Donkey Kong Country

"Donkey Kong Is Back With 3-D Goodness!"

Donkey Kong, the ancient Nintendo arcade game that was later brought to the NES and Gameboy, was renown throughout the world as one of the earliest successful video games. During the time that the SNES was most popular, Nintendo decided to relive that success by pairing up with Rare once again, and bringing DK to their new system. In the end they had received what they had hoped to achieve: an excellent, best selling game. But DKC was more than just a bestseller, it was a pioneer. A pioneer into the mostly unexplored world of 3-D gaming.

Donkey Kong Country had truly unique gameplay for a sidescroller. It involved the player being able to play as two characters on the screen: Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. Donkey is the stronger and slower of the two, and the one with more attacks, whereas Diddy is fittingly the opposite, being faster than DK and weaker as well. Diddy is also able to jump slightly higher than his muscle bound counterpart. The player couldn't be able to control both characters at the same time, just one. Should the problem arise where one of the two playable individuals would be of better use than the one that was currently being used, then all the player would need to do would be to push the Select button. This feature is very nifty at times, particularly when there are many enemies on the screen. When the first Kong gets injured, and taken out of the level, the second immediately replaces him as the current playable character.

When there are times when your partner is out of commission, you can always get him back by breaking open a barrel with the letters DK on it. The DK barrels automatically return your comrade when destroyed. Why Donkey Kong would want to hide in a barrel after getting hurt is beyond me(I'd like to know how he can even FIT into one, seeing how big he is), but I really must be moving on. Aside from DK barrels, there are a variety of other wooden objects in the game that serve other needs. There are regular barrels, which are usually thrown at enemies, but can be used to break open secret passages as well. There are Level Check point barrels, steel beer kegs, TNT barrels and many more. Wooden crates are also found in a few levels. Upon breaking these boxes, one will find an animal inside that will help in getting through the level.

Like many other sidescroller games, titles like Super Mario World to be a little more precise, the best way to kill enemies is by jumping on their heads. Since one is doing this with a 500 pound gorilla, the chances the enemy dying upon direct impact to the cranium are rather high. There are some tougher enemies this gruesome, but effective tactic will not work on, so another strategy will have to be used to ensure their inevitable, bloody ends. One other important factor of DKC is the bananas, which are found scattered throughout levels like coins in Super Mario World, meaning if 100 of the yellow fruit are gathered, then another life will be earned.

Challenge is not something very many people really need to worry about in Donkey Kong Country. Unlike its significantly darker sequel, the difficulty is quite low in this game. The only people who should have trouble with this game are children ages 7 and under, pirates with hooks for hands, or people who are just plain bad at video games. Believe it or not, there is only one level with a fair amount of difficulty in it, but it's late in the game. Remember, just because a game is obnoxiously easy, doesn't necessarily mean it's bad.

Rare is known for coming up with strange, and sometimes disturbing, stories to go with their games, just look at Conker's Bad Fur Day for the N64. In DKC, Donkey Kong's private stash of bananas was stolen from him by a group of crocodiles. DK's understandably upset about this unexpected event. A grim Donkey Kong sets out with his friend, Diddy, to get his bananas back, ready to mercilessly destroy anything, or anyone, who stands in his way. It's a different story, but it's better than that “save the princess” crap.

The most obvious reason why Donkey Kong Country was so well known was because of the graphics. When Nintendo and Rare were busy developing the game, the latter company took the task of dissecting the Super Nintendo, trying to find a way to make it capable of producing graphics far more advanced that anything else on any other system at the time. Finally, Rare was successful in their attempt, and were able to make 3-D characters without the use of the Super FX chip, which in the past, was the only good way to make something 3-D on the SNES.

Now, the game isn’t fully 3-D, like Mario 64, where the entire level is in 3 dimensions, just the character figures are. One would think that like previous attempts at 3-D games, Starfox for instance, there wouldn’t be much, if any, detail on the screen. This is not the case with Donkey Kong Country. Nearly everything is very explicit in detail. DK still vaguely looks like he did in his old games, still sporting his signature red tie, but in DKC, vast improvements have been made on his character design. Donkey Kong now looks more muscular, and despite his brown color, he looks more like an actual gorilla than he did in previous games. His running and walking motions are very similar to real living gorillas, further adding to the realism of the game. The enemies that are encountered are usually animals of some sort, most having a rather cartoonish design to them, but they look good nonetheless. The foregrounds and the backgrounds look real as well, and simply explode with detail. The levels themselves look gorgeous, and are well laid out. DKC scores highest in this catergory.

DKC performs reasonably well in the sound department. Although music and sound effect quality is far better in the sequels, this game does an effective job of displaying good audio capabilities. The music seems to fit the levels well, although at the very end, at the final boss fight, I would have preferred some more climactic music instead of some upbeat pirate ship tune. I do enjoy the jungle and forest village themes though, as those are the best composed tracks in the whole game. The sounds are as grandiose as the music, but in other ways. The whole idea of having the enemies scream out in terror after you defeat them is quite satisfying at times, and I’m glad the people at Rare put that in there.

There are times when this game can begin to get a little dull, and one would want to set the controller down and do something else. These instances are rare, since most of the game is pretty fun. Only diehards would play this game long enough to get 100%, or in other words, everything in the game.

And that is Donkey Kong Country, one of the few titles that changed the face of gaming forever.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/03, Updated 07/05/03