Donkey Kong Country Turns 30: A Visually Groundbreaking Platformer Reckons with Old Age
The nostalgia goggles are chipped
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I am nine years old, reading the December 1994 issue of GamePro magazine with great joy and expectation.
Donkey Kong Country is my new favorite game, even though I haven’t played it yet. It looks amazing, and as we all know, graphics are everything. I love the Genesis and I love Sonic, but c’mon. Only Nintendo - assisted by the formidable power of the SNES and the brilliant minds at Rare - could have produced a 32-bit cartridge that looks nearly as good as any computer game.
GamePro almost gives Donkey Kong Country their highest rating. 5.0s for Graphics, Control, and Fun Factor, but it only receives a 4.5 for Sound. According to the reviewer, Scary Larry, “The music is great, but not quite perfect. The theme song is forgettable, but the cool sound effects include lots of gorilla screeches, chimp whimpers, and jungle drums. A little digitized voice from the master of insults, Cranky, would’ve really put the icing on the cake.”1 I do not judge his words, because after all, he’s a game critic. He plays video games for a living. Any person lucky enough to get such a job must know what they’re talking about.
I receive Donkey Kong Country for Christmas 1994, and it is everything I expect it to be.
I am swept away by the game’s gorgeous photo-realistic landscapes, the haunting music (it’s a 5.0 in my book, with all respect to Scary Larry), and the exciting platforming. Donkey Kong and his new pal Diddy Kong look and play flawlessly. My expectations are met and then some. It is to me, at nine, a perfect game, and I am grateful to own it.
SYNOPSIS
In Donkey Kong Country, you control both Donkey and Diddy Kong as they fight King K. Rool and his Kremling gang. Their mission: to retrieve Donkey’s stolen banana hoard from K. Rool. The game is standard 16-bit platforming – jump here, bounce on enemies’ heads, avoid the pitfalls, collect items etc. – but interspersed with unique timing-based sections, like barrel-blasting and mine-cart riding.
Donkey Kong Country’s graphics were the game’s main selling point. Created with Silicon Valley SGI Workstations, Rare initially purchased these computers to use in developing games for Nintendo’s upcoming Ultra 64 console. According to IGN’s Rare developer profile, however, “While working with the new SGI equipment, the Rare team discovered a method to incorporate photo-realistic graphics, light sourcing, and advanced motion capture into the aged 16-bit SNES. This method [was] called Advanced Computer Modelling (ACM)…”
It's hard to overstate how phenomenal Donkey Kong Country looked in 1994. 3D graphics had appeared in console games prior to this, but in very rudimentary forms, like 1993’s polygon-heavy Starfox. DKC’s 3D models were beautifully rendered and provided the world a glimpse into what the future of gaming would resemble.
Donkey Kong Country also emerged at the perfect time for Nintendo and the industry. The Genesis and SNES were hanging on to their market share, but they were visually getting long in the tooth. The SNES’ sales still tracked behind the Genesis in North America, a once-unthinkable feat given how dominant Nintendo was with the NES in the region just a few years prior. The Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, and Sony PlayStation would eventually usher in 3D gaming for the masses, but all three consoles were still almost a year (or two in the N64’s case) away from being released in the United States.
With Donkey Kong Country’s massive success (9.3 million units sold worldwide), Nintendo both extended the life of the SNES and reclaimed their throne as the most successful video game company in America.
REFLECTION
A lot has happened since I first played Donkey Kong Country thirty years ago.
My parents separated and later divorced. I graduated from college, got married, moved around the United States. Beloved grandparents have passed on. My spiritual journey has expanded my understanding of life and love in ways I never believed were possible.
And along the way, I’ve played hundreds of video games. Many of which are superior to Donkey Kong Country.
Don’t get me wrong, Donkey Kong Country is very easy to pick up and play to this day. If you’ve ever played a 2D platformer, you’ll know exactly what to do here.
But the character models, once so rich and beautiful, now look warped and smeared. I’ve read some articles where authors define the DKC models as plastic, but they look more like CGI clay to me. The platforming has always been basic, but because the graphics no longer generate the same sense of awe, the gameplay feels more average than ever.
That said, you know what Donkey Kong Country still has over so many other 16-bit platformers?
Atmosphere.
If there’s any reason to play Donkey Kong Country in 2024, it’s to immerse yourself in the game’s fully realized world.
David Wise, Eveline Fischer, and Robin Beanland’s rich, enveloping music fully captures the essence of each location the Kongs visit. In the jungle stages, they expertly combine tribal drums and cricket chirps with upright bass and jazz piano. The forest levels mix flute, xylophone, and harp, creating an ethereal soundscape that invites you in. “Aquatic Ambience” is the soundtrack’s MVP, though. A truly stunning piece of ambient music that sits alongside Brian Eno and Aphex Twin’s greatest works in the genre, it is the perfect complement to the game’s otherwise lackluster underwater areas.
Many of the outdoor levels feature dynamic backdrops that shift as you progress. In “Jungle Hijinks,” for example, the sun fades out at the end of the level. The next level, “Ropey Rampage,” starts off with darkness, rain that obscures the screen, and thunder and lightning, but by the end of the level, the rain has stopped and the sun peeks through once more. Likewise, “Snowy Barrel Blast” begins as a sunny, albeit cold winter day, before a dark snowstorm blows in and adds more chaos to the already tense level. Little touches like this impressed me as a young person, but even more so now, perhaps because they make the game feel more alive.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Beauty fades, yes it does, both with people and technology. A technological advancement or achievement, once so exciting and vibrant, six months, a year, five years down the road, is swept away by something different, something that makes what was once a breakthrough, look obsolete by comparison.
With beauty being unreliable, we must look for what really matters, that which lies within. Donkey Kong Country is a mediocre platformer surrounded by excellent artistry - and I don’t just mean the graphics, though they were crafted with great time and care. The designers, the artists, the composers, all of whom absolutely prop this otherwise average game up with their superior talents. Nostalgia aside, they are the ones who make Donkey Kong Country playable three decades after its release.
My nine-year-old self was not wrong. Upon its release, Donkey Kong Country was the greatest game I had ever played. I will always be grateful to it, to Rare, to Nintendo, for transporting me into a world that felt so lived-in and alive, so laden with secrets and mystery. Seems silly now, maybe, but that’s what childhood is all about, the sense that anything is possible, and adventure lies wherever you can find it, whether in the physical or digital realms.
But my thirty-nine-year-old self isn’t wrong, either. I appreciate and respect what has come before, but I also want to make room for what came after and what has yet to come. Forget the graphics. Donkey Kong Country paved the way for far superior games, worlds, and experiences. Let’s honor it for that.
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*thanks to Retro Mags, GameGrin, Brittney Brombacher, MobyGames, RetBit, and VG Museum for the images
GamePro, “Donkey Kong Country” review, December 1994
Yeah, you really nailed it about the atmosphere of this game. Its sequels were superior in many ways, but none of them have that same feeling of being engrossed in a world like the original.
Another classic. This is pretty much the only game that my wife will still play, because it’s so accessible and of course the nostalgia factor. It really does hold up remarkably well!