Donkey Kong is the perfect example of the developers understanding the Hardware limitations, the user's behavior when playing with handheld consoles and at the same time looking forward and not being afraid of bringing innovation to the table.
This game introduced movement that is still used in the most recent Mario games and has proven to be a success: the Backflip.
It also introduced a primitive version of the Triple Jump called the Handstand Jump, the former eventually becoming a series staple as well as the backflip.
The developers were not afraid to experiment with the already established arcade Donkey Kong formula, they focused on making puzzles the challenge and making players think out of the box rather than focusing on platforming as the primary difficulty; at least this is true for the first half of the game.
The first half of the game is a masterpiece, the game doesn't stop introducing new mechanics and well-thought gimmicks to make the puzzles more challenging while having ingenious tutorials in the form of short cutscenes every 4 stages or so showing the player the new mechanic or gimmick.
Even though this is a game made for a handheld console -in the mid 90s-, the developers focused on innovating rather than taking something that was already available on home consoles and watering it down à la Donkey Kong Land. The gimmicks and Mario's movement options introduced in this game were very clever and I take off my hat to the people behind Donkey Kong for that.
Levels are relatively short and you can save whenever you want which goes to show the understanding on the behavior of people when playing on handheld consoles thus making it convenient to play in short bursts.
The soundtrack has some impressive tracks such as Scaling The Tower and the Final Boss theme which I was surprised the Game Boy can handle.
With that being said, my major problem with Donkey Kong is the second half, the game shifts focus from being a puzzle platformer to more of a generic platformer, you no longer need to think out of the box for some levels, just need to be mechanically on point to clear them -usually being able to brute force weak puzzles- which is a shame since they had the puzzles nailed down in the first half.
I wouldn't have much of a problem with this if it went on for just 1 or 2 stages but it's basically like this for half the stages except for the last stage -in which all the levels are basically you vs DK as opposed to every 4 levels- and I can excuse it of not being puzzle-focused as those levels were rather good and a good change to not make the game monotonous.
Needless to say but this game overstays its welcome, the developers got way too ambitious and wanted to make Donkey Kong really long and they did, I wish they stopped at 5 stages instead since the game would have been already plenty long for a handheld platformer. (still longer than other games such as Super Mario Land)
Donkey Kong should be more popular considering how influential it is to the Mario games.
This game introduced movement that is still used in the most recent Mario games and has proven to be a success: the Backflip.
It also introduced a primitive version of the Triple Jump called the Handstand Jump, the former eventually becoming a series staple as well as the backflip.
The developers were not afraid to experiment with the already established arcade Donkey Kong formula, they focused on making puzzles the challenge and making players think out of the box rather than focusing on platforming as the primary difficulty; at least this is true for the first half of the game.
The first half of the game is a masterpiece, the game doesn't stop introducing new mechanics and well-thought gimmicks to make the puzzles more challenging while having ingenious tutorials in the form of short cutscenes every 4 stages or so showing the player the new mechanic or gimmick.
Even though this is a game made for a handheld console -in the mid 90s-, the developers focused on innovating rather than taking something that was already available on home consoles and watering it down à la Donkey Kong Land. The gimmicks and Mario's movement options introduced in this game were very clever and I take off my hat to the people behind Donkey Kong for that.
Levels are relatively short and you can save whenever you want which goes to show the understanding on the behavior of people when playing on handheld consoles thus making it convenient to play in short bursts.
The soundtrack has some impressive tracks such as Scaling The Tower and the Final Boss theme which I was surprised the Game Boy can handle.
With that being said, my major problem with Donkey Kong is the second half, the game shifts focus from being a puzzle platformer to more of a generic platformer, you no longer need to think out of the box for some levels, just need to be mechanically on point to clear them -usually being able to brute force weak puzzles- which is a shame since they had the puzzles nailed down in the first half.
I wouldn't have much of a problem with this if it went on for just 1 or 2 stages but it's basically like this for half the stages except for the last stage -in which all the levels are basically you vs DK as opposed to every 4 levels- and I can excuse it of not being puzzle-focused as those levels were rather good and a good change to not make the game monotonous.
Needless to say but this game overstays its welcome, the developers got way too ambitious and wanted to make Donkey Kong really long and they did, I wish they stopped at 5 stages instead since the game would have been already plenty long for a handheld platformer. (still longer than other games such as Super Mario Land)
Donkey Kong should be more popular considering how influential it is to the Mario games.