Game: Donkey Kong Jr.
Original Launch: June 1986
Relaunch: December 2010
Rating: 6 stars
Greetings all nerds!
(For those non-nerds reading, I will try not to exclude you any further. I will try to horn in some words to garner your attention. Like football, Monster truck, rabies, candelabra, and rap-music.)
Simon here and I've been given the opportunity to review the near and dear classic, Donkey Kong Jr. The game itself is a breaking of tradition from the original Donkey Kong. This sequel's name actualy makes more narrative sense. Why would you name a game after the penultimate villain? It's like calling Super Mario Brothers, "Koopa." Tetris, "Z-Block." Football, "The Other Team." Or Metroid, "Mother Brain."
The dialog that I assume occurred after the events of Donkey Kong, go something like this:
Mario: Pauline! I'm-a so happy my carpentry skills of-a swingin' a hammer has-a freed you!
Pauline: Oh Mario!
Mario: This-a giant ape with purple and yellow stars orbiting his unconscious head has-a to pay for his barrel throwing and kidnapping!
Pauline: But Mario, what court in the world would prosecute this 16x16 pixel brute?!
Mario: They won't-a have to! I'm gonna build a cage and capture some tiny alligators and other assorted animals to hinder anyone who may have a soft spot in their heart for this 2-dimensional being!
Pauline: Oh Mario! Your aggression towards animals makes me so happy!
Mario and Pauline embrace.
Donkey Kong Jr. glares at them from behind a flaming barrel and runs off around the corner.
This all happened in 1982.
Let's begin the actual game review. The game pops right up with a catchy tune with a selection of 1 Player or 2 Player. It's a very solid presentation. Retro enthusiasts will adore the simple black background, which is present throughout the entire game. It gives the moving characters that certain “pop” that you can't get with any other game.
The control. (If I could put a Picard Facepalm right here, I would. That's one thing I give the ancient Egyptians: they had a whole cartouche to work with: Bird, wavy water, Picard, bird.) This Jr. Kong handles worse than a Monster truck doing the job of a Zamboni. And, to top it off, the “I can touch that“ meter is waaaay off. For one, you'll be climbing up a vine and your hand easily makes it past the encephalitic red alligator and all of a sudden, he bites your teeny tiny toe and you plummet to your pre-diabetic death. So, you've now assumed that, “Hey, the tiny overlap of 4 pixels applies to damage. Awesome, I can balance my primate off of this minuscule precipice.” ---- “FFFFFFFUUUUUUUU” And you fall. Three feet. And die. One out of three, gone.
You only have one action button, A for jump and the D-pad for the obvious. Also, if you make yourself walk into anything that isn't a fruit, chain, or vine, you will die. Ideal for those with terminal rabies.
The first level is easy enough. The vine you need to get started is literally right there above the crotch-exposing Donkey (I'm assuming that “Kong” is his last name, like the Mario Bros.) Just a couple of fruit-grabbing arm stretches; you are a couple of jumps away from tea-bagging Mario. Why Donkey just stands on the platform after he bests Mario confuses me.
“Ahhh! That purple buzzard bit my butt!!!” Is all you'll be emitting in the second level. Surprisingly, the 3rd level, TRON, is pretty easy.
The 4th level must be the final level I assume, because Donkey senior is at the top and dead center. And I never passed it. (That's a lie. The game just cycles back around to the first level like sampled rap-music) And, after the futuristic Metropolis of level three, there is nowhere else one can go.
The way the vines hang exactly like an upside down candelabra just teases Donkey from rescuing his dad. The variation of music when you “free” your dad is unexpected for a first gen Nintendo game. The only sense of “defeating” is the frustration you get after falling because you hit your head on the floating platform.
Overall, the graphics are nice and crisp, something I'd like to see in Super Mario Crossover. Sound effects, heavy handed (walk left, blurp-tee, blurp-tee, blup-tee.). The music was surprising. But the replay value is horrendous.
Review in a Haiku
That banana's not worth it.
This level again?
-Simon-
I would totally play Donkey Tron. "Put him on the game grid and make him jump over barrels until he dies."
ReplyDeleteYou actually like the black background? It got old quick for me. I know it's easier to code since they're not coding anything, and that frees up the space for other things. But it just made every game sort of look the same.
ReplyDelete