Donkey Kong Country was released in 1994 by Rare for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. In terms of graphics, sound, and game play, this game really represents the peak of 2D side-scrolling platform gaming in the 16-bit era. This game was also a major revival for the Donkey Kong franchise.
At a high level, Donkey Kong Country is a traditional platformer like many others. It is just particularly well executed. It follows the adventures of Donkey Kong and his sidekick, the newly introduced Diddy Kong, as they seek to recover their stolen bananas from the evil King K. Rool and his various minions.
The most important aspect of Donkey Kong Country is the excellent game play. The controls are among the best for such games leaving you no reason to be frustrated on that front. You can control either Donkey Kong or Diddy Kong each of which has their own strengths and weaknesses.
The levels feature a ton of variety which is always important in this kind of game. Each level has a multitude of challenges, hidden secrets, and items to collect. The environments are also quite varied featuring locals such as industrial factories, jungles, ice caves, etc.
One of the more unique aspects of Donkey Kong Country is the ability to summon animal companions. Various animals can be summoned to assist you including Rambi the Rhinoceros, Expresso the Ostrich, and others.
Donkey Kong Country also broke new ground when it came to graphics on 16-bit systems. Rare used a method of creating pre-rendered 3D models and then turning them into 2D sprites. All aspects of the graphics were pretty amazing including the character models, character animations, and the detailed environments and backgrounds. The soundtrack and sound effects were equally well done.
If all of that weren't enough, Donkey Kong Country offers tons of replayability and an excellent difficulty curve. It never gets so hard as to be frustrating. For more advanced players, the true difficulty and replayability of the game comes from completing levels 100% by exploring all areas, collecting all necessary items and completing all challenges.
Donkey Kong Country was a huge success for Rare and was the game that really brought them into the spotlight. It was a huge influence of future platformers, not the least of which are its own sequels including Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest and Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble.
There have been a variety of ports and re-releases over the years. There was a port of this game on the Game Boy Color in 2000 that was a pretty faithful conversion. There was another release on the Game Boy Advance in 2004 which was nearly identical to the Super NES original. There were also a few releases of the original Super NES version on the Virtual Console for the Wii, 3DS and Wii-U. The most recent re-releases have been as part of the Super NES Classic Edition in 2017 and via Nintendo Switch Online in 2020.
If you are a platform game fan then this game is a game you don't want to miss. There have been additional sequels and spinoffs over the years but the original is still something special. Perhaps more than any other game, Donkey Kong Country was responsible for keeping the Super NES relevant in the face of the impending PlayStation and Saturn releases and in claiming ultimate victory in the 16-bit wars.
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