Patrick Elliot
Shaun InguanzoDonkey Kong Country (Review)
December 27th 2006 00:00
Players: 1-2
Genre: Platform
Developer: Rare, Nintendo
Platform: SNES
Year: 1994 (USA), 1994 (PAL)
Yet another platform game from Nintendo, Donkey Kong Country has a similarly simple story. Donkey Kong, with the help of his best friend Diddy Kong are setting out to recover his stolen hoard of bananas from King K. Rool on Donkey Kong Island.
The standard platformer abilities are all here (jumping on enemies, throwing items at enemies) though something new is the tag system. Although you can only play one Kong on screen at one time, the other Kong is still there and playable upon tagging the other player.
Donkey Kong is larger and stronger than Diddy, allowing him to slap the ground to reveal secrets as well as defeat stronger enemies. Diddy is quicker and generally more manoeuvrable. Each Kong can sustain one hit, and if both are gone then a life is lost.
The Kongs are not alone in their adventure and have the help of various animal friends. I found the animal friends the most fun aspect in the Donkey Kong games: Rambi is a rhino who can charge enemies and destroy hidden walls. Expresso (a favourite of mine) is an ostrich who can hover in the air and run faster than everyone else, but had a limitation of not being able to jump on enemies. Enguarde (my other favourite) a swordfish available in underwater levels, who can skewer enemies with a charge. There are other animals that help you in your travels as well as NPCs.
After playing Mario games, I found Donkey Kong more fun to play multiplayer: after all, two players could co-operatively play the same stage at the same time.
Score: 7/10
Trivia: Donkey Kong was the first game on a mainstream home console system to use pre-rendered 3D graphics.
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