I felt compelled to replay this after my recent playthroughs of BurgerTime and Popeye, both games that owe a lot creatively to Nintendo's first big hit. I've always felt a little underwhelmed by Donkey Kong, but it wasn't until playing those other games that I could articulate the reasons why.

For starters, what I appreciate about the gameplay in both BurgerTime and Popeye (and, to some extent, in other early platform games like Mario Bros.) is that at all times they promote the player's awareness of the entire stage. Because both the objective and the enemies are constantly changing locations in those games, you need to think several steps ahead in terms of navigating the stage. In Donkey Kong, however, it never really matters what's happening two or three platforms away from you. The game is easy enough that by the time you get where you want to go (which is almost always just "up"), even if there's an obstacle in your way, there's usually an obvious solution for dealing with it.

To be fair, this starts to change a bit as the difficulty increases. In the first stage, for example, DK eventually starts to throw two barrels in a row, which prevents you from simply leaping over them. But in the elevator stage and the final stage -- a BurgerTime-esque level in which the player must run across the locks on each platform to collapse the girdered structure DK has made into his fortress -- it's rarely necessary to look beyond the immediate sphere of the player character. These stages are a cakewalk, even in later phases of the game.

And speaking of sweets, it's worth mentioning the fact (which I discovered only today) that the NES version of Donkey Kong entirely removes the "pie factory" level that was present in the arcade release. (I'd felt like there was something amiss when I played the NES version on Switch a year and a half ago, but I couldn't put my finger on it at the time.) Being as easy as it is, the original game's best asset is its gameplay variety -- the fact that it's essentially four games in one -- and the NES version unfortunately spoils that quality.

Donkey Kong is an important game for many reasons, but I would argue its being "timeless fun" isn't one of them. The game's best qualities were eclipsed within a year of its release by games like Popeye and even Donkey Kong Jr. That's not a slam on this game so much as an affirmation that Donkey Kong was just the beginning in a long corporate trajectory, whereby Nintendo would gradually perfect its sense of what constitutes great game design. Not coincidentally, I'm hard-pressed to think of a less fun Nintendo "classic" than this one -- the game that started it all.

I have some nostalgia for Donkey Kong. When my childhood home was flooded, and i spent a year of my life living in a hotel, they had a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet. I was very young when this happened, but i have fond memories of dumping so much of my time on that single donkey kong cabinet. I sometimes miss the hotel. Free breakfast every morning, indoor pool i can swim in everyday, and a small arcade with donkey kong and 3 other games that barely worked. Something about hearing the sounds in this game was a reminder of the childlike joy I felt of being away from home in this shitty hotel. It’s hard to say why i loved this hotel so much, since at the end of the day, it was just a shitty hotel sitting off the side of the highway, but i have fond memories of it. Call it looking through rose colored glasses, but I loved that hotel just like i loved my time playing Donkey Kong this morning in the nes. Instead of being a young child waking up for breakfast and then topping it off with a game of Donkey Kong, I am now a college student waking up with can of monster and a hit from my vape and then topping it off by booting up my switch and playing Donkey Kong. A lot of time may have passed, but I never forgot how to play.

This game showed the world that Nintendo wasn't dicking around with the Famicom -- they could really put the games from the arcade on a home system and they would play something like you expected and look decent. It wasn't like the Atari 2600 was when it was still trying to keep up in the 80s, where they had to be aggressively stripped to their essentials and released as something that only vaguely resembled the original game.

It's a good port, and deserves the same score as the original in my mind. The downside is of course the one cut level, but that's why it's a good port, and not a great one.

4 - Great: A good, solid game that is enjoyable

Eu só tinha jogado a versão de arcade e só tinha experimentado um pouco na primeira fase, tendo falhado amargamente.

Jogando a versão NES, dá pra perceber como ele é redondinho como um arcade, com um loop de 3 fases distintas com foco em pontuar cada vez mais.

Diverte um teco, mas é...arcade, né?

Whenever I played Donkey Kong 64 back in the day it was not switching between the Kongs that kept me from finishing it, nor was it the minigames or the boss fights or anything intrinsic to Donkey Kong 64 itself. No, it was the original fuckin’ Donkey Kong arcade game that you had to complete in order to actually win the game. I could never actually finish that thing and I am still confounded as to what on earth you are supposed to do on the third stage.

Clearly this isn’t the same version of the game but I’m still mad. It’s a foundational game and the music kind of slaps, and it’s the origin of two of the Nintendo greats. But even trying it again as an adult I don’t like it! No sir!

What a joy to finally be play this. I feel like I would love to play it on an arcade cabinet, but this was actually really fun to go through. Will definitely be revisiting several more times to see if I can bump up my high score.

https://youtu.be/ZvFc6BAy_XQ

https://youtu.be/Zebu8gMjyM8

Done with Pikmin, and now it’s time for the Donkey Kong series baby.

Starting off with the arcade classic……..it’s fine.
Kinda the same thing I’ve said with the first Mario, Zelda, and Metroid games, it was pretty revolutionary and ambitious for its time, and this even predates those three games, it’s an arcade game with a good foundation for platformers in general, but it is pretty barebones.


Now onto Donkey Kong Jr…………..expect the next review in like 15-20 minutes honestly

Donkey Kong foi um daqueles jogos que eu nunca tive acesso quando criança, mas havia ouvido falar, e ficava imaginando como será que era esse jogo mágico que pavimentou dois grandes sucessos dos jogos.

Bom, não era o que eu esperava, mas criança sempre espera mais do que o normal...

Você sobe as escadas e encara o mamaco 3 vezes, aí repete até você cansar, é divertido por 5 minutos, não muito mais que isso.

Penso no pessoal que pagou 50-60 dólares nesse jogo na época

Donkey Kong is an iconic game for the Famicom. It's the first game to exist on the console along with Donkey Kong Jr. and Popeye. The Famicom was made to play a good port of the classic 1981 Arcade game. Despite it's legendary status in the gaming era of it's time. I'm not the biggest fan of it.

While this is no doubt one of the best ports of the game of it's time, it's just not really a game I play much of. Maybe I'll play it for 10-20 minutes every few months but that's about it. I think what hurts this version for me is that it's pretty easy the first few rounds, you can play Game mode B to make it get harder faster but it can still be easy.

This port is also infamous for not having the game's 50M level from the Arcade original. It's a shame it wasn't included as it makes the game feel less complete and it makes it harder to recommend nowadays.

It's still a good game in the end and it's a worthy classic of the 8-bit console but I'd be lying if I didn't say there were many more games to come that would top this launch entry. It got the system running for success so it at least has that going for it.