Duck Hunt

Duck Hunt

NES - USA - 1st Edition.

Developer Nintendo Publisher Nintendo Published 1984-04-21 Platforms MSX, NES, PlayChoice-10, VS. System Genres Light gun, Single-screen Themes Cartoon, Hunting Series Duck Hunt Multiplayer Alternating versus Distribution Commercial

Duck Hunt is a light gun video game developed and published by Nintendo originally released on the Famicom in 1984-04-21 and later on the VS. System, Nintendo Entertainment System, and finally the PlayChoice-10. Strangely, in 2004, a company ported it to the long since obsolete MSX. This is the first game featuring the creative design of Hiroji Kiyotake who would later go on to create Metroid and several other Nintendo franchises. The dog and duck later showed up in Super Smash Bros. 4.

The game has two main formats: shooting ducks or shooting clay pigeons. The titular duck hunting format features a cartoon dog scaring ducks out of the bushes into the air where you must shoot them, but you're only granted three shots. As the game progresses in difficulty, the movement of the ducks become more erratic and they flay away sooner. The clay pigeons format uses a more realistic display where clay pigeons are catapulted away from you, and you are awarded points based on when you shoot them. The further away they are when you hit them, the more points are awarded. In both formats, if you miss too many shots, you lose the game, and, the number of successful hits necessary to advance to the next level grows.

Personal

Own?	Yes. In Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt multi-cart.
Won?	No.

I first played this game when my brother and I bought the NES Action Set around 1988 which came with a Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt multicart and a Zapper. One day, just to see how far I could get with cheating, I played the game with the gun directly in front of the TV and played long enough that the game stopped becoming more difficult. When I learned that there was no end to it, I became bored with the game and stopped playing it.

One interesting thing I found while playing with a debugger is the programmers actually trapped the max level to give a planned game over if you reach level 100 (which is displayed as 0), rather than having infinite play or a bugged kill screen.

I own the game in the Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt multi-cart. I can play indefinitely by getting extremely close to the television, but I'm not going to sit around until I reach level 100.

Review

3	4	3	4	3

Best Version: VS. System

Good

• For the first few minutes you play the game, you'll probably enjoy yourself.
• The cartoon graphics of the dog and ducks have a very Western animation feel to them, like they were lifted from Loony Tunes and their silliness, particularly the giggling dog and dying duck animation give the game a nice feel. This is noticeably contrasted with the more serious clay pigeons which has a more subdued look. Both have simple, but effective artwork.
• The game has some nice memorable jingles composed by Hirokazu Tanaka.
• The VS. System port adds an additional bonus round which allows you to finally shoot the stupid giggling dog, though this actually hurts your bonus score.

Bad

• Although the game ends at round 100, the difficultly stops increasing after only a handful of rounds and then caps out and repeats itself causing the rest of the game to be dull.
• The Vs. System puts the ammo status bar at the top of the screen where it obscures your targets.

Ugly

• All of the game play is effectively the same. Although there are multiple game modes, you're essentially doing the exact same thing in each one. There just isn't that much content to the game.

Media

Box Art

• 

  The original Japanese art. It accurately represents the game with its cartoony style.

• 

  The North American box art uses the awful pixel art style used by the launch title releases.

• 

  The European art uses the Japanese line art, but adds texture. This is my favorite art.

• 

  The Japanese MSX port has custom art using a paper cut-out style which is pretty good.

Documentation

• 

  US manual.

• 

  VS. System manual.

• 

  The Official Nintendo Player's Guide, blurb.

Screenshots

• 

  Title screen.

• 

  Shooting ducks.

• 

  Clay pigeons.

Graphics

• 

  Sprite sheet.

• 

  An updated sprite sheet.

Fan Art

• 

  Gorgeous fan art.

• 

  A nice hand-drawn fan poster.

• 

  A collage of fan drawings.

• 

  Fan art by Deimos-Remus.

• 

  Fan art by Matthew Gordon Sallack.

• 

  Honest title.

• 

  A hilariously bad AI rendition of Duck Hunt.

• 

  CGA mockup.

Videos

Review - NES Works.

Boundary Break.

Game play - NES.

Game play - NES - Emulated.

Game Play - Vs. System.

Play Online

NES

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	There are no women.
Bechdel test?	Fail	There are no women.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	There are no human characters.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Credits

Duck Hunt was released without credits, but dedicated fans have determined the majority of the staff.

Role	Staff
Executive Producer	Hiroshi Yamauchi
Producer	Gunpei Yokoi
Director	Satoru Okada
Designer	Hiroji Kiyotake
Programmers	Yasunari Soejima, Kenji Nakajima
Music, Sound Effects, Audio Programmer	Hirokazu Tanaka

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Duck Hunt
Japanese	ダックハント	Dakku Hanto	Duck Hunt

• MAME code: duckhunt, pc_duckh

Links