365//365: Day 116 – Donkey Kong (GB)

Donkey Kong has had an interesting run in his virtual career. From being Jumpman’s pet ape and kidnapping his girlfriend in Donkey Kong (before Jumpman was renamed to Mario), to….well, having Donkey Kong, Jr. grown up and taking the helm of Donkey Kong, right on through to an epic 2D platformer on the Super Nintendo, a 3D adventure on the Nintendo 64, to even beating up Link in Super Smash Bros. But before Donkey Kong retired and became Cranky Kong, he took on Mario one last time on the Nintendo Game Boy, in a game called Donkey Kong (original, huh?) What’s worse is that you start the game in a familiar manner….

….but fortunately, you then move onto the real meat and potatoes of the title….

Those familiar to the class arcade version will find little similarities once the initial nostalgic stages pass by, and you enter the rest of the game. Mario has gained a few new moves in his repertoire, including a duck, handstand, handstand jump, pole swinging (not like that!) and the ability to pick up certain items to heave at enemies, or use as a platform. Your goal remains the same, however, but it becomes increasingly more difficult as you enter the later stages. Thankfully, Donkey Kong is a difficult game, but for all of the right reasons. When you die, a large percentage of the time it is due to your own mistiming.

While it’s not the most visually pleasant titles on the system, Donkey Kong holds its own. Although the color scheme will not change much, playing Donkey Kong via Super Game Boy will lighten up the mood some, as everything doesn’t have to be vomit green. The audio scores can also be described as not the greatest, but it does hold its own. The sounds of your jumps can get just a tad bit annoying, as well as running around. The low volume of the music and the high volume of your walking around and jumping makes it hard to enjoy the music, which isn’t too bad, but is easily drowned out by a simple act such as walking.

Finding each key to unlock the next stage might be easy, but as you get further into the game, getting said key to the door becomes quite a challenge.

With practice, the control set up works well enough. Mario does run a bit slow, as well as have a pretty low regular jump. Thankfully, Mario comes equipped with a couple of extra jumps, including a handstand jump, as well as a flip jump, reminiscent of Super Mario 64, where you run forward, then press the opposite direction and then the jump button. These can help you cut down on travel time through the earlier stages, although as you progress, the platforms become higher and higher, so your reliance on your acrobatics takes a backseat to the many gimmicks the game introduces to you during post Donkey Kong battles.

These said gimmicks really help push Donkey Kong along and changes the game up with each new thing introduced. It can be something as simple as pulling a switch to activate a moving platform, to touching an arrow icon and maneuvering a small icon into a certain place to extend a ladder to reach a previously inaccessible area. While these might seem like a generic, and take almost no intelligence to use, but the way some levels are constructed, you can erect a platform in one area, and won’t realize until a subsequent play-through later, that you can place it elsewhere to decrease your time in said stage. It’s a flexible enough system that rewards your experimentation by not only completing stages in a timely manner (which gives you more points that go towards extra lives after every battle with Donkey Kong) but with quite a bit of self satisfaction after getting through a considerably challenging area.

Not everything is satisfying with Donkey Kong. One hit and you lose a life. Some stages get pretty hectic, and you will take quite a few hits, resulting in quite a few lives lost. Thankfully, you have plenty of opportunities to  gain multiple lives throughout the game. After every battle with Donkey Kong, the time you had left from each stage is added up, with every 100 seconds rewarding you with an extra life. Then there’s the generic difficulty increasing aspects, such as long rows of spikes that prevent you from jumping a certain gap, or even straight up. With how clever the stages are laid out, and how new gimmicks are introduced after every Donkey Kong battle, there’s really no need to throw in any sort of artificial difficulty to ruin the experience. Finally, although the graphics does hold its own, oftentimes each stage doesn’t vary enough from the next. Platform placements, as well as the size of each stage will definitely vary, but due to the graphical powers of the Game Boy, there’s a lack of diversity in the games look.

We went from Donkey Kong the arcade game, to Donkey Kong for Game Boy, to Donkey Kong, Jr. the arcade game....confusing, but oh so fun!

From the outside looking in, Donkey Kong on the Game Boy looks like a simple, although forgettable title, that offers little in the way of entertainment. Pop the cartridge in and you’ll soon realize how addicting and intelligent the layouts are. While the visual diversity can be a bit annoying, the clever gameplay and addicting nature of the game will keep you coming back for more.

Rating: 8.3