Donkey Kong Country (Super Nintendo

There is an age old debate in gaming: What is the most important aspect? Is it how fluid the controls are? Is it the storyline? Does none of that matter as long as it’s pretty to look at? Different people have different ideas of what matters most to them in this beautiful pass-time of ours. And they’re all valid outlooks to have.

This could very naturally spill into the debate on whether or not video games can be classified as Art. I absolutely believe it can. A lot of people would agree! And I hope the points I bring up today and in the future can highlight a little bit of that.

A true work of art will always be subject to the eye of the beholder. That being said, it certainly helps when as many different elements are lined up squarely in the good column, which brings me to today’s topic: Donkey Kong Country for the Super Nintendo. The first in a trilogy of what some would consider to be the greatest platformers on the console, barring a certain Italian Plumber, maybe. But that was then, upon release.

Today we ask one simple question: Is it worth it now?

I will always be the first to admit a certain bias when it comes to mascot platformers. I play a bit of everything, but chances are I’ll binge a few Platformers whenever there’s spare time. They’re really easy to jump in, play a couple of levels, and jump out. It helps that they all play nearly identically, so there’s very little learning curve too.

Donkey Kong Country is one such mascot platformer. Released in November of 1994 by Rare, one of the more prolific companies in the mid-to-late 90s, DKC can very easily be labeled as a top contender for one of the greatest platformers of all time. While Mario, I think, will always be seen as something of an originator in the Platformer space, and the previously discussed Kirby became highly focused on power ups and exploration, Donkey Kong Country took elements of what came before it, poured it all into a pot, stirred it all together, and cooked it to damn near perfection.

In other Platformers, you’ll have a load of information on your screen at once. Your Lifebar, lifetotal, a score, maybe an extra power up you can activate at any time, and a Timer so you know how much time you have left to get to the end of a stage before automatically losing a life.

Donkey Kong Country has none of this cluttering your screen. You have the level itself, and your character. When you collect any bananas (this game’s version of Mario’s coins, complete with getting an Extra Life after collecting one hundred), you see that calculated at the top. Same when you gain or lose a life, or one of the games collectibles. But the important part, the level itself, you, and all the hazards along the way, that takes precedent. All the extra fluff only appears when necessary, only for a few seconds, and then back it goes off screen leaving you to concentrate on what is important.

I always turn to the Donkey Kong Country series as a perfect example of what the full potential of a Platformer could be. Namely, a few things to collect along the way, enemy placement that fosters trial and error that is not frustrating, and a constant sense of movement. Let’s go through each of these together, shall we?

Few things to collect: In DKC, you have bananas instead of coins, you have extra lives along the way as most games of its ilk have. You can also collect throughout the level the four letters that spell KONG to gain an additional life, as well as Animal Tokens. We’ll be talking about the animal buddies shortly, but to briefly summarize here, each animal buddy except Squawks gets their own timed Bonus Level where you collect tokens in the shape of said animal buddy, and once the timer runs out you get an extra life for every 100 tokens you collected in the stage. Pretty cool stuff.

The Animal Buddies are essentially this games “Power Ups”. Instead of changing what Donkey and Diddy Kong can do, you crack open a crate with one of these other creatures and can ride around on them for the rest of the level. They act not only as an extra way of traversing through the levels, but also an extra “Hit” if you will.

You get Rambi the Rhino who can charge through obstacles and break through some of the walls leading to bonus areas. Expresso the Ostrich, who is tall enough to avoid some of the smaller enemies and gives you an extra long jump to go across long distances. Winky the Frog, giving you a higher jump and allowing you to hit bees from above, an enemy you normally need to either avoid or smash with a barrel. Enguarde the Swordfish, making the swimming sections easier and being your only mode of offense in the underwater levels. And finally Squawks. A parrot who is in exactly one level, and serves to light up a cave.

The enemy placement and constant sense of motion… well, those two go together really really well. To me, a platformer is at its best when you are always moving forward, constantly moving towards the end of the stage. Having enemies lined up in such a way that you build up speed, or can chain certain moves together.

In Mario, this started happening in some of the more modern titles, but Donkey Kong Country had this one right from the beginning. You’d get a set of 3 Gnawty’s, the little beaver things. Roll into all three and jump at the right time and you shoot forward, into a Barrel that is set to shoot you even further! I never played much of Sonic the Hedgehog (something that I am bound to rectify in the hopefully not too distant future), but I would imagine that sense of speed translates quite well in there as well.

Like most platformers, at the end of a set of themed levels is a boss that needs to get smacked around. In this one, they are mostly modeled as larger versions of normal enemies that you face regularly. You got a giant Beaver, a giant vulture, a giant Bee, a giant beaver with a different colour, a giant… vulture with a different colour… and a giant metal can that shoots out regular sized regular monsters.

The bosses really are the weakpoint here. Just bop em on the head after avoiding their hops, or pellet shots. In future entries in the Donkey Kong franchise… the bosses get worse. Here, they exist, they’re serviceable, it works. I can’t hate it too much, since when do you find memorable boss fights in a platformer? Mario games you just bop em on the head three times, Kirby you get enemies to suck up and shoot back at them.

After a set number of hits, DKC’s bosses go down, leading to the next area of themed levels. You got your jungle, your icy mountains, your factory. Presentation wise, this game definitely still holds up to this day. Character models on both our heroic primates and our villainous Kremlings look superb, and the backgrounds scroll through in a way that I find incredibly appealing.

Back in the day, this was arguably one of the best looking games on the system. In fact, it was something of a technological marvel, with other games sticking to a strictly 2-d realm, this game had fully rendered character models, with somewhat realistic movements, and backgrounds that I believe hold up to this day.

Then there is the music. I have been a fan of video game music since the 8 bit era, a time when sounds were little more than assortments of noises put together in a vaguely tune form. Unlike Kirby’s Dreamland from the last episode, this game did not have a method of listening to the games music in a separate mode. Instead, we had the age old classic of hitting the Pause button and just leaving it that way to hear whatever favorites you may have.

Mine were the Minecart level, the Factory, and the second Icy area, the last one actually only appears in one level, the second level of the Gorilla Glaicer world. I think my favorite aspect of some of these songs was actually the length of them. Back in the early era of game soundtracks, each tune would loop after about 15 or 20 seconds, and if a particular level got long enough, or you had to repeat the stage enough times… well, it wouldn’t take long to memorize a particular tune.

In Donkey Kong Country, each stage theme is quite long for an SNES game. To the point where it’s almost like there are two different songs, even though it’s part of the same one.

Take the Cave them for instance. It starts with water dripping in the background, and a somewhat hollow, echoey percussion tune. Give it time and the single musical line changes to a deep hum, and a woodwind takes the lead on creating the tune. This one feels less like a song, and more like a background ambient track, divided in half.

A similar thing happens with the opening track of the game. Another youtuber by the name of KingK describes it quite nicely, how it starts with just jungle noises and moves on up to a full on bouncy beat, one that uses several distinct musical instruments to combine together seamlessly. After a little bit, the whole track changes, different instrumentation, different tempo, switches from a Major to an almost Minor motif, once again almost like an entirely different song.

I’m a fan of a lot of different aspects of gaming, but music in particular is something that almost always triggers the nostalgia in my head. I close my eyes, imagine a certain song, and I can be transported to a time in a life where that game played a part, or the memory of certain people who have had a profound effect on my life. Music can be an incredibly powerful art form, and video game music, even retro video game music, is definitely something that has earned my respect. The music in Donkey Kong Country in my mind is definitely up there with the greats.

Speaking of nostalgic memories, I believe now is a great time to switch gears and talk about my memories involving this game. Where to begin? How about that Mine cart level eh? I remember getting to the second world, getting to that minecart level and… getting stuck. My age was in the single digits at the time, and while I’ve always loved video games, I never said I was any good at them. Days upon days of trying to memorize the enemy and obstacle placement.

I do remember one summer where, naturally I was staying up entirely too late trying to get play as much of the game as I could. I got to the mine cart level once again, and I remember my mother telling me that either once I ran out of lives, or once I made it past the level, it was time for bed. I hadn’t stockpiled lives, and my abilities were not that great, but I made it to the checkpoint at the halfway mark.

Shortly after this, there is a small segment that takes some doing, a couple of rapid fire jumps going into what is essentially a hop. Keep the jump button held down for too long and you get to an upper track, which is safer. A smaller button press at the right time gets you a red Extra Life balloon. It’s close enough to the checkpoint that you could keep getting this extra life every time you try to go through the stage, if you’re good enough at platforming.

Which, you know, I am now, but definitely was not back then. Let me assure my past self and family, when I got that extra life balloon it was pure luck. Now… about 75% luck.

Of course, nothing beats finding the warp in that same level purely by accident. I overshot the barrel at the beginning, but didn’t overshoot it by so much as to try and make the jump from the beginning to the cart. By hugging the wall, you get blasted automatically to the end of the stage. Since the first mine cart level has no Bonus stages to worry about, that’s an easy 100% complete on that level.

Then there are the codes! Right when you start up, you hover over the Erase Game section at the bottom just before you select your save file. By spelling out Barrel, replacing the E with the A button, you start up with 50 total lives! Another code gives you a Bonus Level Select kind of thing, where you can go through any of the Animal Buddies bonus stages as a stand alone. That would be nice practice, and also a great resource to max out your lives… if only I could ever figure out how to exit that section and go to my actual save file. Both of those codes I’m pretty sure I learned from two separate sources, the Video and Arcade top 10 show from last weeks episode, and a friend of my Dad’s from when I was growing up. Thank you random friend of my dads!

Now of course, not every memory I have of this game is a happy one. Again, I love playing games, but I will never in a hundred thousand years say that I have anything resembling skill. Donkey Kong Country as a series is known for its firm but fair difficulty. All of the enemy placement works very well from a design standpoint, and once you learn the patterns you can breeze through any stage blindfolded. And I could probably pull that off. Right now.

But back when I was first learning how to play games in the first place, there were plenty of stopgaps to my progress in getting to the end credits. The first world had Barrel Cannon Canyon, where I just could not get the timing right for those barrels. The second world had the Mine Cart level for a little while, then the Stop and Go station (which also had a handy warp at the very beginning), a long weekend trying to figure out the third world, most of which was spent on the Bee boss.

Then Gorilla Glacier. The beginning of World 4 has slippery platforms, reduced visibility, a barrel section that to this day I NEED to skip in favor of a pseudo warp point near the end of the first level, a slippery rope level (which has one of my favorite tracks of the entire game, but I digress), and finally the one and only Squawks level. With a flash light. An incredibly annoying, blinding flashlight. My memory of this naturally involves being stuck in this section of levels for what felt like forever!

And finally, something that will almost certainly be considered TMI for basically everyone. Do you know of the peepee dance? It’s that time when you’re holding it in, but because you are so in the zone you don’t want to stop? The very first time I made it to the final boss, I remember it being yet another late night “just gotta do this one thing before bed” kind of deals, and because it was clearly the end, it was allowed.

Firstly, I didn’t even notice that the pirate ship in the background of the world map was getting closer and closer. Then the first few times trying to defeat K. Rool, I immediately had to pee. And yet, I didn’t go because I was so dang close to the end I didn’t want to stop. I stood up and kept going for about a dozen tries. At that point… yeah, I just ran to the bathroom, came back, and three tries later finally felled the foul monster. Which is as good a time as any to talk about that final boss.

So you make your way through six sets of stages on Donkey Kong Island. You grab bananas, collect Kong letters, and battle your way until finally you come face to face with the evil King who stole your banana horde! Kooky pirate music plays as the King shoots his crown at you, making you time your head stomps carefully. Or not, maybe you have the timing down. Good show.

Do this three times and he starts shooting cannon balls at you. This is the section where I got stuck at the most, and perfectly illustrates once again the Firm but Fair difficulty that Donkey Kong Country is known for. There is plenty of time to dodge everything, but you still need the skill to do it. Finally, after another three sets of stomping the giant Crocodile’s head and dodging giant cannon balls, the credits roll…

Yeah, I didn’t include this in the memories section, but of course I fell for this the first time around! It didn’t matter that every job description started with a K, or that the performers of those jobs were the names of enemies you crushed. I was blissfully ignorant, basking in the glory of victory, before getting squashed and having to start the whole process over again.

This final boss is not difficult, especially in comparison to later K Rool boss fights in the SNES Country trilogy. But it perfectly encapsulates the character. The jaunty tune, the pirate atmosphere, it’s a fitting conclusion to an incredibly solid Platformer Experience.

Donkey Kong Country is a game that I will never forget, and always have fun playing. One of the few that I actively tried to get 100% completion on. Donkey Kong Country 1 is my comfort food. I play it to unwind, I listen to the soundtrack to remember the good ole days. I own this game on several different consoles, and can drop in and out of any level and feel like I haven’t skipped a beat. More than nearly any other game I have ever played, when I'm sick, when I'm depressed, when I'm bored... Donkey Kong Country is there for me.

Beyond that however, the level design is good, the music fits the atmosphere, and it is one of the most beautiful games in the Super Nintendo lineup. I can say with the utmost certainty that yes, the first Donkey Kong Country is worth it to this day.