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I apologize in advance if this video seems
unsure of itself. This is a topic I've always had a hard time explaining myself on, and I'd
be really appreciative if you could bear with me. Maybe you could even posit your own theories
in the comments below. I have… a complicated relationship with platformers. Not talking
collectathons here: I'm talking point A to point B platformers. I so frequently either bounce off of
them, or end up complaining about them. Mega Man 11? Never finished it, didn't really care. Super
Mario 3D World? Had some good ideas, but it was pretty bland. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical
Freeze (oh boy, I'll rot in hell for this one). It was kinda fun in the moment, but I eventually
forgot everything except the cool level setpieces, and just can’t get past more than a few levels
on repeat playthroughs. Here's the rub: I have never been able to explain why. I just don't know.
I really have no passion for these games at all. I don't want to play them or even think about them:
but I don't necessarily think they're bad. A lot of them are fun to play in the moment: I just
never find myself ruminating on my experience in any meaningful way. There are some platformers
I do like. Crash Bandicoot is really addictive, Celeste is one of my favorite games in recent
memory, and if you held me at gunpoint, Klonoa 2 would be my favorite video game of all time.
Why do I love these games, and not these?
If I had to pick my favorite thing about video
games as a medium (not what I consider the best, or even the most essential thing, just my
favorite), it would be their nigh unparalleled immersive qualities. Movies, television shows,
and books have their own distinct qualities: but the introduction of an interactive axis
is why I find myself returning to video games time and time and time again. Video games
are fuckin cool. Now, I don't say that as an elitist gamer fuckboi who thinks Halo
3 is "higher art" than the Invisible Man. Every medium has their set of unique strengths, it
just so happens that I am particularly fond of the ability for video games to construct a world; to
craft virtually any environment under the sun, and allow the player to explore that simulacrum. That
is what "immersion" has always been about for me: the ability for a game to set up a believable
space for the player to exist within. If you were to pull from my favorite games list,
I guarantee you most of them have something to do with exploring a space of some kind. Breath of
the Wild, Xenoblade Chronicles, Chrono Trigger, Bloodborne, Toy Story 2, Oblivion, Metroid
Prime 2: I can lose myself in these sounds, in these sights in, in these mechanics, in these
worlds. Why do you think I like Zelda so damn much? Before we had all this fancy tech to sell
everyone on a convincing illusion of reality: actual wizards were conjuring those facades
on 16-bit consoles; trying to get backgrounds to scroll and make animations happen by snapping
between different sprites. Where modern technology allows for photo realism as we further approach
the apex of visual engineering: games on the SNES were a collection of magic tricks to convince
your brain that this assortment of pixels was totally real, and in a few cases, it's easy to
not only see how they got away with it, but how these games continue to get away with it.
Super Metroid is an obvious standout, it weaponizes its otherworldly setting to instill a
sense of foreboding in the player. You're just as alone on this planet as Samus is. It's you versus
the world, not in a Doom-esque power fantasy, but a slower, more methodical crawl through
uncharted territory. If only Metroid could crawl, this sentence would have made a lot more
sense. Super Metroid got away with this for so many reasons: its darker color palette gave it an
illusion of dim lighting, everything was dingy and unsafe; the soundtrack had a grungy techno vibe
to reinforce the idea that you're in dangerous new territory, battling against the elements;
progression was made to be fairly nonlinear to give the game an adventurous undercurrent. And
so it was a synthesis of various elements that made Super Metroid one of the most immersive
video games I've ever played, even to this day. Spectacular though it might have been, Nintendo
were still bound to 16-bit hardware. Companies like SEGA allowed for so much more creative
freedom when it came to aesthetic design. Nintendo weren't, and still really aren't known for their
feats of visual engineering. They're often behind the console power curve, and will almost always
sacrifice resolution for a more stable framerate. Even the Nintendo Gamecube, which was arguably
one of the strongest consoles they created for its time, still reflected a different attitude
than the rest of the industry. The Vice President of ArtX, the console designers, had this to
say about their ideas behind the console:
"...We spent three years working with Nintendo of
America and with all sorts of developers, trying to understand the challenges, needs, and problems
they face...It was important we didn't require jumping through hoops for high performance to be
achieved...What's going to allow the Miyamoto-sans of the world to develop the best games..."
-Greg Buchner, ArtX's Vice President
Nintendo are game developers first and
foremost. As Reggie now famously said, [insert clip]. Nintendo's always been about fun
games. They’re overwhelmingly mechanically driven, and there's nothing wrong with that! Yet, it is
funny that one of their most noteworthy titles is, in part, remembered for a slightly different
reason, and in my opinion it's one of the most immersive titles in Nintendo’s library.
Donkey Kong Country for the SNES [play intro].
Ask anyone what Donkey Kong Country is best known for, and aside from the obvious “it’s a fun
platformer,” I guarantee they'll also give you an answer relating to its graphical quality.
Nintendo, interested in Rareware's advanced computer graphics technology, quickly bought half
the company in the hopes that they'd make a game for them that would rival SEGA's Aladdin. They
were sort of admitting that they needed a heavy hitter to help them compete with the upcoming
Playstation and SEGA CD; their CG renders were a powerful weapon for that battle. Thus it became
the marketing angle, and Donkey Kong Country went on to sell nine million copies in total, quickly
becoming the second best-selling game on the Super Nintendo. It won a bevy of awards, was highly
rated by most publications, and was even cited as being the savior of the floundering SNES. Though,
to say that Donkey Kong Country "saved" the SNES is probably a little hyperbolic. It was
still the best-selling console of its era, I mean come on. Still, the fact remains that this
is one of the better looking games on the system, and could stand to visually compete with
games like Aladdin and Earthworm Jim.
It's not that other SNES titles looked bad, per
say, there was just a clear divide. Super Mario World and Mega Man X had hand-drawn sprites, and
there's a limit to that approach. Their animation quality was sufficient enough to offer the
illusion of movement, but not much else. Sprites would snap together with little cohesion because
each frame had to be drawn practically from scratch. The struggle was not having enough frames
of animation; whereas, the problem Rareware ran into was having too many. Rare were transforming
fully rendered 3D models into 16-bit sprites. This approach of downscaling higher resolution 3D
models is inherently going to offer more detail than hand-drawn pixel art. DKC has so many more
frames of animation to work with when directly compared to other SNES offerings, and it helps to
sell that illusion more convincingly. In fact, it had so many more frames to work with that they had
to start cutting those frames out so that DK and Diddy didn't crawl across the screen at a snail's
pace. It simulates a truly gorgeous day/night cycle using color gradients, with accompanying
weather effects to give each stage a more dynamic look, and an expert handling of background line
scrolling to give the player a more convincing sense of movement. All of this was pretty standout
for the time, at least on Nintendo hardware.
Obviously, these techniques were
a result of technical limitations, but as someone coming into the game fresh, I was
impressed by DKC’s impeccable ability to sell any type of atmosphere. Whether you're
running across the treetops of a lush jungle, swimming through coral reefs at the ocean floor, riding a minecart through a perilous mineshaft, or working your way through a dangerous factory. David Wise and Eveline Novakovic handled the
composition, and there was a clear focus on setting a specific mood. DK Island Swing has
23 seconds of crickets and birds chirping, backed by a set of bongos
steadily rising in volume. It almost lulls you into its talons before
entering any semblance of a main melody. Then, like dominoes, another instrument enters
the fray, setting off another 3 seconds later, and another, and another, until... That build-up and payoff is
incredibly satisfying in itself, but the song eventually begins its slow descent
that lasts almost as long as the buildup. It's slower, with less instruments involved all
at once, and contrasts the upbeat energy that only just trickled through your ears.
Not every song has such a dramatic journey, but what matters is that they all have
sufficient build-ups that draw you into the song just as much as they draw you into the level.
They often reflect your play experience: Minecart Madness is more chaotic, with abrupt
changes in pitch and volume, and seemingly random melody shifts. It does a pretty good job emulating
what you'll be going through in the level, quickly reacting to incoming obstacles at an irregular
frequency. Aquatic Ambience, as the name suggests, is the most calming song in the game. It has a
slower pace, and mixes in some string instruments to give it a more serene tone. You’re encouraged
to take your time and absorb your surroundings. You could even say that the harsher industrial
clangs you can faintly hear are a reminder that, up above the water, the Kremlings are
wreaking havoc. These water levels are only a short reprieve from the evil above.
It startles me just how easy it is to apply that feeling to my own life right now: a
series of distractions meant to keep me sane, with subtle reminders that bad things are
happening all around me. Aquatic Ambience is the song I listen to the most, usually to
calm myself down. There's almost a healing quality to its steady progression. Doesn't matter
where I am or what I'm doing, Aquatic Ambience is powerful. Do yourself a favor if you're
listening to these songs outside of the game: seek out the restored versions on YouTube. They're
the highest quality versions out there, recreated with the same instruments, but recorded in much
higher quality than the SNES could output.
Probably goes without saying, but you're gonna
need to get yourself a good pair of earbuds for these songs. I listen to basically all of my music
using Raycon's Everyday E25 Wireless Earbuds. It's incredible to me how seamless they are to use,
simply pair them to your phone through Bluetooth, and they'll be connected every single time you put
them in your ears. They have noise-cancelling too. Helps to really lose yourself in these godlike
songs when you can't hear dogs barking or your roommates fighting or everyone screaming bloody
murder out your window as the world catapults toward its inevitable collapse. I have these
things attached at the hip in their neat carrying case that doubles as a charger: while I work
out, cook, and waste the day away lying in bed. They're half the price of other premium wireless
earbuds, come in an assortment of neat colors, and if you click the link in the description, you'll
get 15% off your first order! BuyRaycon.com/kingk will once again get you 15% off your first
order. No joke, these are definitely the best earbuds I've had the pleasure of using.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I feel a primal urge welling up inside me. All this Donkey Kong music,
it’s… it’s getting to me. I need… to be free.
Mario games are fun to play in the moment,
with catchy tunes that invade your mind space: but they don't really need to provide much
context as to what's going on. There will often be a threadbare backdrop to contextualize why
the adventure is happening. Mario needs to stop Bowser to save the princess. From that point, you
bounce from level to level, taking on platforming challenges as they come. It's been hard for me to
explain why this has never really clicked with me. I've tried playing Mario 3 so many times over
the years, and I always end up dropping it. Something about it is so… primitive? It was an NES
platformer, so that makes sense, but so many other games took after this style of "create levels
and think about the rest later." For a long time, I've never really known how to explain
this. I'd play Super Mario 3D Land or World and just have to conclude that something is
wrong. Those games don't grab me. Is it because of their lack of story? Is it their restrictive
controls? Level design? Donkey Kong Country may have taught me what the problem is. Every level
of DK island isn't just a series of obstacles set up by the designers, they’re also the clear
next step in a journey across the island. Mario games always have a hub world, but the moment
I enter a level, it strikes me as artificial. Everything I'm seeing, interacting with: it's
all a construct to get me to jump around.
Donkey Kong Country's approach is to
make a series of levels that aren't mere constructs. Platforms don't simply float in
the air: they're made out of mountains, trees, minecarts, caves, factories. Each level might
be a test of your platforming ability, but it's also another piece of DK's Island. It's his home,
a place he effortlessly swings through in pursuit of the kremlings. It's a more meaningful adventure
than what I'd find in, say, a Mega Man game, where you go from level to level to level. There’s some
really good art direction in the Mega Man games, and there’s always some bangin’ music, but it’s
hard to shake the fact that it was a meticulously designed obstacle course first and a place last.
Let me repeat: there is nothing wrong with this. Lots of people enjoy this type of game design,
but for one reason or another, it doesn’t work for me. It strikes me as artificial. Often I use
video games to escape into another dimension: to experience another world vicariously through
a player avatar. It's not to say that I can't find value in games like Super Monkey Ball, for
instance, which don't fit into some world, and are ostensibly just a series of levels. I adore
Super Monkey Ball for reasons that don't relate to immersion at all, as I do with many other
games. That game, though, clearly isn’t trying to be anything more than an obstacle course.
It’s unapologetic in how challenging it is, trusting players to get better of their own
accord. As such, you’re given the tools to figure out the game on your own. Platformers, though,
are so often built around adventure narratives. You get to run around world maps to select levels,
and that implies a degree of adventure and world building that so often isn't part of what the game
is trying to do: and yet the suggestion of a grand adventure through an entire world is nevertheless
present; a world that is too often extremely welcoming. Nothing takes me out of a game more
than an easy adventure with no incentive to master its mechanics. Mario games are meant to be
accessible, so that makes perfect sense, but not only is there never anything to keep me hooked,
there’s never anything to keep me coming back. You consume the level and spit it back out. That’s as
far as the exchange between player and game goes. That's why I so often harp on about "immersion"
in my Mario games, to the dismay of my commenters. Immersion is a strength Donkey Kong Country
flaunts not just in its aesthetic elements: after all, immersion is a synthesis of
interactive and passive attributes.
Difficulty and mastery are important immersive
qualities. In DKC, there's a focus placed on a set of fairly difficult levels that would hopefully
keep the player from steamrolling through the game in a single day. Rareware certainly knew what they
were doing on this front, coming off of games like Battletoads. It's a pretty short game if you know
what you're doing, but there are also a buttload of bonus barrels, bananas, kong letters, and
animal tokens to find throughout the world. Cranky even encourages the player to find all of the
secrets and beat the game in under an hour. It's a design philosophy meant to increase its inherent
replay value, and as a result I don't often find myself being taken out of the experience by
way of padding. Its stage design plays into a wonderful sense of flow. Enemies and obstacles are
arranged in such a way that you can barrel through them while maintaining your rhythm. Rolling into
enemies will increase your speed, and if you roll into multiple at once you'll shoot through these
levels like a bullet. Some enemies can tank your roll, some can't be bounced on, and some need to
be avoided entirely. You're asked to produce an answer on the fly, in-tune with the rhythm they've
set up for you in each level. They pair this with your ability to delay a jump when rolling
off the edge of a platform, which can score you a lot more distance and maintain your speed.
Though, I will say the player isn't taught this particularly well. I only figured out you could
do it when I watched other people play the game, and it's often required to reach secrets. I'm sure
this stuff was in the manual, but my point is: the game itself gives little indication that you
can even do this, and conventional game design wisdom would never intentionally throw you off the
edge of a cliff like that. Barrel cannons are some of the most important level gimmicks for producing
that unique rhythm: when you're first introduced to them, they carry you through the level at
an intense pace, shooting you from barrel to barrel. Later levels will ask you to start timing
your shots with moving and rotating barrels, as they slowly ramp up in speed and intensity. If
you know the level well enough, you can time these shots to rip through it at a breakneck pace. DK
and Diddy have different abilities, and you can switch between them on the fly. The catch is that,
if either of them is hit, they disappear until you find another Kong barrel. DK can pound the ground
to find secrets, throw barrels much farther, and he's overall tough enough to deal with most
enemies no problem. This comes at the cost of him being much slower than diddy, who can run and
jump much faster, at the cost of being completely unable to kill several strong kremlings.
Snow Barrel Blast is a great example of what you can expect to deal with: you've had a lot of
experience with barrel cannons up to this point, so the twist this time is that they'll be rotating
at various speeds. You have to contend with these sections, alongside some regular platforming
on icy terrain. This section, where you can roll through a line of beavers and then jump on a
vulture afterwards is a good illustration of that sense of rhythm. You could always jump on the
beavers individually for a safer approach, but it will never be as fast or as fluid as rolling
right into them and timing your jump correctly. It reminds me of Sonic in that regard, where
you can technically take each level at a snail's pace to avoid hitting enemies or running into
obstacles, but it's often less fun than curling up into a ball and finding the most optimal way to
maintain your speed. You'll also probably want to use Diddy for this section, but you might want to
be a little more conservative about who you place in front. After all, one hit and the partner
is gone until you get another Kong barrel. You better be sure you know exactly where and
when to switch, and be deft enough to avoid taking damage. Essentially, DKC has a bit of a learning
curve. In some ways, it feels like one of the most un-nintendo games ever produced. I wonder why!
This can make a first-time playthrough a little uninviting. It has a few rough difficulty spikes
that make it harder to adjust to its playstyle. Minecart Madness is part of the reason why it
took me so many attempts to truly resonate with the gameplay. Out of nowhere, in only the second
world, you've got a fast-paced level that doesn't let you stop to take in your surroundings.
This wouldn't be an inherent problem, but the challenges in this level are fairly brutal
compared to the rest of the game. It wouldn't feel out of place in the final world. I'd even go as
far as to say the minecart level in the final world isn't even as tough as Minecart Madness. You
have to make so many precise jumps all at once, and there's even a fake out Kremling right at the
very end meant to catch unsuspecting players off guard. This actually happens in a few other levels
later on, exacerbating this game's camera issues. While most of the time you can see what's ahead
of you fairly easily, there are several instances where you can't see what you're doing: usually
when you have to look at something below you. Unlike other platformers, where you can hold the
directional buttons to tilt the camera vertically, Donkey Kong Country wrenches control of its
camera out of the player’s hands. In levels like the aforementioned Snow Barrel Blast, trying
to see anything below you is next to impossible. Poison Pond might have the worst visibility
in the entire game, with fast moving fish and spike tires that constantly blindside you.
Admittedly, those are minor problems at best. Not only do they show up in a few levels, they
start to vanish the more familiar you are with the level design. Could that be considered
trial and error? Sure. But I can more easily move past them since you're supposed to
learn these levels inside and out. Classic Sonic has pretty much the exact same visibility
issue, arguably with more frequency than DKC, but I continue to enjoy those games because they
encourage you to keep playing and get better. That reward of knowing exactly what's around the
corner, and dodging it to maintain your speed, is too great to get bogged down in all
the problems that come before that point. I still think it's an issue worth addressing,
though: especially since the boss fights don't benefit from repeat playthroughs in the same
way. They're pretty damn easy no matter your skill level. You have a giant bee with invulnerability
phases, a vulture that shoots nuts at you, a jumping beaver, and an enemy gauntlet. There
are also two slots taken up by the same boss, only with additional attacks. Due to the way saving
works, you’ll often be forced to fight these bosses multiple times if you get a game over, and
you probably will get a game over several times. This can quickly compound their issues. There
just isn't a lot going on here besides extremely basic pattern recognition. These are some hefty
anticlimaxes for each world, and always felt like a boring formality. King K. Rool, the bastard who
stole my username, is the best boss on offer here, though that's not exactly saying much. He's got
a few curveballs here and there that might throw you off. The way he jumps around at the end got
me a few times, and avoiding the cannonballs was sufficiently challenging: but I wouldn't
exactly call him an expert boss for a Donkey Kong Country game. A large portion of the fight
is spent with the player just waiting around, so there's nothing further to learn or improve
on. All you'll ever do in future playthroughs is maybe optimize your jump to hit him in
the head as soon as he throws the crown? Maybe? Eh, who am I kidding? He's pretty much
as rudimentary as the others in that regard. Cool music, though. Also I might have
uh… I might have fallen for his fake out… and I got really mad… *ahem*. Now,
this would be great on its own: difficult levels you have to master already
craft a more intimate relationship between the game and the player. Pretty much all of them
meet this criteria… but they go a step further and beg you to explore them for secrets.
Each level has several secrets to uncover. Bonus barrels whisk you off to participate in
a mini-game for extra lives. I really enjoyed hunting for these, even the ones that ask you
to take leaps of faith. As I've grown older and a little less impatient, I’ve grown a fondness
for more obscure secrets, even if I do feel like a few too many of them ask you to make these
life or death decisions at the end of a level, and over a bottomless pit. Who would ever go
for this, anyway? I understand that an obvious telegraph sorta defeats the point, but I feel
like you can achieve a sense of obscurity and not also couple it with the dilemma of instant death.
Many of the bonus barrels are hidden off screen in safe corners of the map; some of them are more
obvious, but ask you how to get there instead. This can mean luring an enemy to that location and
jumping on its head, or carrying your animal buddy throughout the stage. It feels more fulfilling to
get to the end of Snow Barrel Blast with Expresso and land in a bonus barrel, than it is to take a
leap of faith and maybe reap the rewards. I really like how the animal buddies act as both power-ups
to change up the gameplay every once in a while, and keys to secret Kong letters or bonus barrels.
Carrying them to the end of the level is a lot harder than it sounds, and you're often rewarded
for your efforts in some way. Winky gives you incredible jump height and the ability to kill
bees; Expresso can run fast and glide across the stage; Rambi can piledrive through enemies and
secret walls; and Engarde gives you the ability to attack enemies underwater (though he's often the
hardest animal buddy to find). While they function almost identically to a mushroom or fire flower,
their rarity makes it even more fun to find them in each level. Their bonus rooms make good use of
their abilities, hiding the most points in secret locations you can only find when you've mastered
how each buddy works. Unfortunately, these bonus rooms are… the only competent ones on offer.
See, while finding the bonus rooms is mostly fun, what's waiting for you on the other side is
usually not. You've got a few easy slot-minigames, some memory matches, jumping on claptraps a bunch,
and… whatever this is? Where you spell out a word? Except the letters flash in order so even the most
basic of spelling challenges is taken away from you. You're almost always going to be repeating
the exact same boring mini-game, with your reward feeding back into your lives counter. Every.
Single. Time. Getting lives isn't inherently a boring reward, since as I mentioned before, this
game can get pretty difficult and I got quite a few game overs. I actually kinda like doing the
animal buddy mini-games, where there are hidden multipliers that encourage you to play to each
buddy's strengths. But when they're just another way to get lives, existing alongside a plethora
of shorter and easier ways to collect them (ones that don't force you back to the last checkpoint)
it's hard to ever fully enjoy myself in them. What happens when you’ve mastered the game? You’re just
gonna have a stockpile of lives at your disposal that you’ll never even need anyway. So then if
you don’t need lives, where does that leave the actual minigames? They're repetitive, simple, and
pointless. As a result, when I replay the game, I don't really feel the need to go after all the
secrets. Counterintuitive though it may seem, I still think the act of searching for these
barrels is its own reward. Poking and prodding the various walls and floors is part of the
learning process: it's part of the affirmation that what you're exploring is an authentic,
virtual space. Exploration is the final piece to the immersive puzzle. You have gorgeous levels to
soak in, difficulty to make you appreciate them, and exploration that allows you to savor them.
Donkey Kong Country, then, flawed as it is, truly feels like an adventure!
It's a far more compelling game than one which is more mechanically well-rounded. There's
no doubt in my mind that Super Mario 3D World is a more mechanically polished experience than Donkey
Kong Country. Secrets are fun to go after, they’re well placed, there aren’t any leaps of faith, no
cheap moments to con you out of a life, and no strange difficulty spikes. Mario level design is
practically a science at this point: and yet, it doesn’t change the fact that science is cold and
calculated. I'm drawn to games like Donkey Kong Country; games that have far more visible flaws,
and yet achieve something more ambitious than your everyday platformer. For as many problems as
Donkey Kong Country might have when considered as a generic platformer, when considered as an
immersive adventure? I would say it's a success. That base experience, standard and routine as
it might often feel, is rewarding! Learning each level's rhythm and mastering them inside
and out, while fully immersed in its synthesis of interactive and noninteractive design, is oddly
relaxing. Though the game doesn't offer me much extrinsically, I have taken it all in. I know
DK island, and I'd like to revisit it sometime. As stressful as this game once was for me, it now
feels like a stress-reliever. I can just… lose myself in it all. Perhaps none of this makes any
sense. Platformers are platformers! They're fun because they're challenging obstacle courses. Only
their control and level design matter, surely! I’m not even sure I fully understand why most
traditional platformers feel so soulless to me. You're welcome to give me your own hypothesis
in the comments. I'll be paying extra close attention to this comment section, so let's
get a good discussion going. Whatever the case: Donkey Kong Country is a traditional
platformer that utterly captivated me where others didn’t. There has to be some reason
for it. Maybe this was part of that answer.
