will come down and throw ice cubes at you. It will also dive-bomb you if the ice cube is bouncing back and forth across the screen, but if you hit the crow before it can do that and it's still flashing at the time of the dive-bomb, the crow won't be able to damage you at all. The flying disc makes this boss a snap. Just don't repeatedly attack the crow from below, because it's extremely likely that the crow will come straight down and touch you, causing you to lose your weapon.

If you do lose your weapon, you can use the ice cube it throws to boost your jump and get on top of the crow. Just be mindful of that dive-bomb attack.

When you beat all three crows, they'll tell you that Magica has Scrooge's dime in her castle.

PrinceWatercress plays Lucky Dime Caper Starring Donald Duck - Part 2 of 4

We've rescued our nephews, but their lucky dimes were also taken. We'll have to get those back, too.

Huey Stage

The vultures here will try to drop cacti on you, and the vases have turned sentient and have faces of what look like Mayan soldiers. Just look at that cold gaze.

The natives aren't any better, as they want to come after you with what a bat. C'mon, game. When I think of South America, I don't think of people of many skin colors in fedoras and ponchos coming after me in a complete rage with a bat. Some step back, then move forward again with the potential to jump; others throw sticks at you.

When you're going down the hill (which has the most awkward transition from regular gameplay that I've ever seen, Master System programming or not), avoid the rocks and jump on the vultures. You'll have to jump over the rocks as late as possible to clear them.

When you reach the end of the hill, you'll enter a building. Take out the moving wall so that enemies don't keep spawning out of it and you can continue your quest. If you don't have the mallet at this point, you can keep beating up enemies here until you get a weapon or you can jump on the blocks after the enemies have come out. You'll see another moving wall near the end of this section.

Enemies will spawn out of the two blocks with the weird monster face you saw on the moving wall. Take them out and move on, since you can't destroy the blocks.

The blue blocks will fly at you in different directions. Avoid them all. Jump onto each platform one at a time, and make sure only one blue block is airborne and on-screen at any given time, and avoid them accordingly.

The blow darts won't hurt you if they've already hit the ground. Proceed slowly here if you need to, and pay attention to the ceiling as you go.

After going down another hill, you'll face the boss. The boss here is that monster head you saw in the second section. It splits in two and possesses the statues here. The statues will throw boulders, which you can jump on and ride to get up to the statues' level and either jump on their heads or hit them with your weapon. Do not jump on the glowing boulders, as they [b]will[/b] damage you.

Having either weapon is perfect for this. You can also throw the disc straight up in addition to left and right. Just remember that the disc will not have much range and eventually fall if you throw it straight up. If you have the mallet, you can stay in the corners, jump up and hit each statue twice without having to rely on the boulders.

When you beat both statues, the monster head will come at you. Hit it once to get rid of it. You've finally rescued Huey.

When you rescue all three of your nephews, you'll find out that they know where their dimes are, but not Scrooge's dime. Your next mission is to go find all three of the nephews' dimes.

Hawaii

If Donald Duck loses a life here, he catches fire and becomes a human fireball as he drops down. That is just nuts for a Disney game. He also breaks a sweat and starts gasping for air if you stand perfectly still in this stage. Nice attention there, game developers.

You'll be dealing with more natives with bats here, as well as volcanic flame jets that rise from the ground as well as tiki statues that spit fireballs. If you have the frisbee, you're going to have an easier time here (especially with the statues, as taking them on without a weapon can be difficult). If not, you'll have to wait for the fireballs to disappear before getting close to the tikis. Their fireballs arc upwards a bit before they hit the ground and disappear, and you can easily stand below them.

When you see the volcano in the background, keep an eye on the sky for the rocks that erupt from it. They'll come down like meteors and also come down on your head if you're either not expecting it or not paying attention.

Press Up to enter the doors.

In the second section, you'll be dealing with stone heads in the walls as well as stone heads that pop out of the background. The ones in the background will spout out a stream of lava that doesn't go very far at all despite going straight down to the floor, and the ones in the wall spit out fireballs.

In the third section, you'll also have bats that fly around, but they're pretty easy to defeat. There will be a door in the middle of this section, but you'll need the key for it first.

When you move right past the door, the flaming rocks will be back with a vengeance, but this time they'll rise from the lava. When they hit the ceiling, they'll come straight down. You'll have to get past these rocks in order to get the key, then you'll have to come back to unlock the door, meaning that you'll have to deal with them twice.

The fourth section is more or less like the second section, except you're going up instead of down.

For the fifth section, you'll be jumping from one transparent block to another to reach the door on the other side. Watch the ceiling, as green droplets will come down and melt them out of existance for a second or two. They have an interesting pattern that changes as you go forward, as they can show up in pairs and alternate between two sets of blocks.

For the sixth section, you'll have to wait for the fireballs to melt the blocks before you can choose either the left door or the right. Be careful with the fireballs as they can damage you. Regardless of which door you choose, you'll take a path that takes you to the boss. It should be mentioned that you have to be on the blocks in order for the fireballs to drop down and melt the blocks; otherwise, you're gonna be stuck.

The boss is one of Magica DeSpell's crows is crow will fly from one side of the screen to the other and drop a bomb on the ground. Always stay on the opposite end of the screen as the crow, jump when the crow is about to hit you with the dive-bomb attack so you land on him, then run to the other side. Keep doing this until the crow is gone, After that, you'll see one of the dimes.

PrinceWatercress plays Lucky Dime Caper Starring Donald Duck - Part 1 of 4

I grew up with the Game Gear version, but never beat it. Might as well rectify that by playing the game in some form.

Here's the story for this underrated Disney-Sega gem: Uncle Scrooge McDuck gives Huey, Dewey and Louie three dimes as Donald Duck looks on. As this happens, Magica De Spell watches from a window and plots something. These dimes are supposedly lucky and the luck you get is based on how hard they work.

When they leave the building, three giant black birds swoop down and steal the three nephews. Magica De Spell swoops down and steals Scrooge's lucky dime in an attempt to become even richer than Scrooge. Not only does Donald have to save his nephews, but he also has to find the Lucky Dime if he wants Scrooge's reward for it.

Anyway, this was released on Sega Master System in Europe only, but was also released on Game Gear in America. There are differences between the two versions: on Game Gear, power-ups are spread out across the stage, there is no timer, and you can only move forwards. On Master System, you can move backwards as well as forwards, but you can only get power-ups from enemies. There is a timer on the Master System version, but it is very generous and you don't have to worry about running out of time very much.

When you start the game, you'll have a map. Switch between the stages with Up and Down on the D-Pad, and press 2 to select your stage. I'm assuming red is Huey, blue is Dewey and green is Louie.

Louie Stage

The D-Pad let you move (and duck), while 1 lets you attack and 2 lets you jump. You can also jump on enemies, if you so choose.

Anyway, Donald Duck can whack enemies by jumping on them or using his mallet. If you get hit once, though, you lose the mallet. If you get hit without the mallet, you die.

Every other enemy you kill will give you a random item.

The stars give you red diamonds that show up in the upper-left corner. Each one you collect actually lets you use your weapon faster, and makes it a little more powerful. Five red diamonds gives you invincibility, and while that is nice, you'll have to pick up stars and get those  A word of caution: you'll have to wait for items to hit the ground before you can pick them up. The red and blue gems give you points, while the Donald Duck heads give you extra lives.

There are also two weapons: a mallet (signified by a mallet) and a flying disc (signified by a light blue circle), and you can switch between the two by getting the corresponding power-up from enemies. Obviously, you'll have more distance with the flying disc, but you'll have to wait for your projectile to disappear before throwing another one. If you die, you'll keep the weapon you had last. If you had the flying disc before you lost a life, you'll still have the flying disc on your next life. This is also regardless of how you die, which is really nice.

The stages are timed, as as you spend time in the level, this bar goes down. It starts out blue, then orange. The more time you have left at the end of the stage, the better the time bonus you'll get when you beat it.

The enemies here are pretty straightforward. The mushrooms move forward, the spiders swing around when you hit them with a weapon and fall when you hit them again (though you can easily jump on them), and the bees can evade your attacks. It's not that bad, honestly; the enemies are as easy as they come.

Wait for the white trampoline platform to go all the way down before jumping to get the highest possible jump.

The moles with the leaves above their heads actually blow the leaves upwards so they can act as platforms for you.

Jump into the vines to grab them, then wait for them to stop moving at the other end to jump to the other side.

The beavers dig in and out of their dams and throw sticks at you.

The boss is a bear. He's really, really easy, and you can just follow him around and hit him with your jump attack. When you hit him, he has an invulnerability flash as he runs to the other side. You can hit him as soon as he comes out of it, which causes him to run to the other side again. Sometimes he will jump; just wait for him to land before hitting him again. He goes down after three hits.

Louie is okay, and Donald now has two stages to go.

Dewey Stage

Aside from the piranhas that bite at you, the snakes that jump around and the birds that fly across the screen and try to drop boulders on you, the beginning of this stage isn't really that difficult. If snakes are on the right side of a platform, they will jump straight up and down; if they are on the left side, they will jump back and forth until you defeat them.

You can take a ride on the turtles to get across the water.

At the beginning of the section, run all the way to the right immediately so you don't get hit by the rock. Be careful of the piranhas. You'll eventually have to swim when you reach the bottom.

Be careful as you swim, as the water is full of piranhas and swimming can be a pain in the butt unless you mash the button. There are also spikes that will drop down, so watch out for them. Also, you will not be able to use your mallet or flying disc when underwater, and you'll be completely defenseless until you get out...so avoid any and all enemies.

The boss here is a lion who will zoom from one part of the screen to the other. Rather than attack him with your weapon, jump on his head. Stay on a branch, jump over him when he jumps over the gap, and hit him in the head before dropping down and heading back to the branch. It won't look like you're dealing damage, but you are. When he leaps over the pits, you'll have to be over his head so he doesn't hit you. He'll go down after a couple hits and you'll be able to rescue Dewey. He's okay as well, so it's time to go find Huey.