The one and only monkey.

After Super Mario World it was time to look at another great game with a famous monkey.
I am ofcourse talking about Monkey Donkey Kong. Which was originally named Monkey Kong but after a miscommunication over the phone was named Donkey Kong. Nowadays most people would recognize Donkey Kong Country, because of the Wii version. But i'm not talking about the new one. Im talking about the original Super NES game, good old: Donkey Kong Country.

 

Donkey Kong Country was made in 1994 by the famous game company Rare that also brought you Battletoads and Killer Instinct. On the Nintendo 64 they made the famous GoldenEye 007, Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie. When Microsoft bought Rare, they made Viva Pinata for the 360 and PC.

You might still remember the old NES game named Donkey Kong, when Mario was still called 'Jumpman' and was not a plumber but a carpenter. When you turn on your Super NES the first thing you see is Donkey Kong , but very old. You actually play as Donkey Kong Jr. the old man is his 8-bit grandpa. You can play as either Donkey Kong Jr. or as Diddy Kong which is his nephew.

As far as the story goes, King K. Rool, an evil Crocodile, stole every banana of his precious hoard. He and Diddy Kong are doing everything they can to get those bananas back. The bananas have been scattered all around DK Island and they won't stop until they have every banana back. On your quest trough DK Island, you'll run into some problems. Every level is packed with enemies, which are all King K. Rool's minions. The levels are not only packed with enemies like wasps, beavers and crocodiles. There are also bananas all over the place.

 As you can see, you move through the levels like a map, similar to Mario games. Everytime you beat a level, the next one appears, until all levels are completed, the very last level of each map is a boss. When every level is beaten you walk to the next map. The male purple monkey takes you to previous maps by plane. The girl is your save point, these are mostly just before the boss battle which is really helpful. The first bosses are very easy though. 

At the very beginning you start with both characters, Donkey and Diddy Kong. Both Kongs have their own special moves, Where Donkey can do a roll which kills enemies, Diddy can do a cartwheel. Donkey can also pound the ground which reveals secret objects in the ground. Diddy Kong is faster in movement and can jump higher and further, you will mostly play with Diddy because of this.

Bananas are equal to the Mario coins, once you reach 100 bananas you gain an extra life. Unlike Mario these are extremely easy to find and theres atleast 100 in every level. Sometimes there are secret rooms that have about 100 in 'em. At the first boss i had about 9 / 10 lifes. But collecting bananas isn't everything. You also have 4 hidden letters, sometimes hard to reach, sometimes just in front of you, these 4 hidden letters spell KONG. If you get all the 4 letters, you gain an extra life. There are also balloons hidden in the levels. 3 colours, Red, Green and Blue.

Red = 1 life
Green = 2 lifes
Blue = 3 lifes. The blue balloon is very rare.

The main goal of every level is to reach the end. But there's alot of enemies that want to take you down. There are crocodiles, wasps, beavers etc. One does not simply walk into a DK level. Luckily these monsters have a very standard patern. They just walk back and forth, Wasps just fly in half circles, you can easily time your jump to kill them or slip past them, that is in the first couple of levels. The enemies get harder every level, the enemies are recycled alot but with different colours so it doens't get boring. You can't actually jump on wasps unless you are mounting an enemy (I will tell you about that later) or when using a weapon. The weapon of the Kongs are barrels. You can pick 'em up and throw 'em at your enemy, when you hit them they die. There's a couple of different types of barrels.

The DK barrels are there to revive your lost partner. When you lose Donkey or Diddy Kong, you just have to hit one of those DK barrels and he's back. There is mostly 1 DK barrel in each level. You also have Checkpoint Barrels which speaks for itself. Though the barrels that are the most fun are the barrels that can launch you. There are barrels that shoot you automaticly up on a ledge or to another barrel that shoots you further down the level. There are also barrels pointed to the sky, these are mostly 'portals' to mini-games, which mostly are just places where you can collect bananas.

But next to the not moving barrels, there is also , ofcourse, the moving barrels. These barrels follow a patern and you will have to time your shot, if you miss, you die. They don't just move up and down, no!, they move from side to side, they spin 360 degrees while moving! It is sometimes very hard to time your shots, this makes the game fun and challenging. This was very new at the time and this was one of the aspects that made this game it is today.

Also assisting Donkey Kong at times are various 'animal buddies' (Rambi the rhino, Expresso the ostrich, Enguarde the swordfish, Winky the frog, and Squawks the parrot), each with their own unique abilities.I like the Frog because of i'ts high jumps, i hate the swordfish, i find it hard to control. The rhino is useful too, it can crush enemies by charging them.

Conclusion: This game is still a nice game to play once in a while, it has a very high replay value. The graphics look good for the time and the gameplay is just perfect. And the game isn't even that easy, some levels like the stop & go station are still a pain in the ass. I don't really know how i should rate it , 10 or 9 . you decide!

 This was MrBunni, see you next time.

MrBunni Out.