i sort of like the restrictive controls because it makes all your movements feel very intentional and almost kind of dramatic. even the tiniest hops have a satisfying weight to them, and when you leap over a barrel you really feel it in your bones. i always instinctively feel like shouting every time i do it, it's really funny.
there's not really much to complain about besides old game weirdness, like walking 2 ft off of a ledge only to die, or the sheer amount of barrels donkey kong can bury you in if you're not quick enough. for the time, i feel the difficulty curve is actually quite nice, and i like how distinct each level feels from one another in both gameplay and visuals; through which the game exudes a lot of it's charm
that being said, i feel the game gets a bit frustrating and repetitive after awhile due to how slow it can be on retries, and eventually i felt like i 'got the jist' so to speak after giving it a swing for awhile.
not bad, not amazing, but you do appreciate for the time frame it was made in.

https://www.retrogames.cz/play_001-NES.php
Donkey Kong 1981 | Arcade
emulador pc

1-interacción: 7
2-mundo/apartado artístico: 8
3-concepto: 7.9
4-puesta en escena: 8
5-narración: -
6-sonido/apartado sonoro: 6
7-jugabilidad: 7
8-historia: -
9-duración/ritmo: 7.4
10-impacto: 7.5

8
8
7.9
7.5
7.4
7

45.8/60pts

76.3 promedio

A revolutionary game with a bit of a clunky feel in hindsight. I don't think it's held up quite as well over the decades as Pac-Man, but it still gets a lot right for an early-'80s game. The four levels all have unique layouts and obstacles, Mario's somewhat slow movement means you have to be careful with your movements, and the game has a bit of challenge while not being too harsh. Comparing it to Super Mario Bros. shows how far platformer design and control would go on to improve over the first half of the '80s.

Pretty interesting to go back to actually playing some of the earlier examples of an actual video game amongst the sea of pretty much a mess of a medium by that time, Donkey Kong is iconic and remembered by many, but does it hold up as A Video Game decades past? Well, kinda...?

Donkey Kong is an arcade game for sure, it is excruciatingly difficult and made to run your pockets at the arcade machines so you'd have to put in coins to get more and more credits, it's a tactic for sure games like these pulled very intentionally and it introduces a very thick layer of competitiveness to go for high scores against others. The game itself is fine, the controls to move Mario (then known as "Jumpman") are very stiff and it has a very unfair fall damage system that requires you to make your jumps precisely as a fall of little height and be game over, but it sorta makes up for the limited variety of levels that make you use them in different ways, some of these are mainstays of gaming even nowadays as they're referenced in Every Pop Culture Thing Ever, so it's nice seeing the source material for an extended period of time.

It gets boring after a few loops, once you've played those four levels you have indeed played 1981's own original Donkey Kong, and that's fine. This game is just fine.

dogshit

well maybe thats a bit too harsh but its insanely hard and BS

shrug

sometimes playing an old game feels like getting the most distilled version of what makes the genre good, but this one is a little tedious to actually play. the jump is a little too unreliable and the obstacles a little too unpredictable in a way that feels tuned to munching quarters. i often found myself just standing still while waiting for an opening, because pushing forward would be too risky. the hammer goes on way too long beyond the point where it served its purpose. it does feel good to learn the game and get better and better at the stages, but i couldn't stop thinking how much i prefer the game boy version of these stages.

In order to beat Donkey Kong 64, beating this is required...twice. I never played the original Donkey Kong to completion. Being born in the mid 90s, I was too young to truly experience the days of arcades. Sure, there are some very "this is an old arcade game" things I don't like about this game, like how falling from a certain height can kill you outright, and 75m was the poster child for dumb deaths like this.

Being patient was a big key to victory in stages like 50 and 100m, and we all know that patience isn't exactly a thing gamers are big on, especially these days. My second run (for the Nintendo Coin) was surprisingly tame, but that may be because I knew what I was up against.

I will admit, I did use save states, but if I were playing on Wii U VC, I'd be doing the exact same thing. This isn't the late 90s, and I was in a hurry to get this and Jetpac done so I can avoid dealing with the Rareware and Nintendo Coins at the end of the game.

In a way, I am glad I got the chance to actually play and beat the original Donkey Kong. At the same time, I still find it very stupid how it's mandatory to beat this twice to beat a totally different game. Why are you such a collectaton hell, Donkey Kong 64?

Donkey Kong could have been so good had it been born on NES. As it stands it comes off as an awkwardly ambitious arcade game that really wants to be something more. Compared to Namco’s early 80s classics Pac-Man and Galaga, which are as fun now as they were when they came out, Donkey Kong is a neat novelty that wears off quickly. It’s all Shigeru Miyamoto’s fault, visionary and genius that he is.

Miyamoto’s name these days is associated with a strict dedication to formula and emphasizing gameplay over story, and I find that ironic: Miyamoto is essentially the man behind contextualizing and integrating story into gameplay in the first place! Miyamoto developed Donkey Kong from the perspective of an artist, not a programmer.

And it’s pretty obvious that game mechanics were based on the story concept, not the other way around. For a 1981 arcade game, the characters and the construction site setting are coherent and identifiable. To this day I don’t know who Pac-Man is or what he’s supposed to be doing, but DK himself sure is a big scary gorilla who wants to kill you. Jumpman is virtually identical to the Mario we know and love today.

It’s not as though the concept is wholly original: King Kong is obviously a massive influence, and originally the game was going to star Popeye, Bluto, and Olive Oyl. That said, Donkey Kong at least as far as I know is the first game with a fully realized story. The context of Donkey Kong dragging Lady to the top of the construction site is animated and even the level design layout is contextualized when he stomps his feet and sets the girders to a slant. The gameplay mechanics are intuitive too: climb the ladders, jump over the barrels that are rolling down on the now slanted girders, save cute girlfriend. The fourth stage involves removing the (nails? stakes?) that support the platform, and bring Donkey Kong crashing down.

Miyamoto wanted his players to focus their goal on completing the story instead of chasing a high score, a philosophy that he used to guide development on Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda a few years later, on the NES.

Maybe you can see the problem. Donkey Kong’s levels do loop, but the same four stages made more challenging just does not make for the addicting formula other arcade games have mastered by this point. Donkey Kong was of course obviously a massive hit, it pulled Nintendo out financial troubles after all, but I suspect this was for the ambition and gravitas of the project: judging by the four-man team of programmers who gave a lot of blowback for Miyamoto’s design ideas, it was a technical marvel.

To give credit where credit is due, Donkey Kong is more than playable, and as I said earlier, intuitive and easy to pick up. As someone who’s introducing to platformers was New Super Mario Bros for the DS, however, I have completely different expectations for how Mario should move and control. To me Jumpman feels too slow, the response to my input a little laggy, and much too prone to dying when I fall any vertical distance. From a modern perspective, these aren’t exactly nuanced criticisms to make, however. And it’s not as though it isn’t easy to adapt: play Donkey Kong for longer than five minutes and you’ll get used to it.

My one major criticism is the hammer, which in my opinion badly disrupts the flow of the game. The ability to destroy obstacles is nice in concept, but when it robs you of the ability to climb ladders and locks you in the same animation for the duration you’re holding on to it. Also, at least for me, it created a Mandela effect where I made a leap in logic and assumed the way you defeat Donkey Kong is beating him up with a hammer. I think this was one of those “cool cinematic” concepts that just didn’t synergize well to the gameplay mechanics.

Donkey Kong falls awkwardly between the couch cushions of too cinematic and ambitious to be an arcade game and too short and simple for an NES game, while games like Pac-Man, Galaga, Frogger and Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda sit comfortably on either side. It’s loved as a novelty and a stepping stone, at best a distraction for a few minutes before playing a more enduring game.

Some are content to leave it there but I’m really disappointed that Donkey Kong has been pigeonholed like this. I think of future entries of other NES games that modernize their original concepts and fully realize them: Super Mario Bros 3, A Link to The Past, Super Metroid, Castlevania IV, Mega Man X… the list goes on. These games are to this day called some of the best ever made and even later entries tend to have trouble escaping their shadow.

Donkey Kong had two arcade sequels, but Donkey Kong Jr changes quite a bit about the core gameplay, and 3 is barely recognizable. I’ve heard Super Mario Bros called a spiritual sequel to this game, and it is to an extent, but I’ve always seen them as two sides of the same coin: vertical vs horizontal. I love Donkey Kong Country, but let’s be real: Rare used Donkey Kong’s name and virtually nothing else from the game they’re using to market their new series. Donkey Kong himself is redesigned and declared their original character, before being shoved aside in favor of Diddy, the real main protagonist.

Donkey Kong never got to grow up with all those other crusty old Nintendo games, and I’m pretty disappointed with all the ports and rereleases it got, no effort was made to improve or modernize it. All I can do is recommend Donkey Kong ‘94 for the gift of god it is, and lament what could have been.