Donkey Kong Country (SNES) Review
If there are two persistent memories from my Super Nintendo years they are: One, Bubsy and his crazy adventures to collect balls of wool; and two, the three Donkey Kong titles that, while nothing short of Mario clones, gave the platformer genre a fresh coat of paint and delivered an incredibly enjoyable romp.
Yes, Donkey Kong Country is a lot like the Mario platformers and has seen just as many ports. The hero or in the case of Country, heroes can jump on enemies and throw items though you won’t find any flower power-ups here. Instead the two main monkeys, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong, can roll into unsuspecting enemies (as long as they arent those frustratingly annoying drugged up pigs in Go, Go, Stop), throw barrels at unsuspecting enemies and yes you guessed it, shoot themselves into unsuspecting enemies via exploding barrels. To add to the mix you can gain access to three handy animal friends that will make getting through the levels all that much sweeter. Theres a Rhino, an Ostrich and for the underwater scenes, a swordfish. Though these animals do bring a nice mix to the gameplay, it is after all Rares attempt at cashing in on the stellar Mario platformers.
The story goes like this: King K.R. Rool has stolen Donkey Kongs stash of bananas and this has made DK really, really, angry. So its off to an adventure with his brother, travelling up a mountain from level to level until the ultimate confrontation. Theres a variety of environments in Donkey Kong Country and although youll see the generic mountain landscape and underwater location, there is also spice in the way of beaver caves and mine cart sledding. These locations are made even better by the eye-popping visuals, though they arent as impressive today as they once were. Regardless of these complaints, Donkey Kong Country is still far better eye candy than the earlier Super Mario World.
The game has some decent length to it and will keep you entertained through many playthroughs, especially when its so much fun to unlock an animal’s bonus mini game. The purpose of these mini games is simple enough: collect as many bananas as possible within a time limit to gain extra lives. This comes in handy if you want to stockpile up on as many lives as some of the later levels can frustrate and entice the urge to throw the controller out the window. As mentioned earlier, the visuals are gorgeous, from lush environments and excellent level design; everything seems to fit into one nice little package. The only complaint nowadays would be the image seems a little stretched on LCD televisions, but thats the price you pay for higher technology. There are some memorable tunes throughout the game as well and fit very well with the atmosphere. All the old style monkey grunts and squeals are here, as well as the scantily dressed Candy Kong.
So while this retro review comes many weeks since the game’s release I felt the urge to iterate just how unbelievably awesome this game was in the early 90s and how well it has aged into the double zeros. If you have never experienced Donkey Kong Country but have enjoyed tastes of platforming from Mario then this will be right up your alley. It is a visual treat and will take you back to days when video gaming was in its prime.
