On this post I just wanted to take a moment to let you know why Donkey Kong Country was one of my favorite games ever.
For me, I was always a bit Super Nintendo fan, it is the system I had when I was in high school and this was the time when I would say I was the most into video games. I would make sure to go to Walgreens every month to get my new copy of the Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine. I didn’t have all the new stuff.
This VHS was just a 12 minute video but in it I learned about the process of making the game, how they used super computers to make these 3D models and how they were using those models in the SNES game. To me this was mind blowing at the time.
I was so excited about the game that I actually got a job that summer just so I could make sure to afford the game.
On release day I was at RSE Video in Milwaukee before they opened their doors just waiting for the game. I was the only one there, I don’t know if I just planned very well knowing that this place would not get much action (most people would have been going to Block Buster or something like that).
The guy in charge opened the door for me and I watched him open up a box full of Donkey Kong Country games. I was so excited! After that, I went straight home and played the hell out of DKC.
Does this all make the game great? No, of course not, it just makes it a very nice memory for me. What made the game great was the fact that it was great.
Gameplay
The gameplay was top notch! It still is to this day just a great platformer. Being able to switch between Donkey and Diddy was a lot of fun. With Donkey Kong you were stronger but with Diddy Kong you were faster and could jump a littler higher. The gameplay was just fun, even to this day, if you watch someone play Donkey Kong Country, you will want to jump in. The mine cart level is still one of my favorite things to play lol.
Graphics
For a Nintendo fanboy like I was then, the graphics alone made this game incredible. They used silicon graphics computers to create 3D renders of everything and added all that to the SNES. Obviously the SNES did not look like the renders the Super Computers were able to do but it still looked fresh and allowed the game to compete in a world where 32Bits (and even 64 with the Jaguar) were all the talk.
Fun Fact: The Silicon Graphics Super Computers used in the 1990s to make the renders were also used to make movies like Jurassic Park and Terminator 2. They had the ability to do 4.2MFLOPS (million floating-point operations per second). In comparison, now a days an IPhone X from 2017 can do 200 GFLOPS (billion floating-point operations per second). Hell, even the original iPhone had more power than those super computers. Kind of crazy to think about.
Music
The music on this game was also great, it really pushed the limits of what the SNES could do. David Wise composed some truly iconic music. Here are a few examples that you can check out!
Is it the best game ever? No probably not, but it is a really good game and it brings back many memories for me. As a tech geek, the graphics alone would get me excited. All the wood panels looked so good (at the time).
As a Nintendo Fanboy watching the SNES still compete against the Sega CD and 32X without the need of some extra hardware was very satisfying. Sega fanboys were always talking about how slow the SNES was and how the Genesis was faster, but some of those barrel levels would get quite fast. Proving (in my brain anyway) that Nintendo could pull off Sonic if they wanted to. Which, yea, now I know it woudln’t have worked but back then I could dream! lol
Well, I’m going to stop right here, but please feel free to tell me your thoughs in our forums!