Donkey Kong, an arcade title that was not only one of the earliest examples of the platform genre but also introduced gamers everywhere to two of Nintendo’s most recognisable characters: Mario and Donkey Kong. Mario, of course, shot to super stardom but today’s a day to celebrate everyone’s favourite King Kong knock-off and to say: Happy birthday, Donkey Kong!

Released: 15 July 2020
Originally Released: 18 November 1994
Developer: Nintendo
Original Developer: Rare
Also Available For: Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo Wii U, Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), SNES Classic Edition

The Background:
After establishing themselves in the United States with the financial and critical success of Donkey Kong (Nintendo R&D1, 1981), Nintendo then captured the home console market with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and their moustachioed mascot, Super Mario. Although Donkey Kong wasn’t completely forgotten during this time, featuring in sequels and spin-offs during the NES’s lifecycle, it was legendary British developers Rare who breathed new life into the cantankerous ape with their Donkey Kong Country series (Rare, 1994 to 1996) that pushed the SNES hardware to its limits with their revolutionary pre-rendered graphics. Rare impressed Nintendo back in the day with their ability to reverse-engineering the NES and publishing over sixty titles for the console, and by utilising Nintendo 64 workstations to produce SNES titles. Wishing to compete with SEGA’s Aladdin (Virgin Games USA, 1993), and seeing the long-dormant Donkey Kong franchise as low risk, Nintendo handed the character to Rare and they assembled a team of twelve developers (their biggest yet) to develop the title. Inspired by the level design of Super Mario Bros. 3 (Nintendo R&D4, 1988), Rare sought to make the game’s levels short bursts of challenging fun that tailoured to a player’s increasing skill level. Kevin Bayliss redesigned Donkey Kong to be more muscular and cartoonish to aid with animation and Rare were given license to completely redesign Donkey Kong Jr. into a brand-new character, Diddy Kong, to act as DK’s physical opposite. Donkey Kong Country was one of the first videogames to utilise pre-rendered 3D graphics; their computers ran night and day to decompile the 3D models into traditional 2D sprites and, although physically taxing for the team, the result was the third-bestselling game on the SNES. Reviews were overwhelmingly positive, with the game seen as a significant benchmark in the presentation of videogames; the visuals and soundtrack have stood the test of time and the game is still heralded as a classic. Donkey Kong Country re-established the popularity of the brand was followed by a couple of equally well-regarded sequels but has only been sporadically released on other hardware due to legal issues. Thankfully, it was later included in the SNES Classic Edition and to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers in 2020 and developers Retro Studios made the franchise relevant again with their 2.5D rebranding of this influential title.

The Plot:
When the greedy King K. Rool steals his beloved banana hoard, Donkey Kong and his nephew, Diddy Kong, set out to recover them from the king’s Kremling army.

Gameplay:
Donkey Kong Country is a 2D, sidescrolling action/platformer that, thanks to the benefit of its pre-rendered sprites and backgrounds, takes on a bit of a 2.5D aesthetic at times. Players take control of the titular ape, now reimagined as a tie-wearing, banana-obsessed scamp more likely to bop on a lizard’s head than toss a barrel at a plumber, but the game does support two players and offers two characters to control. You can go it alone, tagging between the brutish Donkey Kong and his nimbler nephew Diddy Kong with the A button, or play with a friend in simultaneous co-op not unlike Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (SEGA Technical Institute, 1992), or take it in turns to clear levels in a competitive contest mode. Both Donkey and Diddy Kong share many of the same abilities but are physically distinct in a number of ways: B allows your Kong to jump, Y sees Donkey roll into enemies and Diddy cartwheel into them and also allows both Kongs to pick up and throw a variety of barrels. Donkey Kong is slower, a far larger target, and has a bit of a stunted jump compared to his more agile nephew, though he can slap the ground by pressing down and Y, but you’ll probably want to switch to Diddy to make getting past larger obstacles a little easier or have more control when making jumps. Both Kongs can also squeeze through small gaps and act as the game’s health system; if you have both Kongs onscreen, a hit from an enemy or obstacle won’t kill you, but it will send your partner running off, though you can call them back by finding and tossing one of the many DK barrels scattered across the game’s environments.

For the most part, Donkey Kong Country has you hopping across gaps (often with the aid of swinging ropes), bopping on enemies and collecting bananas. It’s not long before you’re jumping into barrels to clear greater distances and progress forwards; some of these rotate or move side to side and up and down, some automatically fire you and some are activated by a button press, with timing being key to avoiding a fall down a bottomless pit or damage from a spiky Zinger. Platforming quickly becomes trickier as the game progresses, with gaps becoming longer, requiring a roll or cartwheel into a jump for a longer jump, slanted platforms and greater hazards all testing your reaction times. Some stages require you to jump at special Stop & Go barrels to briefly light up the area or deactivate Rockkrocs so you can progress, others are set underwater and see you swimming about with no means of defending yourself unless you find one of the Kongs’ many animal friends, Enguarde. One of the most prominent stage designs are those set in the mines where you’re stuck in a runaway mine cart and must make split second decisions to jump over gaps, hazards, and from mine cart to mine cart to progress, which can be difficult with the low lighting and oncoming enemies. Level hazards soon play their part in the platforming as well, with snowy stages robbing you of your traction, Gnawties trying to crush you in giant wooden wheels, and flaming oil drums not only spitting out an endless supply of baddies but also charbroiling you when you hop to them as temporary platforms. As if falling and moving platforms didn’t make things difficult enough, there’s also a time where you’re forced to jump from a moving conveyor belt to grab fuel drums; you can’t afford to miss a single one or else your platform will fall and won’t come back so you need to make quick decisions about when to jump.

The game features forty levels, all accessed via a word map; between levels, you’ll automatically progress onwards into new areas, including jungles, rainforests, temples, mines, and caverns, and interact with the Kongs’ allies. Funky Kong allows you to fast travel across the island once you’ve visited at least two areas, Cranky Kong offers fourth-wall breaking advice that comes across more like bitter criticism, and Candy Kong allows you to save your progress (though you can obviously create a save state at any time using the Nintendo Switch’s menu options). The Kongs are also aided by allies within levels as well; they can ride Rambi, Enguarde, Expresso, and Winky to bash through enemies, charge through water, temporarily fly, and spring up even higher, respectively, while Squawks will light your way with a useful lantern. These buddies also act as another hit point and, if you’re hit or jump off them, you can often hop back onto them as they run around the environment, and you can use their abilities to find secret areas in each level. These lead to hordes of more bananas, balloons, or K-O-N-G letters. Collecting a hundred bananas, all four K-O-N-G letters, or a balloon awards an extra life and you’ll be stockpiling a fair amount of these without even trying, but you’ll also find golden buddy statues that will take you to bonus games where you control that animal and must collect as many bananas as possible within a time limit. This all adds to your completion percentage and injects a little gameplay variety to the title, but also encourages exploration as sometimes bananas floating just out of the way indicate a hidden barrel or tossing an explosive barrel at a wall will open up a new bonus area.

Graphics and Sound:  
If I’m being brutally honest, I never really thought too much of Donkey Kong Country’s visual presentation; even as a kid, seeing these pre-rendered 3D models pixelated down to 2D sprites looked a little messy and not quite as crisp as other 2D platformers of the time. However, having said that, I rarely had the chance to be hands-on with the game as a kid, or in the years since, so this is my first time actually playing it from start to finish and the visuals work really well when in motion. Donkey and Diddy Kong are full of life and personality, sporting idle animations and having distinctive movements and quirks when performing the same or similar moves. Their enemies are equally charming, sporting that exaggerated anthropomorphic quirkiness that Rare did so well back in the day, though their animations are noticeably less varied than the two protagonists. One thing I did enjoy was how clean the screen is; the heads-up display is absent until it’s actually required (appearing when you grab pick-ups or earn or lose a life), allowing you to really appreciate the variety of visuals on offer here. While you’re not going to see anything you’ve not seen in a hundred other platformers from Donkey Kong Country’s environments, the game presents them in a wholly unique way with its pre-rendered aesthetic. You’ll be swinging through jungles, jump to broken mine cart tracks in dank mines, and hopping to conveyer belts in a rusted factory all while some absolutely jamming tunes play throughout the game.

There are some opportunities for exploration and experimentation (try charging walls when on Rambi or jumping to bananas up above on Winky) and the game does a fairly decent job of recycling its level tropes with new hazards and such, like having Croctopi chase after you in later underwater sections rather than just spinning around or having you bounce on tyres on moving platforms to cross gaps and gain the extra height needed to avoiding enemies and obstacles. Even better, the game’s locations are bolstered by some environment effects; day turns to night, jungles are battered by thunder, lightning and rain, the frozen mountains become swamped by blizzards, and the mines and caves are seeped in low lighting. Often, there’s no lighting at all, with your sprites being the only things being visible onscreen until you free Squawks or activate a light-up barrel, and the use of lighting and foreground objects really helps to add to the tension when trying to avoid slipping off the edge of a platform and jump to another. Although the game is light on cutscenes, they story is effectively told using dialogue strings between the Kongs and their allies, though the focus here is very much on dropping you into the next action-orientated area to take on an ever-escalating challenge rather than trying to overcomplicate the simple plot. All you need to know is that the banana hoard has been stolen and Cranky is better than you.

Enemies and Bosses:
Donkey and Diddy Kong will face a number of King K. Rool’s most disposable pawns in their quest, from regular Kremlings like the Kritters to their more jumper variants, to voracious little crocodiles, sharks, and slippery snakes. Wasp-like Zingers will often be found hovering around in mid-air, usually surrounding a platform or a barrel you need to blast to; larger enemies will prove difficult for Diddy to take out without a barrel so you might want to switch to Donkey Kong if you’re having trouble, and orangutans will incessantly throw barrels at you in a fun call-back to the original Donkey Kong. Spiked wheels, hungry fish, and vultures will also cause a headache, especially the latter as you’re often asked to fire your Kong/s at a flock of vultures to bounce off them and reach out of the way platforms, which can be tricky to do as if you hold the directional pad for too long you could overshoot and if you don’t hold it long enough then you’ll undershoot.

Each area of Donkey Kong Country houses a boss battle; victory against one of King K. Rool’s elite earns the Kongs a large, Nintendo-branded banana and allows them to progress onwards to the next area but, while you’ll fight seven bosses in the game, only three of them are unique and the others are, disappointingly, reskins and repeats of each other. The first boss you’ll take on is Very Gnawty, a giant beaver who hops about in a cavern full of the Kongs’ bananas; with each hit he takes, his jumps get a little faster, but it doesn’t take much at all to put him down. It’s thus disappointing when this same boss is repeated for the fourth battle, even though Really Gnawty jumps much higher and is noticeably much more aggressive in his attack patterns. The second boss you’ll fight is the Master Necky, a huge vulture who pops his head in from the left or right side of the screen to spit bouncy coconuts at you; thankfully, there’s a tyre conveniently placed in the centre of the boss room that you can use to avoid his projectiles and hop onto his head. This boss is recycled for the penultimate boss battle as well; again, Master Necky Snr. might have a different colour palette and be a bit more aggressive, but he’s essentially the same boss battle, which I can’t help but be a little let down by considering how good the game is otherwise. Thankfully, Queen B. mixes things up a little bit; this gigantic Zinger flies around the arena in a specific pattern, immune to all attacks except a barrel to the face. However, she becomes temporarily invulnerable and hyper aggressive after each hit, so you’ll need to position yourself in the right place to avoid her erratic swoops.

Dumb Drum also stands out as a unique boss battle; a giant, sentient drum, this guy tries to crush you from above and spits out a number of enemies into the area that you’ll need to take out. You can’t damage Dumb Drum no matter how hard you try; you simply have to outlast it and it’ll take itself out from ramming the ground once too often. Finally, you’ll confront the Kongs’ mortal enemy, King K. Rool, onboard his pirate ship, which stands as the final area of the game. King K. Rool has two methods of attack; first, he’ll run from one side of the screen to the other and try to charge into you, then he stands on one side and tosses his crown at you as a projectile. When he does this, it leaves him vulnerable to attack so you can jump on his head and, after a few hits, he’ll fold like paper and the credits will roll. Well, the “kredits”, at least, and it turns out that this is a fake-out as King K. Rool pops back up for another round. This time, his charge is much faster, and he also causes bouncing cannonballs to rain down from above, which can be difficult to avoid unless you make use of Diddy’s smaller hit box. Otherwise, your strategy remains the same; jump over him, avoid his projectiles and hazards, and hop on his head until he’s done in for good and you get to enjoy the real credits sequence (and Cranky’s embittered criticism of your performance).

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Your primary power-up in Donkey Kong Country will be those DK barrels; you’ll want to break these open every chance you get to have both Kongs at your disposal and stave off a death from your next hit but be sure to not accidentally break them if you don’t need them. Star-branded barrels acts as checkpoints and a number of other barrels (wooden, metal, and TNT ones) can be thrown as projectiles to take out one or a whole group of baddies in single throw. Otherwise, you’ll want to collect every banana you see and hunt down those K-O-N-G letters and red balloons to rack up some extra lives and keep an eye out for golden buddy statues or hidden rooms where you can earn more of them to access bonus stages. Finally, of course, there are the buddies themselves, with Enguarde being especially useful to making navigating those maze-like coral reefs that much easier.

Additional Features:
The ending you get (or, at least, the feedback you get from Cranky Kong) is directly tied to how many of the game’s secrets you uncover; this includes finding all of the K-O-N-G letters, hidden rooms, and bonus areas, all of which adds to the completion percentage seen on your save file. However, while you’re free to revisit and replay every level in the game and try to find every secret, it’s not actually necessary and you don’t get anything for it except for bragging rights. Thankfully, the Nintendo Switch Online version of the game allows you to make use of the save state and rewind features to make playing this game a breeze; now, if you make a mistake, you can just rewind or reload your game and try again, which is a God send in some of the game’s trickier sections.

The Summary:
It’s always exciting for me, a childhood SEGA boy, to finally play classic Nintendo titles. I’ve always had a fascination with the SNES and love to get my hands on the system’s most famous games whenever I can, and a full playthrough of Donkey Kong Country has been a long time coming for me. Despite my apprehension concerning the graphical style, the game holds up really well; environments pop through some fun and unexpected weather and lighting effects and Donkey and Diddy Kong never fail to impress when they’re onscreen, controlling and animating beautifully. Enemy and hazard placement becomes increasingly challenging, but not impossible, and I liked how many of the levels were short, sharp bursts of action that tested your reaction times. I can’t imagine playing the game on the original hardware without the aid of save states or the rewind feature, however, as I think it would’ve become quite frustrating quite quickly even though the game dishes out the extra lives like they’re going out of business. It’s a little disappointing that the game didn’t do more with its levels and bosses; repeating boss battles is always as much of a let down for me as a boss gauntlet, but I enjoyed the addition of ridable animal buddies, the hidden secrets and bonus rooms, and that trademark Rare humour that pushes you to find everything. In the end, I can see why Donkey Kong Country is so beloved; I’ve definitely played better 2D platformers but there’s so much more happening here than the unique visual style and it’s easily one of the best, basic platforming adventures of the 16-bit era.

My Rating:

Great Stuff

What did you think to Donkey Kong Country? Did you own the game for the SNES as a kid and, if so, were you surprised by Donkey Kong’s dramatic visual overhaul? Did you find all of the game’s secrets and bonus rooms? Which of the animal buddies was your favourite to control and did you favour Donkey or Diddy Kong when playing? Were you disappointed that the boss battles weren’t more diverse and what did you think to the fake-out ending? Which of the Donkey Kong Country games is your favourite and why? How are you celebrating Donkey Kong’s anniversary this year? Whatever your thoughts on Donkey Kong Country, leave them below or share them on my social media.