Remember Donkey Kong Country!
Donkey Kong Country is an awesome game. Although it’s an older game, the appeal still holds today. It was a great influence on the platformer genre and has the most awesome soundtrack. I have played it countless times and still enjoy sitting down and playing it again.
I first played Donkey Kong Country on the Game Boy Advance, a handheld, but it was originally released on the Super Nintendo. This history is responsible for many of the game’s great aspects, and that will be discussed in greater detail later. For now, I’ll explain the story. The two protagonists in Donkey Kong Country are Donkey Kong, a gorilla and Diddy Kong, a monkey. The game begins on a dark and stormy night with Diddy Kong guarding Donkey Kong’s banana hoard from the Kremlings, a species of evil reptilian creatures who desire to steal Donkey Kong’s banana hoard. The Kremlings easily overpower Diddy and steal the banana hoard which causes Donkey Kong to embark on a quest to retrieve his lost banana hoard. It may seem like a simple story but it’s original compared to other games.
The key to the game is variety. Every level is different, and there are so many different obstacles and enemies. My experience has been that it’s challenging but fulfilling to beat. There is a great amount of levels and hidden bonus rooms. It is a very large challenge to find all the bonus rooms the first time you play on the Super Nintendo version, but on the Game Boy Advance version, which I first played, the game counts them for you. In addition to bonus rooms, certain levels in the game have their own unique obstacles and challenges. No two levels are the same and you would never confuse them.
Much of the game’s value also rests in it being the first on many fronts. It was a reboot of Donkey Kong by Rare and started the next age of great games by Nintendo. With Rare’s new pre-rendered sprites, or graphics that were recorded on a more powerful machine and played back, it was able to have 3D elements on the SNES, a 2D system. With this power, all sorts of amazing things could happen, which were not normally present in games of the time. Both protagonists, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong, have idle sprites that are revealed when the player isn’t controlling them. Scratching their head, beating their head, they have all kinds of emotion in their body movements. I especially like Diddy Kong losing a bonus game, because then he gets angry and throws down his hat and stomps on it.
The music is exceptional as well. Ordinarily music is kind of a filler for games, but the music in Donkey Kong Country perfectly matches the theme of each level. Jungle levels have an upbeat kind of music, while water levels have a calm and slow theme, mimicking the waves of the ocean. Overall, each song fits with its location and the music has a nice feel to it, ascending from ordinary video game music to real music. The music was even made into a soundtrack, a testament to its greatness.
Overall, all of the game’s elements combine to make one amazing game. Donkey Kong Country is a great example of how older games can still be fun. If you have a Game Boy Advance or a Nintendo DS, I would definitely recommend that you buy it and play it.
Category: Game Review