Retroactivity #6 - Donkey Kong Country

At a time when the 5th generation of consoles began its reign, Super NES showed that it still had a bit of firewood bringing in 1994 Donkey Kong Country.

By canana, Posted 15 Oct 2010

At a time when the 5th generation of consoles began its reign with the release of the 3DO consoles, Sega Saturn and PlayStation, Super NES showed that it still had a bit of firewood bringing in 1994 one of the finest games released so far : Donkey Kong Country. Because of its pre-rendered graphics in 3D, and its amazing soundtrack , this game would soon be regarded as one of the masterpieces of Nintendo. At a time when the 5th generation of consoles began his reign with the release of the 3DO consoles, Sega Saturn and PlayStation, Super NES showed that it still had a bit of firewood, bringing in 1994 one of the finest games released so far : Donkey Kong Country. Because of its pre-rendered graphics in 3D, and its amazing soundtrack , this game would soon be regarded as one of the masterpieces of Nintendo. Donkey Kong Country puts you in control of two monkeys: Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. Both have their merits, while the gorilla Donkey is your advantage to brute force, on the other hand Diddy is already more agile and faster. The two monkeys will go on a long adventure, covering various worlds and different phases in order to recover the stock of bananas from Donkey Kong, which was stolen by the evil King K. Roll, a giant crocodile that wants to dominate the island of heroes. When starting the game the player controls the big guy first, Donkey Kong, but soon find their way into a barrel where his friend Diddy Kong awaits. In possession of the two monkeys, then the player can switch between them freely, simply by pressing the apropriated button . The ape is not being controlled by the player will be just following the other, not helping at all (as in the collection of items, for example) but at least it also will not interfere.

The attacks are simple: they can jump on enemies to defeat them (and some stronger opponents can not be won by lightweight Diddy Kong) or roll toward their enemies. Many barrels scattered throughout the stages of the game can also be used as a weapon, and there are several types: common, they can defeat only one enemy: steel, which are capable of destroying one or more enemies; those marked with the letters "TNT", which can explode enemies and reveal secret passages, those marked with the initials "DK", which make the player again has the two monkeys on the screen, and the barrels of follow-up, serving to mark the progress made by the player on a stage and, allowing to continue from there (checkpoint), instead of having to play the whole stage again.

Super NES, SNES, Nintendo, Donkey Kong Country, Diddy Kong, King K. Roll

Thanks to its pre-rendered graphics in 3D, Donkey Kong Country is without any doubt, one of the finest games released for the! The quirk in the design of each type of scenery found in the game is something to fill the eyes and the amount of detail is immense, giving an incredible depth to the game! It was very well done and executed: in some scenarios you will witness a light rain falling until it turns into a real storm, and likewise in the phases where snow is present, the player will come on screen to have a real blizzard, which has just become even more difficult to see enemies and objects in the stage. The diversity of the game's only assisted, making it even more special and beautiful in the eyes of the player. The animation of the main characters and enemies, is impeccable, and the design is fully consistent with all the fun and light atmosphere of the game.

The game's sound effects are excellent! Each object has a distinctive sound, and all are very well done. The animals that populate the game, for example, all have a sound very close to the original. Something interesting and which demonstrates whim with the sound design of Donkey Kong Country, is the fact of change that occurs in the sound effects according to the environment, for example, in stages set in caves, the sounds of monkeys and enemies will ring with a small echo. Another good example that serves to show how the game's sound effects are really well done, is when a barrel of iron is trown in the snow and the sound is even more impressive, something that gives a sense of reality for those who are playing . The soundtrack is also fantastic, and each type of scenario in the game features a theme that matches nicely with it: in the forest stages with a more upbeat theme, in caves phases with the songs are slower and tense; aquatic phases the songs are more quiet and profound, and so on. And the music rolling during the battles against the bosses of the game are all very quick and choppy, which only helps to boost the adrenaline of the player during these fights. Briton David Wise was responsible for the musical themes of the game, and actually did a great job!

Super NES, SNES, Nintendo, Donkey Kong Country, Diddy Kong, King K. Roll

The game features a very simple and effective gameplay. All commands works fine, no delays. Thanks to nearly perfect animation of the characters in the game, all the action on the screen rolls quickly, which makes the play totally fluent and very exciting. Donkey Kong Country is a game that gets easy, but it becomes very hard in the final stages. At some stages suffice a mistake to lose a life. There are some levels that you will slip in the snow a lot, which only increases the chance that the player makes a mistake and go beyond pro. Phases where the darkness takes over, are "great" also to lose many, many lives. The battles against the bosses are not hard, but not be super easy.The final boss, the big guy King K. Roll, is what gives more work to be beaten, but still is far from being something very complicated.

Donkey Kong Country is one of the most beloved games for the NES, and thanks to its huge success has won a number of sequels. It's a very fun game, and has a visual and a sound that it is difficult not to feel like playing it. A game that is listed as a favorite of many gamers who lived all the "noise" that made Donkey Kong Country at the time of its release.

Marco Cecilio, NoobFeed

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  • I LOVE Donkey Kong Country!! I believe it was way ahead of its time. :) I recently bought DKC2 on my Wii and my brother hates it for no reason... which I think is silly. The first is great, but they take what the first did great and put more into 2.



    I really wish I could play DKC on mulitplayer, but I don't enough two controllers for my Wii to play it or on my original SNES. D:


    Posted Oct 17, 2010

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