Donkey Kong Country, known in Japan as is a 1994 platform game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). It follows the gorilla Donkey Kong and his nephew Diddy Kong as they set out to recover their stolen banana hoard from the crocodile King K. Rool and his army, the Kremlings. The player traverses 40 side-scrolling levels as they jump between platforms and avoid obstacles. They collect items, ride minecarts and animals, defeat enemies and bosses, and find secret bonus stages. In multiplayer modes, two players work cooperatively or race.

After developing Nintendo Entertainment System games in the 1980s, Rare, a British studio founded by Tim and Chris Stamper, purchased Silicon Graphics workstations to render 3D models. Nintendo sought a game to compete with Sega's Aladdin (1993) and commissioned Rare to reboot the dormant Donkey Kong franchise. Rare assembled 12 developers to work on Donkey Kong Country over 18 months. Donkey Kong Country was inspired by the Super Mario series and was one of the first home console games to feature pre-rendered graphics, achieved through a compression technique that converted 3D models into SNES sprites with little loss of detail. It was the first Donkey Kong game neither produced nor directed by the franchise's creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, though he contributed design ideas.

Following its announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show in June 1994, Donkey Kong Country was highly anticipated and backed by a large marketing campaign that cost in America alone. It was released in November 1994 to acclaim; critics hailed its visuals as groundbreaking and praised its gameplay and music. Its quality and design were favourably compared to the Super Mario series. Donkey Kong Country received several year-end accolades and set the record for the fastest-selling video game at the time. With 9.3 million copies sold worldwide, it is the third-bestselling SNES game and the bestselling Donkey Kong game. Following the success, Nintendo purchased a large minority stake in Rare, which became a prominent second-party developer for Nintendo during the late 1990s.

Donkey Kong Country re-established Donkey Kong as a major Nintendo franchise and helped maintain the SNES's popularity into the fifth generation of video game consoles. Journalists regard it as one of the greatest video games, although its pre-rendered visuals became divisive. Nintendo rereleased Donkey Kong Country on the Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and digital distribution services. Rare followed it with the SNES games Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (1995) and Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! (1996), and the Nintendo 64 game Donkey Kong 64 (1999). After a hiatus, during which Rare was acquired by the Nintendo competitor Microsoft, Retro Studios revived the series with Donkey Kong Country Returns (2010) for the Wii and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (2014) for the Wii U.

Gameplay

thumb|upright=1|alt=From a side-scrolling perspective, Diddy Kong jumps in the game's first level, Jungle Hijinks. Donkey Kong trails behind him to the left, while a Kremling enemy hobbles away from him on the right.|The [[player character, Diddy Kong (behind him there is Donkey Kong) jumps on a Kremling in the game's first level, Jungle Hijinks.]]

Donkey Kong Country is a side-scrolling platform game. its story begins when the crocodile King K. Rool and his army, the Kremlings, steal the Kongs' banana hoard, The player attempts to complete each level while traversing the environment, jumping between platforms, and avoiding enemy and inanimate obstacles. Level themes include jungles, underwater reefs, caves, mines, mountains, and factories. Some feature unique game mechanics, such as rideable minecarts, blasting out of cannons resembling barrels, and swinging ropes. Each area ends with a boss fight with a large enemy. Donkey and Diddy can defeat enemies by jumping on, rolling into, or throwing barrels at them. If hit by an obstacle, one of the Kongs runs off and the player automatically assumes control of the other. They will only be able to control that Kong unless they free the other Kong from a barrel.

In certain levels, the Kongs can free an animal that grants them special abilities, similar to Yoshi from the Super Mario series. The player can increase their completion percentage by finding bonus stages. Reaching the maximum 101 per cent unlocks a different ending. Rare demonstrated it was possible to reverse-engineer the NES and showed several tech demos to Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa; impressed, Arakawa granted Rare a Nintendo developer licence. Rare developed more than 60 NES games, including the Battletoads series.

When Nintendo released their next console, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), in 1991, Rare decided to limit their output. Around 1992, Rare invested their NES profit in Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) Challenge workstations with Alias rendering software to render 3D models. The move made Rare the most technologically advanced UK developer and situated them high in the international market. impressing Nintendo. The franchise had been largely dormant since the unsuccessful Donkey Kong 3 (1983), so Nintendo figured that licensing it posed minimal risk. Other titles considered included Rumble in the Jungle, Monkey Mayhem, and Donkey Kong and the Golden Bananas. Miyamoto was still involved with the project and Rare said he provided crucial input.

Nintendo is usually highly protective of their intellectual properties, but was relatively uninvolved with Donkey Kong Country, leaving most of the work to Rare. The level locales were inspired by the films Return of the Jedi (1983) and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). Rare featured barrels as a primary game mechanic to pay homage to the original arcade game, and included hidden collectibles like coins and balloons to add depth. Diddy Kong originated from Rare's search for a game mechanic akin to Super Mario power-up system in that he would serve as the player's health. Mayles said: "We thought a second character could perform this function, look visually impressive, and give the player a feeling that they were not alone".

Characters and story

Kevin Bayliss was in charge of redesigning Donkey Kong. He wanted a character that looked believable and could perform animations like pounding his chest. His initial design was blocky and muscular to make Donkey Kong easy to animate, but it became more cartoonish when Nintendo faxed reference material. Some of Bayliss's designs were in the style of his Battletoads work, and the final design's eyes came from those of the Battletoads. though it was mentioned in the instruction manual. Rare created each character using Donkey Kong's model as a base and made the Kong designs consistent to reflect that they were relatives. but Nintendo asked them to use original characters. They recycled the Kremlings from Johnny Blastoff and the Kremling Armada, a cancelled Monkey Island-style adventure game. Before composing, Wise was shown the graphics and given an opportunity to play the level they would appear in, which gave him a sense of the music he would compose. He chose samples and optimised the music to work on the SNES's SPC700 sound chip. Wise worked separately from the team in a former cattle shed, visited occasionally by Tim Stamper. Its soundtrack attempts to evoke the environments and includes music from levels set in Africa-inspired jungles, caverns, oceanic reefs, frozen landscapes, and industrial factories. Novakovic was inexperienced with the SNES hardware and Wise helped teach her as they worked together. She attempted to provide the levels a sense of purpose and drew inspiration from film composers like Alan Silvestri and Klaus Doldinger. so Wise adopted it.—and positioned Donkey Kong Country as a direct competitor to Sega's Mega-CD and 32X platforms to remind players it was not for next-generation hardware. Exposed, hosted by comedian Josh Wolf, provides a "behind-the-scenes" glimpse of the Treehouse, the Nintendo of America division where games are tested. Nintendo gave away Donkey Kong T-shirts as a pre-order bonus,

Context

alt=A Super Nintendo Entertainment System PAL-region console (a grey video game console with two dark grey buttons for "Power" and "Reset" and a light grey one for "Eject") and its controller (a gamepad with a D-pad on the left, "Start" and "Select" buttons in the middle, four buttons on the right, and two shoulder buttons on top).|thumb|Donkey Kong Country was released for the [[Super Nintendo Entertainment System (pictured) when it was beginning to face competition from next-generation hardware.]]

By October 1994, Nintendo was still in fierce competition with Sega and its popular Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Donkey Kong Country was released a month after Sonic & Knuckles for the Mega Drive. The Los Angeles Times characterised the coinciding releases as a battle; both featured company mascots, boasted "Hollywood-sized" marketing budgets, and advertised revolutionary technological advances (lock-on technology for Sonic & Knuckles and 3D-rendered graphics for Donkey Kong Country).

Donkey Kong Country was highly anticipated. Hardcore Gaming 101 wrote: "It was everywhere. You couldn't escape it. It was on the cover of every magazine. It was on gigantic, imposing displays and marquees at Wal-Mart and Babbages... For kids of the era, November 20th seemed like the eve of a revolution". In Japan, the game was released under the title Super Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong Country set the record for the fastest-selling video game at the time: it sold over 500,000 copies within a week, and sales reached one million copies in the US alone in two weeks. In its second week on sale in the US, the game grossed 15 million, outpacing the week's highest-grossing film (The Santa Clause, 11.5 million) and album (Miracles: The Holiday Album, 5.2 million). In the UK, it was the top-selling SNES game in November 1994. Donkey Kong Country sold six million copies worldwide in its first holiday season, grossing in worldwide sales revenue. Cumulative sales reached 9.3 million copies. Based on available sales figures, it is the third-bestselling SNES game

Reception

USGamer wrote that the criticism was unfair because it "exudes craftsmanship ... Rare went to great pains to create a consistent, seamless world that managed to convey trompe-l'oeil immersion", something few developers could replicate. Its soundtrack is considered one of the best in games, praised for its atmosphere and diversity. However, the author Steven L. Kent claimed Miyamoto said that "Donkey Kong Country proves gamers will put up with mediocre gameplay if the art is good" in a 1995 Electronic Games interview. Miyamoto denied this in 2010, noting he "was very involved" in Donkey Kong Country and had corresponded with Stamper throughout development. In 2014, USGamer described Kent's claims as "seemingly apocryphal",

Influence

Donkey Kong Country exerted "revolutionary influence", according to GameSpot. Kotaku said its unprecedented graphics represented the future of games and Nintendo World Report wrote that it set standards for how platform games could look and play. Sega commissioned BlueSky Software to develop the Mega Drive game Vectorman (1995) in response to Donkey Kong Country popularity. Many developers imitated the visuals; USGamer wrote that few games achieved the same quality and that 2.5D games, such as Crystal Dynamics' Pandemonium! (1996), exposed the "illusion upon which [Donkey Kong Country] was built". Crash first functional levels drew upon techniques employed by Donkey Kong Country, such as steam vents, drop platforms, bouncy pads, heated pipes, and enemies that move back and forth. The pre-rendered visuals inspired other games, including Kirby Super Star (1996) and Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island (1996), and critics have identified Donkey Kong Country references or influence in games such as the Mega-CD version of Earthworm Jim (1995), Sonic Blast (1996), Rayman Origins (2011), Mekazoo (2016), and Kaze and the Wild Masks (2021). The Australian Broadcasting Corporation credited Donkey Kong Country for maintaining the popularity of 2D games and ensuring the development of new entries in the Mario, Kirby, and Yoshi series.

Wise's soundtrack was considered highly influential, developing a cult following for his work. IGN said Donkey Kong Country contributed to an increased appreciation for video game music as an art form, and The New York Times called it the video game equivalent to the Beatles' Revolver (1966). and in crossover games such as Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. fighting series. Its tracks are often remixed, Wise contributing to an OverClocked ReMix album in 2004. "Aquatic Ambience" has been particularly influential. It has been described as "the 'Eleanor Rigby' of video game music", praised by artists such as Trent Reznor and Donald Glover, Glover sampled it in his 2012 song "Eat Your Vegetables", to which Wise expressed approval.

Donkey Kong Country established Rare as one of the leading video game developers visual appeal, and tech demo-like design. though Playtonic's head Gavin Price declined to label it a spiritual successor. Nintendo Life also identified similarities between Donkey Kong Country and Kroko Bongo: Tap to the Beat! (2017), a platform game developed by the Stampers' mobile game studio FortuneFish.

Notes

References

Citations

Works cited

  • Donkey Kong Country at the Super Mario Wiki