Overview

Donkey Kong Country is a video game developed by Rare and Nintendo, featuring the popular arcade character, Donkey Kong. It was released for the SNES and Super Famicom in 1994. The game was released in Japan under the title Super Donkey Kong.

It was produced by Tim Stamper. This was the first Donkey Kong game that was not produced or directed by Shigeru Miyamoto.

Story

In this game, Donkey Kong has to recover his stolen hoard of bananas from King K. Rool and the rest of the "Kremlings". His banana hoard was located just in a cave underneath his house. Fortunately, he has the special help of his best buddy, Diddy Kong a Donkey Kong wannabe (he will not admit it). Cranky Kong lends some advice along the way. Funky Kong and Candy Kong also lend a hand. It was also the first time Donkey Kong's home environment, Donkey Kong Island, was established.

Development history

Graphics

The game was revolutionary in that it was the first game for a mainstream home video game console to use pre-rendered 3-D graphics. It was a technique that was also used in Rare's Killer Instinct. Many later 3-D video games would also use pre-rendered 3-D together with fully 3-D objects. Rare took significant financial risks in purchasing the expensive SGI equipment used to render the graphics. Both Nintendo and Rare refer to the technique for the creating the game's graphics as "ACM" (Advanced Computer Modeling)

Nintendo producer Shigeru Miyamoto once criticized Donkey Kong Country, stating that "Donkey Kong Country proves that players will put up with mediocre gameplay as long as the art is good."[1] Miyamoto later apologized, saying he had been too harsh due to Nintendo's pressuring him at the time to make Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island more like Donkey Kong Country.[1]

Music

Donkey Kong Country also had a popular soundtrack which was released on CD under the title DK Jamz. Composers Robin Beanland, Eveline Fischer and Dave Wise collaborated on this ensemble of jungle music. The diverse composition consists of over 20 tracks.

The soundtrack was also the focus of an OC ReMix collaboration entitled Kong in Concert.

Gameplay

The game played much like typical platforming games of the day. One noticeable difference was the inclusion of two characters: Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. Each Kong could take a hit, and once both were gone, a life was lost. The two had different abilities and strengths; Donkey could slap the ground and unveil secrets, as well as defeat stronger enemies, while Diddy was faster and more athletic. The player could switch between them via a "tag" that would be reused throughout the series. Donkey is best used in Caves, because there are stronger enemies in caves (according to the manual). Diddy is best for "acrobatic" levels.

There were six worlds: Kongo Jungle, Monkey Mines, Vine Valley, Gorilla Glacier, Kremkroc Industries Inc., and Chimp Caverns (as well as one final level, Gangplank Galleon). Due to the game's graphical abilities, the levels could look quite different from each other, with one being a snowstorm-ridden mountain, and another being a dangerous factory. The Kongs' goal was to get to the end of the level, while collecting bananas (100 would give an extra life), extra life balloons, or animal tokens, which would send them to an animal partner themed bonus level. As with Mario, they could beat typical enemies simply by jumping on them. You can also throw barrels at them, slap the ground to turn enemies into a banana or roll to knock them out. There were normal barrels, partner or DK barrels (which had a missing partner inside), steel barrels (which could bounce off walls and be ridden on) and TNT barrels which destroys enemies with a powerful explosion. A prevalent part of the game were barrel cannon courses, where the player had to navigate the Kongs through cannon-like blast barrels.

Helping the Kongs were five animal friends:

Rambi: A powerful rhino who could charge enemies and destroy hidden walls.
Expresso: An ostrich who could "glide" by attempting to fly and run very fast, but could not jump on enemies.
Enguarde: A swordfish (obviously only in water areas) who could charge and skewer enemies with his nose.
Winky: A powerful frog who could jump very high, and kill Zingers and other enemies the kongs cannot touch by jumping on them.
Squawks: A parrot who only appeared in one level and could not be ridden. He held a lantern so the Kongs could get through the pitch-black level.

Also helping them were other Kongs. Cranky Kong (a Kong in his '80s), Donkey's grumpy father/grandfather, would offer advice amidst his ranting about the glory days of video gaming. (It was revealed in the instruction manual that Cranky Kong is actually the original, arcade, DK who fought against Mario) Funky Kong, a "surfer dude" offered the Kongs a ride in his Jet Barrel, allowing them to revisit worlds. Candy Kong, Donkey's girlfriend, offered a Save Barrel that allowed the player to save their progress and view their statistics.

Hidden among the levels were "bonus levels". They could be in hidden barrels or behind weak walls. Some bonus levels were free-range, allowing a player to collect bananas or other items, but most were mini-games and offered a prize if won. Finding all the bonus levels changed the ending of the game very slightly.

Marketing

As a part of Nintendo's marketing campaign, a 15 minute VHS tape titled "Donkey Kong Country: Exposed [1]" was sent to subscribers of Nintendo Power magazine. The video takes the audience on a brief tour of Nintendo's headquarters in Redmond, Washington and shows footage from the game when it was in the final stages of development. Several game testers provide tips on how to access bonus levels and perform tricks throughout the game. Various interviews promote the level of graphical complexity as being revolutionary for game systems at that time. A segment at the end of the video reminds viewers that the game is available only on Nintendo's 16 bit Super Nintendo console and not on rival 32 bit and CD-ROM based systems (ex: Sega 32x and Sega CD) that boasted superior processing power. In a "hidden" section at the end of the cassette, the host of the video opens a door and discovers that Nintendo of America testers are playing a SNES version of Killer Instinct.

Reception

Donkey Kong Country was very successful upon release and was also available as a pack-in game in the Super Nintendo "Donkey Kong Set" (which contained the control deck, a controller, connections and the game). This facilitated sales of over a million copies thus, becoming a Player's Choice re-release title around 1998.[citation needed]

The title also received Game of the Year honors from EGM for 1994 although it is now also considered by the magazine to be one of the Top 10 Most Overrated Games of All Time before their 200th issue anniversary.

Ports

In 2000, a port of Donkey Kong Country for the Game Boy Color was released. In 2003, another port of the game was released for the Game Boy Advance. Both games had some new features including new minigames, hidden pictures, a new stage, (GBC version) a Time Trial mode & multiplayer games (GBA version). Both versions also had a number of minor changes., This game is expected to be re-released on the Wii Virtual Console. As with other Virtual Console games, it is expected to be a straight port from the SNES version.

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