REVIEW: Donkey Kong Jr. Math

Game: Donkey Kong Jr. Math
Original Launch: October 1985
Relaunch: November 2010
Rating: 4 stars


Donkey Kong Jr. Math was a bomb. It was the worst selling NES launch title. It was an "edutainment" game that did so poorly, Nintendo canceled the Education Series in the U.S. and shot the person who came up with the word "edutainment." It's widely regarded as awful, embarrassing, confusing, and just plain boring.

But I kind of liked it.

I think I'm doing it wrong.

The main menu gives you three options: Calculate A, Calculate B, and +−×÷ Exercise. Calculate A is two players, where player 1 controls Donkey Kong Jr. and player 2...also controls Donkey Kong Jr. Well, a pink Donkey Kong Jr. Perhaps a sister? Perhaps just a fashionable friend? According to the manual, it's not nearly that exciting. The characters are Junior (I) and Junior (II). Papa (Donkey Kong) holds up a number, and the players race to make a math problem that equals that number.

It's pretty simple when you're just trying to add up to 49. Grab a 7, a multiplication sign, another 7...BAM. You win the round.

WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME!

But when you're trying to get to -649 and other negative numbers in Calculate B, it's a little harder. The winner of the round gets an apple. First player to five apples wins a spot standing next to Papa while the other Junior is left having a seizure down below.

This mode can actually be pretty fun when you have a second player (assuming you are both nerds).

WHO AM I!

Maybe I'm just too competitive, but I like stealing the division sign out from under my opponent or laughing at him when he falls in the water and Junior's eyeballs bulge out. You should be able to get a few rounds of fun from this mode every once in a while. And if you need to make things a little harder, use only multiplication and division signs.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE'RE YELLING ABOUT!

You can pretend you're doing math homework with the +−×÷ Exercise mode. If you're OCD and aiming for a perfect score, this mode is frustrating as hell. There are 10 questions, each worth 100 points. If you get a digit wrong or hesitate for even a second, you lose points. It's hard to tell exactly what digit you're selecting since the numbers are on one side of the screen, and you're climbing a rope on the other side. If you climb even ever-so-slightly past the correct digit, kiss your perfect score good-bye. If you really can't figure out the math problem, you can just skip it, but you don't get any points.


Donkey Kong Jr. Math can be a fun game. It's not great, but it's not as terrible as most people are making it out to be. You're not going to get hours of enjoyment out of it. You're not going to take a picture your high score and have your mom put it on the fridge. But if you've got a friend and are tired of Scattergories, pop this in for a few rounds. If the one-player mode had tighter controls, this game would get a better rating.

Donkey Kong Jr. Math is barely educational. If you don't already know your multiplication tables, you're going to struggle. But it is mildly entertaining, even if it's only for 15 minutes at a time.



Review in a Haiku
Monkeys doing math,
disguised as an arcade game,
It's Edutainment!