Flashback Friday: Donkey Kong Country

By Matt Calamia

If you know me well, nothing makes me happier than a good side-scrolling platformer. There is just something about collecting coins, jumping over pits and squishing enemies that revs my gaming engine. In my opinion, there are few games that do it better than Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo, which just so happens to be the star this week’s Flashback Friday.

My fondest memories are of my family and I playing this back in my old house in Queens, New York. I remember thinking how great the game looked, as if it didn’t belong on the SNES. To be honest, some 16 years later, the game still looks fantastic. The pre-rendered 3D graphics blew my seven year old mind back in the mid-1990s, making me wonder why all my SNES games didn’t look as great as Rare’s twist on the Donkey Kong series did.

The gameplay was your basic side-scrolller, and borrow elements of Super Mario Bros. 3, in the sense that you traveled around on a world map, with different areas each having their own enviornment. There were jungle levels, ice levels, and my personal favorite, mining levels. Is there anything better than the kart level where you just have to try and stay on the track? I agree, there isn’t.

Going along for the adventure of trying to get Kong’s banana horde back was Diddy Kong, Kong’s nephew. Kong was slower and more powerful, while Diddy wasn’t as strong, but had more speed. They complimented each other well, although I rarely found myself playing as Diddy unless I had no choice.

The boss battles always consisted of a foe that went along with the area you were in. They were always larger versions of other enemies you fought during that level or world. My personal favorite was the over-grown beaver, who made the semi-retarded giggle whenever you hit him. Just thinking about that makes me laugh.

Although it doesn’t have the legacy that Super Mario World or Super Metroid have, it still holds a place in many 16-bit gamers’ hearts. It sold over 8 million copies, making it the highest-selling non-bundled SNES game in history, while spawning numerous sequels, so it did something right.