Donkey Kong Country is by far one of the best 2D platformers I have ever played. And despite some big unfortunate flaws, I find that it still holds up remarkable well despite it being 28 years old (shoot me).
The biggest things that this game has going in its favor are the graphics, the music, the level design, the environments, and the secrets they hold. the graphics were utter revolutionary for their time, and I'm still in awe that I'm playing a SNES game when this looks like a 3DO, Sega Saturn, or early Playstation game. Combine this with David Wise's superb soundtrack and the amazing environments, and you have one of the most immersive 2D platformers ever made. There are times where I was simply taken aback with the atmosphere and setting that was before me, on a 16-bit game from 1994! The soundtrack is some of the best during the entire 16-bit era, its insane to me that the entire DKC soundtrack is less then 64KB considering how good it sounds. The secrets are pretty great and fun to find, some of them are really out of place but for the most part you don't have to look horribly hard to find them.
Despite all of this, the game has its problems, with one of them holding it back from a potential perfect score, the first issue are the bosses, they kinda suck. the first three are passable at best, and the remaining three are just bad, it includes slighter harder versions of the first two bosses that don't fit at all with their respective areas, and then there's just a barrel that spits enemies at you, its pretty bad. The only great boss fight is the Chad King K. Rool, he's hard, took me a lot of tries, and I was immensely satisfied when I beat him. But by far the biggest issue is the save system, it holds this game back immensely. It's not terribly noticeable in the early game, but in the later worlds it dampens the whole experience. The increase of BS and difficulty in the later levels make having to play several levels in a row really infuriating, primarily due to Candy's save system.
In conslusion, despite my problems with this game, it is a landmark title for gaming that put Nintendo back on the map, and for good reason. If you haven't played it, I highly recommend that you do, it hasn't aged well in a couple of areas, but more then stands the test of time when you consider everything else it has too offer.
The biggest things that this game has going in its favor are the graphics, the music, the level design, the environments, and the secrets they hold. the graphics were utter revolutionary for their time, and I'm still in awe that I'm playing a SNES game when this looks like a 3DO, Sega Saturn, or early Playstation game. Combine this with David Wise's superb soundtrack and the amazing environments, and you have one of the most immersive 2D platformers ever made. There are times where I was simply taken aback with the atmosphere and setting that was before me, on a 16-bit game from 1994! The soundtrack is some of the best during the entire 16-bit era, its insane to me that the entire DKC soundtrack is less then 64KB considering how good it sounds. The secrets are pretty great and fun to find, some of them are really out of place but for the most part you don't have to look horribly hard to find them.
Despite all of this, the game has its problems, with one of them holding it back from a potential perfect score, the first issue are the bosses, they kinda suck. the first three are passable at best, and the remaining three are just bad, it includes slighter harder versions of the first two bosses that don't fit at all with their respective areas, and then there's just a barrel that spits enemies at you, its pretty bad. The only great boss fight is the Chad King K. Rool, he's hard, took me a lot of tries, and I was immensely satisfied when I beat him. But by far the biggest issue is the save system, it holds this game back immensely. It's not terribly noticeable in the early game, but in the later worlds it dampens the whole experience. The increase of BS and difficulty in the later levels make having to play several levels in a row really infuriating, primarily due to Candy's save system.
In conslusion, despite my problems with this game, it is a landmark title for gaming that put Nintendo back on the map, and for good reason. If you haven't played it, I highly recommend that you do, it hasn't aged well in a couple of areas, but more then stands the test of time when you consider everything else it has too offer.