Every E3 you run into some surprises on the floor that you weren’t even aware existed before hand and they can often be some of the highlights of the show. Imagine my surprise and delight while waiting in line for Dead Rising 3 (again) that I saw Ducktales Remastered being played not 20 feet away from me. That’s right, this is an HD remake and expansion of the 1989  NES classic and it is going to be out this summer on Xbox 360, PS3, WiiU and PC.

I got some hands on time with it and there were two demo levels available: Amazon and Transylvania. I chose Amazon mostly because I remember it being pretty hard when I was a kid and as such  played it a lot and was pretty familair. It looks great with cleaned up graphics that don’t take away anything from the original’s charm. The mechanics are all intact and it was pretty easy to get the hang of despite having not played the theing in more years that I would want to commit to paper.

The original voice cast from the cartoon is back on hand to fill out the game’s story.  Obviously back in the day full voice was not a possible feature for the game so it was nice to hear it fleshed out this way. It was a bit much at times with a cut scene happening way too often when finding particular gems but you can skip the scene in the menu so it isn’t so bad.

Of course, a new coat of paint is pretty meaningless if the gameplay doesn’t hold up but in this case it totally does. I didn’t want to take up too much hands on time as there was a line four deep waiting at any given time and we had places to go but the time I spent with it was just as fun as I remember it being. The level design holds up and enemy behavior is challenging and fun. I am not sure how the new levels that will appear in the game will hold up but given the care the rest of the title appears to have gotten I have very high hopes.