(This is the 104th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
Thanks to this challenge I finally played so many beloved Nintendo franchises for the first time in my life. Metroid, Zelda, Kirby and now, I finally played my first ever Donkey Kong game: Donkey Kong Country. I knew next to nothing about this game before playing it and I still know next to nothing about the rest of the games, but after playing Donkey Kong Country, I'm definitely excited to check out whichever games next for this character.
Donkey Kong Country released on November 18, 1994 and was developed by Rare. Rare developed 3 games before this that I actually played, namely Captain Skyhawk, Battletoads and The Amazing Spider-Man for the GameBoy. While I didn't necessarily enjoy all of these games (I'm looking at you Amazing Spider-Man), I saw even then that Rare are capable of developing good games, it's just gonna be a budgetary thing that'll decide the overall quality. So Rare developing a game for Nintendo sounded like a great combo before playing this, and turns out, it was.
Donkey Kong Country went on to sell over 9 million copies (3rd best-selling SNES game, best Donkey Kong game), which led to two sequels on the SNES that released in 95 and 96, which I'll check out for sure. But not before sharing my thoughts on this game. :)
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
There is no actual storytelling in the game. You control Donkey Kong and his nephew Diddy Kong to rid Donkey Kong Island of the Kremlings and to reclaim your bananas that were stolen. This is all explained in the manual exclusively, which has a nice, longer-than-usual story explaining the setting for the game. In the game itself, there are a few characters you meet who will help you out. Funky Kong, the cool dudebro surfer gorilla, who flings you back to a previously finished level really fast if you want to, Candy Kong, Donkey Kong's love interest according to the manual who saves your game, and Cranky Kong, an elderly and wise gorilla who gives you tips. His bio is pretty hilarious because he is apparently the Donkey Kong who featured in the games from the 80s and wants nothing to do with the fancy visuals of (then-)modern day. Legend.
But you're not gonna be playing this for the story and characters, but for the gameplay, the levels and the music.
GAMEPLAY | 14/20
Donkey Kong Country is a 2D platformer like many others before it. It differentiates itself mainly due to its main character and his barrel-flinging escapades, as well as the amount of space he takes up in the otherwise rather small levels. This changes the dynamic of avoiding enemies and objects somewhat because you have to be more precise with your inputs in many of the levels, which is one of the main reasons why Donkey Kong Country is not as easy as it may seem. There is a save system in place, both in-game and in-emulator (if you want), as well as a generous number of extra lives you can get as you play, so beating the game is by no means impossible, but you'll die more often than you think.
Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong run alongside each other and you can swap them out whenever you want. That's worth it at specific points because Diddy Kong is smaller (good for water levels), runs faster and jumps higher, but Donkey Kong is stronger (kills enemies by jumping on them just once instead of twice), grabs vines automatically and can hold a barrel over his head instead of just in front of him, which matters depending on enemy positioning.
There are many obstacles to face in the game, and they continuously change up as you play. The game uses the same items and enemies throughout, but makes use of them pretty creatively. The main challenges include avoiding enemies or killing them by jumping on top of them / rolling into them, grabbing ropes/vines to jump across platforms, jumping into barrels which catapult you forward and chaining together some of these challenges to get to otherwise inaccessible areas, which unlock bonus rooms. There are also mine cart levels, underwater levels and rainy levels which make the floor slippery (always love those), so the challenge is constant and varied enough. The difficulty is mostly fair, but not perfect.
Each world ends with a boss fight. These are pretty simple, which is typical for Nintendo platformers I find. Find a good time to jump on top of the enemy, repeat this 5 times (with Donkey Kong) and the enemy is down. Apart from the final boss, I found these to all be easy.
Overall, it's a fun loop and it's one of the better platformers for its time. Donkey Kong's move set is more limited than I would have liked, so I hope the sequels improve upon that, but gameplay is enjoyable enough to carry you through as you listen to the music and take in the great visual style.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10
There is actually voice acting here, though mainly for Donkey Kong yelling. If you're talking about audio in Donkey Kong Country though, you're mainly gonna talk about its soundtrack. Beloved by just about each of the 9+ million individuals who bought it and the many more millions who emulated the game through other means, Donkey Kong Country's soundtrack is just as much part of the experience as the gameplay.
Having listened to the soundtrack for hours while playing the game and a couple more hours in addition to that, I can both definitely say that it's a great soundtrack, but also that I wouldn't put it among my favorites on the SNES. The soundtrack has a distinctive quality, which is that pretty much all of the tracks are nice to listen to and there are no real stinkers included, but the soundtrack, for me, doesn't have that many tracks that make me stop and listen to them like I have a tendency to. Games like A Link to the Past, Super Castlevania, Super Metroid, Super Mario World etc. come to mind.
What makes Donkey Kong Country's soundtrack additionally to me though is that I did not at all expect it to be this vibey and play with different themes like it did. I expected cheerful and jolly music throughout while you run around carefree from level to level. As discussed, the game is much harder than I would have anticipated as well, so it's only fitting I guess that from time to time, the music can set an almost dangerous vibe. If you wouldn't agree on dangerous, I'm sure you can agree that some tracks set a mysterious, adventurous and even thoughtful tone from time to time. Then there is a track like Acquatic Ambience, which sounds incredibly soothing and chill instead of hyper and energetic like I would have expected.
In general, the water levels have some of the better tracks in this game, which I'm thankful for, because the levels themselves sucked. So if you do play Donkey Kong Country, I hope the levels themselves don't ruin the songs for you. Overall, a great soundtrack by David Wise, who is another composer I can add to the list of "one's to look out for".
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 10/10
Wow. To call Donkey Kong Country's visuals unique would be an understatement. If you are looking for some of the best looking games of the early 90s, put Donkey Kong Country on your list asap. It's really worth reading up on the technology used to make these sprites come to life, but suffice it to say it's impressive how Rare pulled this off. I have no real working knowledge of this stuff, but if I understand it correctly, they managed to turn 3D geometry into 2D images to use in this game, and whatever way would be correct to explain it, all you need to know is that it looks great.
Environments from the jungles to the mines also look great to extend the vibes and emotions that are put forth by the soundtrack, as well as simply being pleasing to look at. Some locations are repeated here, which is worth pointing out, but thanks to obstacles/challenges constantly varying from level to level, the levels still feel much more distinct than different-looking levels in some other platformers were the challenge stays static.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 10/10
I've gone over the vibes and emotions I got from playing the game and how it is way different from what I would have anticipated. Apart from the whimsical, quirky characters that aid Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong in their adventure, there is no storytelling or anything here, so it's important for the music and visuals to set the main tone for this game and if you're like me and have played so many of these cheerful platformers that give off "low stake, made for children" vibes (and I don't mean this negatively, I enjoy them myself to this day), you might feel some fatigue from it from time to time. So to have Donkey Kong Country switch up the tone here and there was a very welcome change and definitely will make the game stick with me longer than some of its contemporaries.
CONTENT | 7/10
The content in this game is very good, but it doesn't feel like it has the budget of a Mario game for example. This is understandable for a video game character that remained dormant for a while, but is noteworthy nonetheless. Donkey Kong has a lack of skills, enemies and objects repeat pretty early on (even though their placement creatively differs regularly) and levels provide lots of fun, but not a lot of depth to them. It has the feeling of the start to something bigger to it in many ways.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10
This game has a lot of levels. While I'd consider most to be good and some to be excellent, there were some levels I really didn't like. A lot of it has to do with the space given to your character and the timing of button presses. The windows to jump in order to reach a platform or barely just get past an enemy (like those damn zingers) felt too short many times. Two things come to mind especially. First, it's all the levels that include ropes. Half the time I'm struggling getting Donkey Kong to hold on, and the other half of the time where I succeed, I felt like I always would eventually hit my head or my legs on one of the zingers patrolling all the ropes in this world. The other situation where this issue arises is during water levels, where fish are seemingly everywhere and you don't have enough control nor space to maneuver past them reliably, at least as a new player. So if you find yourselves in these situations, best of luck to ya.
Apart from that though, there is more variety here than you'd expect based on the number of enemy types and the limited feature set for Donkey Kong. The barrel levels were fun, the mine cart levels, ditto. Finding secret areas is neat, riding one of the multiple types of animals a la Yoshi is cool too. I thought the mini games weren't as exciting as in Mario games for example, and the last boss was pretty annoying, so there is lots of good and bad here for me, though overall the good definitely wins.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
The innovation here definitely comes from the graphics. Apart from that, the level design and gameplay has similarities to many platformers of its time, and in many ways to Mario as well. It's just that Donkey Kong Country has passion oozing off of it from every direction and also controls well for the most part, which is more than I can say for most platformers in this era of gaming.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
After beating this, you can try and find more of the bonus levels to get closer to 101% completion, though as someone who has never done a speedrun or followed the scene, I still don't know what the additional percentages after 100 mean in these games.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 74/100
A must-play for platforming fans. Some of the most unique visuals for its time, a great soundtrack, fun levels (but also some frustrating ones) and overall just a charming game. I wouldn't call it my 3rd favorite SNES game like its sales would suggest, but I'm positive someone else out there will and I can definitely see their point.
Thanks to this challenge I finally played so many beloved Nintendo franchises for the first time in my life. Metroid, Zelda, Kirby and now, I finally played my first ever Donkey Kong game: Donkey Kong Country. I knew next to nothing about this game before playing it and I still know next to nothing about the rest of the games, but after playing Donkey Kong Country, I'm definitely excited to check out whichever games next for this character.
Donkey Kong Country released on November 18, 1994 and was developed by Rare. Rare developed 3 games before this that I actually played, namely Captain Skyhawk, Battletoads and The Amazing Spider-Man for the GameBoy. While I didn't necessarily enjoy all of these games (I'm looking at you Amazing Spider-Man), I saw even then that Rare are capable of developing good games, it's just gonna be a budgetary thing that'll decide the overall quality. So Rare developing a game for Nintendo sounded like a great combo before playing this, and turns out, it was.
Donkey Kong Country went on to sell over 9 million copies (3rd best-selling SNES game, best Donkey Kong game), which led to two sequels on the SNES that released in 95 and 96, which I'll check out for sure. But not before sharing my thoughts on this game. :)
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
There is no actual storytelling in the game. You control Donkey Kong and his nephew Diddy Kong to rid Donkey Kong Island of the Kremlings and to reclaim your bananas that were stolen. This is all explained in the manual exclusively, which has a nice, longer-than-usual story explaining the setting for the game. In the game itself, there are a few characters you meet who will help you out. Funky Kong, the cool dudebro surfer gorilla, who flings you back to a previously finished level really fast if you want to, Candy Kong, Donkey Kong's love interest according to the manual who saves your game, and Cranky Kong, an elderly and wise gorilla who gives you tips. His bio is pretty hilarious because he is apparently the Donkey Kong who featured in the games from the 80s and wants nothing to do with the fancy visuals of (then-)modern day. Legend.
But you're not gonna be playing this for the story and characters, but for the gameplay, the levels and the music.
GAMEPLAY | 14/20
Donkey Kong Country is a 2D platformer like many others before it. It differentiates itself mainly due to its main character and his barrel-flinging escapades, as well as the amount of space he takes up in the otherwise rather small levels. This changes the dynamic of avoiding enemies and objects somewhat because you have to be more precise with your inputs in many of the levels, which is one of the main reasons why Donkey Kong Country is not as easy as it may seem. There is a save system in place, both in-game and in-emulator (if you want), as well as a generous number of extra lives you can get as you play, so beating the game is by no means impossible, but you'll die more often than you think.
Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong run alongside each other and you can swap them out whenever you want. That's worth it at specific points because Diddy Kong is smaller (good for water levels), runs faster and jumps higher, but Donkey Kong is stronger (kills enemies by jumping on them just once instead of twice), grabs vines automatically and can hold a barrel over his head instead of just in front of him, which matters depending on enemy positioning.
There are many obstacles to face in the game, and they continuously change up as you play. The game uses the same items and enemies throughout, but makes use of them pretty creatively. The main challenges include avoiding enemies or killing them by jumping on top of them / rolling into them, grabbing ropes/vines to jump across platforms, jumping into barrels which catapult you forward and chaining together some of these challenges to get to otherwise inaccessible areas, which unlock bonus rooms. There are also mine cart levels, underwater levels and rainy levels which make the floor slippery (always love those), so the challenge is constant and varied enough. The difficulty is mostly fair, but not perfect.
Each world ends with a boss fight. These are pretty simple, which is typical for Nintendo platformers I find. Find a good time to jump on top of the enemy, repeat this 5 times (with Donkey Kong) and the enemy is down. Apart from the final boss, I found these to all be easy.
Overall, it's a fun loop and it's one of the better platformers for its time. Donkey Kong's move set is more limited than I would have liked, so I hope the sequels improve upon that, but gameplay is enjoyable enough to carry you through as you listen to the music and take in the great visual style.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10
There is actually voice acting here, though mainly for Donkey Kong yelling. If you're talking about audio in Donkey Kong Country though, you're mainly gonna talk about its soundtrack. Beloved by just about each of the 9+ million individuals who bought it and the many more millions who emulated the game through other means, Donkey Kong Country's soundtrack is just as much part of the experience as the gameplay.
Having listened to the soundtrack for hours while playing the game and a couple more hours in addition to that, I can both definitely say that it's a great soundtrack, but also that I wouldn't put it among my favorites on the SNES. The soundtrack has a distinctive quality, which is that pretty much all of the tracks are nice to listen to and there are no real stinkers included, but the soundtrack, for me, doesn't have that many tracks that make me stop and listen to them like I have a tendency to. Games like A Link to the Past, Super Castlevania, Super Metroid, Super Mario World etc. come to mind.
What makes Donkey Kong Country's soundtrack additionally to me though is that I did not at all expect it to be this vibey and play with different themes like it did. I expected cheerful and jolly music throughout while you run around carefree from level to level. As discussed, the game is much harder than I would have anticipated as well, so it's only fitting I guess that from time to time, the music can set an almost dangerous vibe. If you wouldn't agree on dangerous, I'm sure you can agree that some tracks set a mysterious, adventurous and even thoughtful tone from time to time. Then there is a track like Acquatic Ambience, which sounds incredibly soothing and chill instead of hyper and energetic like I would have expected.
In general, the water levels have some of the better tracks in this game, which I'm thankful for, because the levels themselves sucked. So if you do play Donkey Kong Country, I hope the levels themselves don't ruin the songs for you. Overall, a great soundtrack by David Wise, who is another composer I can add to the list of "one's to look out for".
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 10/10
Wow. To call Donkey Kong Country's visuals unique would be an understatement. If you are looking for some of the best looking games of the early 90s, put Donkey Kong Country on your list asap. It's really worth reading up on the technology used to make these sprites come to life, but suffice it to say it's impressive how Rare pulled this off. I have no real working knowledge of this stuff, but if I understand it correctly, they managed to turn 3D geometry into 2D images to use in this game, and whatever way would be correct to explain it, all you need to know is that it looks great.
Environments from the jungles to the mines also look great to extend the vibes and emotions that are put forth by the soundtrack, as well as simply being pleasing to look at. Some locations are repeated here, which is worth pointing out, but thanks to obstacles/challenges constantly varying from level to level, the levels still feel much more distinct than different-looking levels in some other platformers were the challenge stays static.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 10/10
I've gone over the vibes and emotions I got from playing the game and how it is way different from what I would have anticipated. Apart from the whimsical, quirky characters that aid Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong in their adventure, there is no storytelling or anything here, so it's important for the music and visuals to set the main tone for this game and if you're like me and have played so many of these cheerful platformers that give off "low stake, made for children" vibes (and I don't mean this negatively, I enjoy them myself to this day), you might feel some fatigue from it from time to time. So to have Donkey Kong Country switch up the tone here and there was a very welcome change and definitely will make the game stick with me longer than some of its contemporaries.
CONTENT | 7/10
The content in this game is very good, but it doesn't feel like it has the budget of a Mario game for example. This is understandable for a video game character that remained dormant for a while, but is noteworthy nonetheless. Donkey Kong has a lack of skills, enemies and objects repeat pretty early on (even though their placement creatively differs regularly) and levels provide lots of fun, but not a lot of depth to them. It has the feeling of the start to something bigger to it in many ways.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10
This game has a lot of levels. While I'd consider most to be good and some to be excellent, there were some levels I really didn't like. A lot of it has to do with the space given to your character and the timing of button presses. The windows to jump in order to reach a platform or barely just get past an enemy (like those damn zingers) felt too short many times. Two things come to mind especially. First, it's all the levels that include ropes. Half the time I'm struggling getting Donkey Kong to hold on, and the other half of the time where I succeed, I felt like I always would eventually hit my head or my legs on one of the zingers patrolling all the ropes in this world. The other situation where this issue arises is during water levels, where fish are seemingly everywhere and you don't have enough control nor space to maneuver past them reliably, at least as a new player. So if you find yourselves in these situations, best of luck to ya.
Apart from that though, there is more variety here than you'd expect based on the number of enemy types and the limited feature set for Donkey Kong. The barrel levels were fun, the mine cart levels, ditto. Finding secret areas is neat, riding one of the multiple types of animals a la Yoshi is cool too. I thought the mini games weren't as exciting as in Mario games for example, and the last boss was pretty annoying, so there is lots of good and bad here for me, though overall the good definitely wins.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
The innovation here definitely comes from the graphics. Apart from that, the level design and gameplay has similarities to many platformers of its time, and in many ways to Mario as well. It's just that Donkey Kong Country has passion oozing off of it from every direction and also controls well for the most part, which is more than I can say for most platformers in this era of gaming.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
After beating this, you can try and find more of the bonus levels to get closer to 101% completion, though as someone who has never done a speedrun or followed the scene, I still don't know what the additional percentages after 100 mean in these games.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 74/100
A must-play for platforming fans. Some of the most unique visuals for its time, a great soundtrack, fun levels (but also some frustrating ones) and overall just a charming game. I wouldn't call it my 3rd favorite SNES game like its sales would suggest, but I'm positive someone else out there will and I can definitely see their point.