Now this is where it's at. I spent a ton of time with this game as a kid. I distinctly remember playing this game on the school bus, as we rode out of town to my friend's house for a sleepover one Friday night. We were handing the Game Boy back and forth, trying to get as much of this game completed in that short trip as we could, and having a blast. I think you nailed it - the conversion did most everything right, and demonstrated quite clearly what was possible with the Game Boy, playing to its strengths, while still staying true to the vision of the original game, with a few tweaks. This is definitely in the upper echelon of non-original Game Boy games, and can be just as fun as its console big brother.
Besides the pack-in Tetris, this was my first video game. I was glued to my Game Boy that Christmas. I was young and specifically remember needing one of my parents to read the manual to explain how to do the pogo jump to cross the spikes in the Amazon. Despite the popularity of the NES version, this is the one that I knew as a kid. Re: The Moon Theme -- I know this is of the most covered and beloved NES stage themes. Although I love the theme now, when I first discovered how popular the theme was I didn't remember having fond memories of it from my Game Boy days. Re-listening to the track in this video, along with your explanation, made it clear why.
Yeah, graphics and proportions really are something quite tricky when it comes to handhelds. Though also older systems. I mess around with an Atari 800XL creating minor scraps of code and demos at times, and for a while I was really struggling to make sense of what served as a suitable reference point for it's graphics. It has a lot of weird tricks you can pull to create much more colourful stuff... But it's main graphics mode in practice, outside of elaborate tricks, is 4 (or 5) colours for the background, at a resolution of either 160x192 or 128x192 (up to the developer.) - it DOES support a 320x192 or 256x192 mode (in principle you can push it all the way to 320x240, especially on PAL hardware), but at the expense of being limited to 2 tone monochrome graphics. In addition, the 4/8 hardware sprites have independent palette entries, and if you use 3 colour sprites, each of the resulting sprites uses 2 hardware colours plus a 3rd colour defined as the logical OR of the other two. So, obviously there's a lot of contemporary stuff for this hardware. And in some respects it represents something akin to a CGA display on PC (albeit with lower resolution, but more flexible colour use) But I was trying to decide if there was anything more... Modern, to show where such graphics lead in extreme cases... Turns out, within certain limits, this is a very close match for what a gameboy color does! I mean, not when used in it's full color mode, but the hybrid games that were for gameboy AND gameboy color, such as Pokemon Yellow. Think about it. In hybrid mode you have 4 colour backgrounds, with an arbitrary 4 shades, which can be changed ingame (pokemon often does it on screen transitions). The screen resolution is 160x144... And sprites can have an independent set of 4 colours to work with. Sound familiar? So that's when i realised if I want a point of reference for how to design games for a system with this kind of graphics hardware, the goto reference point is the gameboy color, and gameboy games in general... Seemed a very strange realisation, but there you go. On another note, conversions are tricky. I realised this at some point by comparing SNES games to their GBA equivalents, since there's a lot of those (even for games that otherwise never got out of japan, such as Tales of Phantasia - graphically quite a poor conversion by the way. Also not so impressive musically as the original.) But, well, while in many ways the GBA can match and even exceed a SNES (GBA has 15 bit direct colour modes, and can do mode 7 effects on two graphics layers at once, typically alongside additional non-rotating layers. - it also has a CPU comparable in performance to the Super Nintendo if it had a SuperFX built in. Hence conversions of things like Yoshi's island, and a version of Doom that plays quite a bit better than the SNES version)... Except it has a notable weakness. The SNES output is 256x224 (or 256x240 in PAL regions), and the GBA is... 240x160. At first glance that shouldn't matter that much, but when you compare different versions side by side you quickly realise how much of the graphics of various games had to be reworked because of that. The screen also has a 1.5 to 1 aspect ratio (9:6) to the SNES's 4:3 ratio. (actually PAL systems don't have a 4:3 ratio, hence the black bars. - the practical effect of the PAL system is actually that it has an aspect ratio of roughly 1.481 to 1 - thus the GBA's screen aspect ratio is comparable to PAL systems, within a small margin.). Subtler points which do have some visual effect, but not so much gameplay effect are that the GBA has square pixels, to the SNES's 7:6 or 25:18 (NTSC and PAL respectively) aspect ratios. But let's get to that critical element; the reduced resolution. This wouldn't be such an issue except the graphics tiles are 8x8 just like they are on SNES. Thus, a GBA screen is 30x20 tiles, to the SNES having 32x28 or 32x30. The loss along the sides of the screen isn't such a big deal given that in practice most televisions had overscan that might hide these anyway, but the vertical loss is 40 to 50% of the screen area, which is definitely not trivial. That the GBA pulls off so many SNES conversions in a way that this goes unnoticed is impressive in some regards. Obviously it's far less of a loss than the original gameboy though; In that case the drop is from 256x224 to 160x144, which takes the display from 32x28 tiles to 20x18. In this case you can't write off the horizontal resolution drop as 'overscan'. The loss here is about 148%. The NES (and SNES) have nearly 2.5 times as much visible screen area, and that's far from a triviality in terms of converting games...
I was about the mention the minecart part. If there's one thing better about the NES version, it's those. Those worked a lot better on the NES, and are punishingly difficult for all the wrong reasons in this version. For whatever reason, Scrooge has trouble jumping out. I find the best way to handle those is to take a deliberate hit, since you're able to continue even if you fall out of the cart. The part with the jumping ducks in the African Mines is also more difficult compared to the NES version, and I don't feel in a good way. I'm not sure why they made the gaps so wide, but the NES gives you a lot more room for error. You need to be close to perfect. Also, there's one spot in the Himalayas that's really bad. There's a treasure chest with a cake that a spider guards that's almost impossible to grab without dying. It's a jump that requires a level of precision that I don't think is possible without advancing one frame at a time. I guess you don't need the cake, but it's a little ridiculous. It's far more difficult than anything else in the game, or anything in the NES version, but more poorly designed than a good challenge. Another advantage for the NES is hard mode, which got rid of (almost) all the cakes and magic coins. The Game Boy only gets rid of the magic coins, which are rarer anyway (only 5, compared to 9 on the NES). Combined with the slower spawn rate making the magic coins less useful anyway (the falling icicle section in the Himalayas is really the only spot where it's moderately useful), and there's minimal difference between normal and hard. Also, invisible goodies were done better on the NES. On the NES, barely grazing a hidden gem was enough to get it to appear. Here, there seems to be a "sweet spot" you need to hit for them to appear, and it's often tricky to find that spot, even when you know exactly where the gem is. A good example is the hidden diamond in the Amazon, in the area up a vine with two treasure chests. It often takes me over ten seconds to figure out how to hit the spot in the exact way to get the diamond to appear. The music isn't as good, but some levels fared better than others. I think Transylvania, in particular, fared well here. Not quite as good as the NES version, but they just kinda' went in a different direction with it, and I love how intense the drum beat gets in this version XD One plus is the $300,000 Amazon statue. In this version, you only have to pay once, and the game remembers (though the statue will still ask for another $300,000, but the way up never goes away). On the NES, if you died after paying the $300,000, you had to pay another $300,000 to climb the vine (unless you were able to figure out how to get past without paying, at least). Anyway, I can't say I agree that this version is better. It's good, but along with some more minor issues, I have to pick the NES.
I remember when I was a kid my dad and I exploited an infinite downthrust strike on certain bosses on Adventures of Link... It was akin to the Koopa Troopa infinite shell bounce on Super Mario 1 for one-ups.
Game Boy DuckTales has a special place in my gaming history as the first video game I ever owned, on my 9th birthday...in 1996. I was already a DuckTales fan, but little did I know if the game's true legacy and the storied talent behind it
This game is one of my favorites for Gameboy. Granted, it also has sentimental appeal since it reminds me of a specific time and place in my childhood, but the game is still really great. I didn't own a NES, but I knew even then how closely this matched the "full" NES experience. Plus the show was still relatively new, so there was that synergy going on. Capcom was the gold standard when it came to licensed games.
Interesting to have gotten confirmation that this is, in fact, easier than the NES version. It was, I believe, the first console-style action game I ever beat (I didn't have an NES), and when emulation became a thing, I would periodically try to play the NES version only to conclude ARGH THIS IS TOO HARD WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME. Had my skills deteriorated that much over the years? Don't get me wrong; I'm pretty sure they've deteriorated, but it's good to know it's not JUST that.
Timing can be way off from latency on an HDTV. Crt didn't have any. Be sure to set the TV to game mode for lowest latency! Some emulators have frame delays to compensate, but it's a tad complicated.
not sure how embarassed i should be to offer this correction but... Gizmoduck is a duck in a robot suit rather than an actual robot, so "he" would be more appropriate than "it." also not sure what you would do with this information, but there you go anyway :)
I never played this when it was new, and only got around to it a month or two ago when I bought it and its sequel. I agree that it's a terrific conversion that adds just enough new to not make it tedious, but I find the controls aren't as tight. I haven't played 2 yet, but in the first game I would hit enemies and it wouldn't feel like it was my fault. Also grabbing ropes I found to be a problem. I would grab the chain to go into the spaceship on the moon and fall and die unless I hit it just right. I played on my GBA SP.
10:20-10:45 The difference between the audio of the original recording session and the ADR is a bit jarring to an aspiring sound editor like myself. Also there seems to be some background audio from the video recording session that seems to have been accidentally left in the mix, most noticeably your growl of frustration when you die in the minecart pit. Other than that, a real quality video, Mr. Parish.
chrisovak Because ADR is one smaller process used in the larger process of dubbing. Dubbing is the process of taking the original recording and combining it with ADR, sound effects, music, etc. to create the final master audio track. Your question is the equivalent of asking, "Why did you say you were chopping onions instead of saying you were making soup?" Both terms are correct, but the way I phrased it was just a bit more granular. 1/10 got me to reply
Isn't 'ADR' Automated Dialogue Replacement? In other words, it describes a very specific technique that I can almost guarantee pretty much nobody on youtube is using? Simply re-recording dialogue, or adding narration over previous footage is not in and of itself ADR. Frankly it sounds like you're misusing a technical term referring to a specific process as though it were a generic one. I'm 99% sure no ADR was used in the making of this video. It's like describing the process of cooking in general as 'frying an egg', as if that is somehow a generic description of cooking. ADR is not a more granular term, it's an incorrect one, that doesn't describe the process in use.
Many assets from the nes version were ported to the gameboy including the music of course,only stipud thing is the capcom shortened and changed those level layouts to be in some cases being reversed.
I had this on the gameboy and the music and sfx definitely didn't sound broken like they do here. I wonder if thats an emulation issue or something? The moon theme sounded epic on my actual gameboy and this is deffo different
Asa kid I never finished. I kept being stuck at specific points on every level. CONTROVERSIAL OPINION: Final Fantasy I Advance was way worse than Final Fantasy Origins on Ps1.
I agree. The battle balancing was totally screwed up, thanks in part to the spell charges being changed to traditional MP. And it didn't feel like the bonus dungeons were balanced at all.
The Wayforward remake was such a letdown: they were so happy about the possibility to record lines with the original voice artists, that they forgot how cutscene in this game are an horrible, HORRIBLE, pace-breaker. Also, THE LINEARITY. The level design in the remake is awful. The Castle of Illusion remake was a better product.
As a big fan of the cartoon, I actually loved the addition of the cutscenes. Actually, this is probably my personal favorite remake of all time, because it caters to fans of both the classic game and the cartoon, and I was so disappointed that Rescue Rangers never got the same treatment. I can see where you're coming from, though. I've noticed that anybody who wasn't a fan of the cartoon tend to dislike the cutscenes in this. But hey, at least they give the option to skip them.
Now this is where it's at. I spent a ton of time with this game as a kid. I distinctly remember playing this game on the school bus, as we rode out of town to my friend's house for a sleepover one Friday night. We were handing the Game Boy back and forth, trying to get as much of this game completed in that short trip as we could, and having a blast. I think you nailed it - the conversion did most everything right, and demonstrated quite clearly what was possible with the Game Boy, playing to its strengths, while still staying true to the vision of the original game, with a few tweaks. This is definitely in the upper echelon of non-original Game Boy games, and can be just as fun as its console big brother.
Besides the pack-in Tetris, this was my first video game. I was glued to my Game Boy that Christmas. I was young and specifically remember needing one of my parents to read the manual to explain how to do the pogo jump to cross the spikes in the Amazon. Despite the popularity of the NES version, this is the one that I knew as a kid.
Re: The Moon Theme -- I know this is of the most covered and beloved NES stage themes. Although I love the theme now, when I first discovered how popular the theme was I didn't remember having fond memories of it from my Game Boy days. Re-listening to the track in this video, along with your explanation, made it clear why.
The Moon theme doesn't sound THAT bad. The biggest problem is that they put the sound effects on the most important channel.
mario64remix I figured that's what I was hearing. Whenever there were sound effects, they would replace notes.
@@BryanX64 It is bad, but the sound effects _do_ get in the way. It's a mix of both.
@@redpup6931 I love the gb moon theme and think it's better than the nes
Oh, yeah. THAT'S what that is. No wonder it sounds garbled.
That out of tune note at 0:22 is like "BLORP!"
these are criminally underwatched
Yeah, graphics and proportions really are something quite tricky when it comes to handhelds.
Though also older systems. I mess around with an Atari 800XL creating minor scraps of code and demos at times, and for a while I was really struggling to make sense of what served as a suitable reference point for it's graphics.
It has a lot of weird tricks you can pull to create much more colourful stuff...
But it's main graphics mode in practice, outside of elaborate tricks, is 4 (or 5) colours for the background, at a resolution of either 160x192 or 128x192 (up to the developer.) - it DOES support a 320x192 or 256x192 mode (in principle you can push it all the way to 320x240, especially on PAL hardware), but at the expense of being limited to 2 tone monochrome graphics.
In addition, the 4/8 hardware sprites have independent palette entries, and if you use 3 colour sprites, each of the resulting sprites uses 2 hardware colours plus a 3rd colour defined as the logical OR of the other two.
So, obviously there's a lot of contemporary stuff for this hardware. And in some respects it represents something akin to a CGA display on PC (albeit with lower resolution, but more flexible colour use)
But I was trying to decide if there was anything more... Modern, to show where such graphics lead in extreme cases...
Turns out, within certain limits, this is a very close match for what a gameboy color does!
I mean, not when used in it's full color mode, but the hybrid games that were for gameboy AND gameboy color, such as Pokemon Yellow.
Think about it. In hybrid mode you have 4 colour backgrounds, with an arbitrary 4 shades, which can be changed ingame (pokemon often does it on screen transitions). The screen resolution is 160x144...
And sprites can have an independent set of 4 colours to work with.
Sound familiar? So that's when i realised if I want a point of reference for how to design games for a system with this kind of graphics hardware, the goto reference point is the gameboy color, and gameboy games in general...
Seemed a very strange realisation, but there you go.
On another note, conversions are tricky.
I realised this at some point by comparing SNES games to their GBA equivalents, since there's a lot of those (even for games that otherwise never got out of japan, such as Tales of Phantasia - graphically quite a poor conversion by the way. Also not so impressive musically as the original.)
But, well, while in many ways the GBA can match and even exceed a SNES (GBA has 15 bit direct colour modes, and can do mode 7 effects on two graphics layers at once, typically alongside additional non-rotating layers. - it also has a CPU comparable in performance to the Super Nintendo if it had a SuperFX built in. Hence conversions of things like Yoshi's island, and a version of Doom that plays quite a bit better than the SNES version)...
Except it has a notable weakness.
The SNES output is 256x224 (or 256x240 in PAL regions), and the GBA is... 240x160.
At first glance that shouldn't matter that much, but when you compare different versions side by side you quickly realise how much of the graphics of various games had to be reworked because of that.
The screen also has a 1.5 to 1 aspect ratio (9:6) to the SNES's 4:3 ratio. (actually PAL systems don't have a 4:3 ratio, hence the black bars. - the practical effect of the PAL system is actually that it has an aspect ratio of roughly 1.481 to 1 - thus the GBA's screen aspect ratio is comparable to PAL systems, within a small margin.). Subtler points which do have some visual effect, but not so much gameplay effect are that the GBA has square pixels, to the SNES's 7:6 or 25:18 (NTSC and PAL respectively) aspect ratios.
But let's get to that critical element; the reduced resolution. This wouldn't be such an issue except the graphics tiles are 8x8 just like they are on SNES.
Thus, a GBA screen is 30x20 tiles, to the SNES having 32x28 or 32x30. The loss along the sides of the screen isn't such a big deal given that in practice most televisions had overscan that might hide these anyway, but the vertical loss is 40 to 50% of the screen area, which is definitely not trivial.
That the GBA pulls off so many SNES conversions in a way that this goes unnoticed is impressive in some regards.
Obviously it's far less of a loss than the original gameboy though; In that case the drop is from 256x224 to 160x144, which takes the display from 32x28 tiles to 20x18. In this case you can't write off the horizontal resolution drop as 'overscan'. The loss here is about 148%. The NES (and SNES) have nearly 2.5 times as much visible screen area, and that's far from a triviality in terms of converting games...
I was about the mention the minecart part. If there's one thing better about the NES version, it's those. Those worked a lot better on the NES, and are punishingly difficult for all the wrong reasons in this version. For whatever reason, Scrooge has trouble jumping out. I find the best way to handle those is to take a deliberate hit, since you're able to continue even if you fall out of the cart.
The part with the jumping ducks in the African Mines is also more difficult compared to the NES version, and I don't feel in a good way. I'm not sure why they made the gaps so wide, but the NES gives you a lot more room for error. You need to be close to perfect.
Also, there's one spot in the Himalayas that's really bad. There's a treasure chest with a cake that a spider guards that's almost impossible to grab without dying. It's a jump that requires a level of precision that I don't think is possible without advancing one frame at a time. I guess you don't need the cake, but it's a little ridiculous. It's far more difficult than anything else in the game, or anything in the NES version, but more poorly designed than a good challenge.
Another advantage for the NES is hard mode, which got rid of (almost) all the cakes and magic coins. The Game Boy only gets rid of the magic coins, which are rarer anyway (only 5, compared to 9 on the NES). Combined with the slower spawn rate making the magic coins less useful anyway (the falling icicle section in the Himalayas is really the only spot where it's moderately useful), and there's minimal difference between normal and hard.
Also, invisible goodies were done better on the NES. On the NES, barely grazing a hidden gem was enough to get it to appear. Here, there seems to be a "sweet spot" you need to hit for them to appear, and it's often tricky to find that spot, even when you know exactly where the gem is. A good example is the hidden diamond in the Amazon, in the area up a vine with two treasure chests. It often takes me over ten seconds to figure out how to hit the spot in the exact way to get the diamond to appear.
The music isn't as good, but some levels fared better than others. I think Transylvania, in particular, fared well here. Not quite as good as the NES version, but they just kinda' went in a different direction with it, and I love how intense the drum beat gets in this version XD
One plus is the $300,000 Amazon statue. In this version, you only have to pay once, and the game remembers (though the statue will still ask for another $300,000, but the way up never goes away). On the NES, if you died after paying the $300,000, you had to pay another $300,000 to climb the vine (unless you were able to figure out how to get past without paying, at least).
Anyway, I can't say I agree that this version is better. It's good, but along with some more minor issues, I have to pick the NES.
What did they do to my moon theme????
I miss the good old days of coming home from school and grabbing a pop tart and watching the cartoon.
I remember when I was a kid my dad and I exploited an infinite downthrust strike on certain bosses on Adventures of Link... It was akin to the Koopa Troopa infinite shell bounce on Super Mario 1 for one-ups.
Game Boy DuckTales has a special place in my gaming history as the first video game I ever owned, on my 9th birthday...in 1996. I was already a DuckTales fan, but little did I know if the game's true legacy and the storied talent behind it
Loved that game as a kid
This was the only version of the game I had, since I didn't have an NES. Looked like an impressively, close port to me.
Great episode Jeremy!
Excellent work as always, Jeremy!
I have this game for both gameboy and NES
This game is one of my favorites for Gameboy. Granted, it also has sentimental appeal since it reminds me of a specific time and place in my childhood, but the game is still really great. I didn't own a NES, but I knew even then how closely this matched the "full" NES experience. Plus the show was still relatively new, so there was that synergy going on. Capcom was the gold standard when it came to licensed games.
Interesting to have gotten confirmation that this is, in fact, easier than the NES version. It was, I believe, the first console-style action game I ever beat (I didn't have an NES), and when emulation became a thing, I would periodically try to play the NES version only to conclude ARGH THIS IS TOO HARD WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME. Had my skills deteriorated that much over the years? Don't get me wrong; I'm pretty sure they've deteriorated, but it's good to know it's not JUST that.
Timing can be way off from latency on an HDTV. Crt didn't have any. Be sure to set the TV to game mode for lowest latency! Some emulators have frame delays to compensate, but it's a tad complicated.
not sure how embarassed i should be to offer this correction but... Gizmoduck is a duck in a robot suit rather than an actual robot, so "he" would be more appropriate than "it." also not sure what you would do with this information, but there you go anyway :)
I never played this when it was new, and only got around to it a month or two ago when I bought it and its sequel. I agree that it's a terrific conversion that adds just enough new to not make it tedious, but I find the controls aren't as tight. I haven't played 2 yet, but in the first game I would hit enemies and it wouldn't feel like it was my fault. Also grabbing ropes I found to be a problem. I would grab the chain to go into the spaceship on the moon and fall and die unless I hit it just right. I played on my GBA SP.
Funny story: I've played the remake and the Game Boy port, but I've never played the NES original.
Draygone Fuzzbottom Same. The GameBoy version was the first Game I owned when I was younger. I Have Played Remastered but looking for the NES original
My sides hurt. ;)
@1:22 is that a Numemon?
You are an excellent reviewer. Well spoken. Thank you for viewing pleasure. FIVE STARS!!!!!!
11:00-11:08-- Fast forward to 2023-- I believe the Steam Deck would like a word with you. (and the Disney Afternoon Collection is Steam Deck verified)
Steam Duck
Isn't the GB Ducktales Moon theme the one that's more famous though?
No, that's the NES version. The GB version is the NES version except bad.
Great episode
10:20-10:45 The difference between the audio of the original recording session and the ADR is a bit jarring to an aspiring sound editor like myself. Also there seems to be some background audio from the video recording session that seems to have been accidentally left in the mix, most noticeably your growl of frustration when you die in the minecart pit. Other than that, a real quality video, Mr. Parish.
furrymessiah Please explain why you used the term ADR opposed to dubbing. I would like the paper turned in by Monday!
chrisovak Because ADR is one smaller process used in the larger process of dubbing. Dubbing is the process of taking the original recording and combining it with ADR, sound effects, music, etc. to create the final master audio track.
Your question is the equivalent of asking, "Why did you say you were chopping onions instead of saying you were making soup?" Both terms are correct, but the way I phrased it was just a bit more granular.
1/10 got me to reply
Isn't 'ADR' Automated Dialogue Replacement? In other words, it describes a very specific technique that I can almost guarantee pretty much nobody on youtube is using?
Simply re-recording dialogue, or adding narration over previous footage is not in and of itself ADR.
Frankly it sounds like you're misusing a technical term referring to a specific process as though it were a generic one.
I'm 99% sure no ADR was used in the making of this video.
It's like describing the process of cooking in general as 'frying an egg', as if that is somehow a generic description of cooking.
ADR is not a more granular term, it's an incorrect one, that doesn't describe the process in use.
Many assets from the nes version were ported to the gameboy including the music of course,only stipud thing is the capcom shortened and changed those level layouts to be in some cases being reversed.
I had this on the gameboy and the music and sfx definitely didn't sound broken like they do here. I wonder if thats an emulation issue or something? The moon theme sounded epic on my actual gameboy and this is deffo different
This was recorded via Game Boy Player 2 on a one-chip Super NES. No emulation was involved. It's all original Nintendo hardware running as intended.
Awesome review I didn't know the GB version was this good.
I play the game boy version of ducktales when I was a kid and I still like it. 😀👍🎮
No thumbs down! Damn straight!
Asa kid I never finished. I kept being stuck at specific points on every level. CONTROVERSIAL OPINION: Final Fantasy I Advance was way worse than Final Fantasy Origins on Ps1.
I agree. The battle balancing was totally screwed up, thanks in part to the spell charges being changed to traditional MP. And it didn't feel like the bonus dungeons were balanced at all.
That's not a controversial opinion, it's simply true. FF Origins is THE definitive version of FF1. I like the other GBA Final Fantasy remakes, though.
The definitive version? What about the PSP release? I haven't played it myself, so I don't know how it holds up.
The PSP version is based on the GBA version. Origins is the way to go.
Jeremy Parish I know this was 3 years ago, but if you are so inclined, what’s the best version for each of the first 6 Final Fantasy games?
The Wayforward remake was such a letdown: they were so happy about the possibility to record lines with the original voice artists, that they forgot how cutscene in this game are an horrible, HORRIBLE, pace-breaker. Also, THE LINEARITY. The level design in the remake is awful. The Castle of Illusion remake was a better product.
As a big fan of the cartoon, I actually loved the addition of the cutscenes. Actually, this is probably my personal favorite remake of all time, because it caters to fans of both the classic game and the cartoon, and I was so disappointed that Rescue Rangers never got the same treatment.
I can see where you're coming from, though. I've noticed that anybody who wasn't a fan of the cartoon tend to dislike the cutscenes in this. But hey, at least they give the option to skip them.