Nintendo really understand the power and currency of nostalgia.
Fittingly, their 1994 side scroller Donkey Kong Country is now available to play on their newest console.
Nintendo is adding not one, but three older games to their Nintendo Switch Online Service, including the beloved SNES classic, Donkey Kong Country.
That’s right. From July 15th onwards, you’ll have the opportunity to revisit Rare’s original Donkey Kong Country right from your Nintendo Switch. Alongside the tie-wearing ape, SNES games Natsume Championship Wrestling (1994) & The Immortal (1990) will also be available. In case you never got the chance to indulge in the revolutionary creation that was DKC, here’s what you need to know.
Firstly, we need to talk about how successful this thing was. It became the second highest-selling SNES game ever and was critically acclaimed virtually overnight, pushing the gorilla into the video game hall of fame, so to speak. Its reception resulted in two sequels, created over the following two years.
Now onto the actual game. Honestly, DKC can be incredibly frustrating. Throw your controller at the wall frustrating. But it’s not unfair, which makes beating its 40 levels all the more satisfying. The visual style of DKC took inspiration from the Mario platformer. Using pre-rendered graphics to keep as much detail as possible, the game was able to project a groundbreaking 3D- style for the early 90s.
Finally, it would be ignorant to not mention the immersive score that came out of this game. It rivals some of the best video game music of all time. Composer David Wise used his extensive influences to create ambient, percussive soundscapes that matched the unique environments of each level. Due to the SNES’s limited audio capacity, his music got compressed to shit, but Wise still found a way to make it sound gorgeous. So yeah, DKC is back. Hope you enjoy your replay of this iconic platformer.
Up next: Scoring our memories: the evolution of video game music.
