Donkey Kong Country
Posted by 2Three
Easily one of the best games on the Super Nintendo. Donkey Kong Country was developed by Rare Games and released in 1994. This was an era in gaming history when Rare was one of the top development companies thanks to the Donkey Kong Country series, and later GoldenEye 007 on the N64. As far as classic platformers are concerned, every old school gamer started with Mario Bros. on the NES. Then the majority of gamers shifted their attention to the Genesis and Sonic the Hedgehog. Near the end of the 16-bit era, there was no question that Donkey Kong Country was the new favorite.
What set this game apart from other platformers was the graphics. Rare really pushed the Super Nintendo to the limit. The characters looked marvelous, and the environments were extremely detailed, complete with dynamic weather effects. It definitely excited players about what Nintendo was going to be capable of producing with their Ultra 64 machine, which later came to be known simply as the Nintendo 64. Go back and play DKC and try to tell me it looks bad. It still looks pretty nice today and is one of those games that will never look terrible, no matter how much time goes by.
Aside from the graphics, the ‘hop & bop’ style of play was well-received by gamers and helped this game stand out from the rest in the crowded platforming market. Each character had their own unique abilities, and the game play style really changed depending on whether you were using Donkey or Diddy. Donkey of course was bigger, heavier, and stronger. This meant he could take out some of the larger enemies more effectively than Diddy and had a powerful ‘ground pound’ maneuver that allowed him to take out bad guys or reveal hidden goodies from the ground. Diddy of course being smaller, was faster and could jump higher. There were also some animal buddies that you could ride, and each of these characters offered unique abilities as well.
Like Sonic the Hedgehog, I would love to see another 2D Donkey Kong Country game with some flashy, modern graphics. But considering Microsoft now owns Rare and the characters are still (and always were) the intellectual property of Nintendo, I won’t hold my breath for a true follow-up to this one in 2D.
However, for anyone with a Wii that does not feel like dusting off their Super NES and would like a trip down Donkey Kong Country memory lane, it is available via the Wii’s Virtual Console.
This entry was posted on Sunday, February 24th, 2008 at 12:36 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.