Donkey Kong Country - Nintendo Strikes Back! | GEEK CRITIQUE

this is a video game this is the gaming industry the gaming industry there is no Nintendo CD understood is that war the very same genre that made Nintendo a household word and allowed Sega to topple the Empire the genre that had dominated console gaming for nearly 10 years the 2d platformer mini a third-party developer would try their hand at building an attitudinal animal mascot of their area but one company was conspicuous by its absence rare rare was co-founded in 1985 by the Stamper brothers Tim and Chris the UK studio had achieved a fair bit of notoriety cranking out more than 40 titles for the NES but when the 16-bit warz began rare largely sit on the sidelines aside from a couple of Battletoads games including a crossover as bizarre as it was awesome the company had yet to make a mark in a 16-bit era their absence was no accident while other companies were rushing out with ill-conceived concepts the stampers decided to take a different they invested their nes profits and two obscenely expensive silicon graphics workstations the bleeding edge of 3d capability the statements were intended primarily for film effects but the stampers wanted to see what they could do for gaming they developed a method to animate political models on Silicon Graphics and transfer these animations to a format the Super Nintendo can display booting a game console way past what was supposed to be able to do would become one of the signature hallmarks of the company and it began here rare showed off its work to Nintendo who swiftly scooped up 49% of the company the newly minted rareware was suddenly one of the most technologically advanced developers in the world and with Nintendo backing them it was time to create a game that would make them famous so this is a video game video games look like this feel like this and then one day you see this and this is not on Sega's fancy new 32x this isn't on a cd-rom heck this ain't even next-gen this is Donkey Kong Country [Music] so why did rare and Nintendo decide to bring back Donkey Kong the character debuted as an antagonist in 1981 and at least at first he was the star the game was even named after him while the player character was a bit of an afterthought the point that is a name merely describes what he did when he hit the button while Jumpman would have all far beyond these roots and end up as the icon of the entire industry deeply was left in this primordial state aside from a few cameos and remakes Donkey Kong hadn't appeared in over a decade but that's exactly why DK was such a perfect fit for this project he was famous enough to be recognized yet outdated enough to be reinvented so the stampers took this long period of absence to heart and did something really unusual in gaming even today they aided up the characters Donkey Kong had gotten old he'd gone gray he'd become cranky and he passed his name on to his son DK jr. lost the singlet put on a tie and became the modern-day Donkey Kong or maybe decayed jr. had a son and it's this guy it's kind of ambiguous the setting was moved from bright red construction girders to a place far better suited to showing off those Silicon Graphics Donkey Kong Island and where your father's Donkey Kong was a barrel throwing lady swapping bad guy Raiders Donkey Kong was laid back in peaceful if a bit hedonistic DK wants nothing more than to relax on his Island and bored bananas and so the game begins and DK busts out of his treehouse now the genres conventions myth that you needed to move right but behind you an open cave now let's say you were like every other kid I knew and you skipped right over the instruction manual going in the cave would convey a hint of the story DK his peaceful demeanor would be challenged when king K rool and his criminal stole his banana hoard on a dog and stormy night and by the way if you did skip the instructions you really missed out I love the way cranky breaks the fourth wall throughout insulting the game the player and the very concept of notes pages I have no idea what a bunch of reptiles want with mountains of bananas it's awesome how that forms the crux of the game most other game heroes were out to save princesses conquer Empire save the world but DK and he was a man of the 90s and he just wanted his stuff back back outside the cave you might hop up to the tree house if you go inside you'll score an extra life now but the cave and the tree house are pretty obviously meant to teach the player something this game is going to have hidden secrets keep your eyes open and explore and you will be rewarded the tree house even plays the bonus stage theme a few paces up is the game's first enemy a naughty now maybe you walk right into it that's it there's no life bar no hit points nothing to keep you safe to showcase the game's graphical fidelity the decision was made early on to keep the screen free from clutter instead of a litany of counters and cut elements collectibles would only scroll on screen when they were irrelevant and slip off to let the player stay immersed that might sound simple but this decision had an impeccable influence on every element of the game design because when you get past that money you find a D caber Mega Man had a health bar Mario had his power-ups and Sonic could take hits forever as long as he could hold onto a ring instead of anything like that Donkey Kong would have a partner Diddy Kong thanks to this tag-team dynamic you didn't feel alone in this world and that too was intentional getting back the banana hoard was a community effort headed up by an extended Kong family a pastiche of early 90s surfer culture named funky Kong can give you quick access to earlier worlds cranky Kong spouts off hilariously self-aware dialogue and gives you hints and instead of saving from the menu you what this is candy Kong and this is for save point okay I mean +10 for not being a damsel in distress but - several million for being a 40s pinup mixed with a gorilla yeah I don't know even when I was a kid I always just creeped me out yeah if you can kiss my donkey get it cuz cuz I donkey is also called an ass you see and okay the barrels themselves are the one holdover from DK's arcade roots and the games focus on throwing them blasting out of them and using them to find bonus rooms is one of the things that sets DKC apart from most of the platformers at this point in the level the music is picked up a distinctive DK island swing amazing as the game looked the way it sounded would be just as important and giving it its identity I remember magazines the claim that sounded so good you'd swear there was a CD inside the cartridge it wasn't what people thought of his video game music Evelyn Fisher Robin bean Lindh and David wise a soundtrack was more cinematic and thoughtful and would often incorporate environmental sounds into some incredibly memorable medleys but all all the praise the soundtrack gets is very well deserved the sound effects tend to get overlooked jungle hijinks has four distinct enemy types and wouldn't you know it each one makes a different noise you can hear a DK barrel from off-screen before you reach it and late in the game when you're tense and nervous and frustrated just hearing that sound is a godsend there's a real sense of place in this game it has a sophistication that was often lacking in games at the time I mean these are still cartoon apes fighting at the perfect reptiles sure but it was mature not in its themes but in its tone some stages are huge and bombastic but others are melancholy are thoughtful and at least a few are downright chilling through all these elements Donkey Kong Country was able to achieve an atmosphere that no videogame had ever matched about halfway through the first stage you'll come across a crate busting it open reveals an animal buddy Randy the Rhino and this guy is freaking strong everything about him accentuates that he powers through a line of naughties he makes this distinct powerful galloping sound he's basically invincible from the front if it can die it will die animal buddies are another big part of what will give this series its identity their level specific a lot of the developers - theme some stages around them when they get hit they'll go running off and you might be able to chase them down again animal buddies helped to keep the gameplay fresh and their designs are not only appealing they immediately inform what they can do Express those skinny legs can't hurt enemies but he can float through the air on guard is easier to control underwater and his nose is just as effective as Randy's horn right here he also occasionally shows up as a hologram sparks will delight for you in one level back in the days before sudden flashing lights were considered a problem and finally Winky is a frog and is absolutely perfect in every way finding any of these guys was always exciting and just like the Khan family lent a hand they to showcase a deliberate design instead of adding power-ups or menu options our hitpoints rare instead added distinct characters and it gives the game so much more of vibrancy as an interconnected world as for Randy you can also bust through hidden entrances and in Jungle High Kings a new player is almost certain to slip down here break the wall and end up in the first proper bonus room when you come back to the level burst out the other side pop down to the only platform you can see and discover that items can be hidden underground maybe that Clues you into another bonus room and starts to reinforce the idea that an arrow often indicates that nearby secret is you're reaching into the stage a storm starts to roll in darkening the entire scene and highlighting just how gorgeous this world looks and how fluent the graphic designers had already become you can even turn around and head back through the level like this now maybe you're thinking to yourself okay so the graphics were pretty but aside from presentation this really wasn't anything new plenty of other platformers had you throwing things plenty of them had hidden secrets the two character dynamic instantly reminded me of tails and the animal buddies were brightly variations on Yoshi even in 1994 dkc was often compared to Super Mario World but while that might have a similar structure to a Mario game all argue that the comparison was faulty because Donkey Kong Country did not play like Mario tapping the Y button lets the Kong's role or cartwheel through enemies and every time you hit one you move a little faster that momentum would even be preserved if you went over a Ledge or jumped you can also roll off ledges and company midair to clear more distance or reach higher areas we designer Gregg nails said years later Super Mario World was sublime and intricate best appreciated at a slower speed whereas Donkey Kong Country was extravagant brash you can take your time through this game taking in the atmosphere and looking for secrets in fact I would encourage you to but once you have once the graphics have lost their spectacle you know where everything is here's the kicker every obstacle every enemy every vine and platform and blast barrel is placed in such a way that if you're skilled you can move through the game with a speed and grace worthy of the aesthetic DK and Diddy didn't change attributes or gain powers and so the focus could be not on merely overcoming off two goals but on skill mastery that sounds familiar isn't there some other series that focused on building your skill to speed ever more impressively through painstakingly design levels maybe one I spent all summer talking about yeah there it is donkey kong country controlled like mario and have the same sort of linear focused level design but i argue that it could be played a whole lot more like sonic it certainly felt unlike anything that had come before it was more technical than mario more deliberate than sonic and way less forgiving than either of the plain donkey kong country to perfection is akin to the rhythm of a musical instrument over the next generation a big part of rares MO would be detained antennas revolutionary concepts and do the bigger faster and stronger - this is where that lineage began by blending the crunchy precision of Mario's design the kinetic flow of Sonics and an unprecedented style DKC aimed to be the creme de la creme of action platformers but as fun as it was and as outstanding as it looked tkc wasn't perfect yep animal tokens collect three of them and you'll be yanked into a bonus stage to earn lives the problem is they completely and often unexpectedly interrupted the gameplay that's supposed to be the focus of this design cranky claims they aren't even in the game and I wish he was right I always just try to avoid them the speaking of which the bonus stages themselves are kind of undercooked most of them are hidden pretty cleverly but a few are just way too unintuitive I mean here's one that's entirely reliant on a leap of faith and this is in the second level most of them are better than that but they still lack variety at items grab bananas jump correctly it just gets repetitive worse yet aside from a slightly different ending there's no new content for finding all the bonus levels Franky's hints only cover world 1 for some reason no matter where you are in the game and the only really good boss was King K rool himself the others were just kind of simplistic and most of them were even recolors as you get deeper into Donkey Kong Country the levels themselves become less varied every will in the game introduces at least one new archetype except for the final one Kemp caverns and there's another problem dkc has only four of the iconic jungle stages that are so overtly associated with the series there are two treetop stages or water stages only one of these stunningly beautiful eye stages but there are no joke ten stages that take place in a dimly lit cave or mine and I mean I love the top minecart stages but coming to yet another cave starts to feel like a chore all of this is a consequence of a pretty short development time combined with a ton of pressure KC was rough around the edges and even unfair in places it's a fun game but it's certainly a flawed one a ton of style but not enough substance ultimately I suppose it's proof that players will put up with mediocre gameplay as long as the arts good [Music] I'm kidding shigeru miyamoto if you somehow don't know is the creator of Mario and Donkey Kong and a ton of other iconic Nintendo franchises for a long time it was kind of an urban legend that he'd said that about Donkey Kong Country I can't find an original source and it's almost certainly not true Miyamoto was in fact regularly consulted during the game's development nonetheless dkc would face a lot of backlash as the years went on and that quote is emblematic of that backlash all due respect to shaggy but if he ever said that he was wrong Donkey Kong Country had some issues sure what were amazing visuals in 1994 looked like Dinard plastic nowadays but what Donkey Kong Country proved was that the coming leap in graphical fidelity would allow for not just different but more immersive gaming experiences than what had come before it showed us a glimpse into the future of the meeting and just as importantly it didn't abandon what made gaming so great in the first place dkc did for gaming what toy story did for animated movies and it happened a year earlier but it certainly was not was a mediocre if the gameplay was that secondary to the graphics dkc would be about as well remembered today as Myst was it derivative who cares what game isn't derivative it still set a new standard for the industry it still had a crew of memorable characters and thanks to its kinetic crunchy fast-paced gameplay it still stands the test of time the back in 1994 Donkey Kong Country was an instant success retailers couldn't keep it in stock over the holidays and the game would go on to sell over nine million copies the king of the jungle was back and for the first time in years aunt endo wasn't just competing with Sega Nintendo was winning if you enjoyed this video and you're a fan of Donkey Kong then you really should pay a visit to DK Viacom DK vine has been one of my favorite websites for no joke 15 years I listened to a lot of podcasts and trust me DK vines conversation is the they did an awesome spotlight series on Donkey Kong Country for the game's 20th anniversary so definitely check that out by clicking here want early access to every critique I do you can get these videos a day before everyone else or even made me critique the game of your choice by backing TBC on patreon share this video with your favorite forms and sub reddits are just give it a thumbs up which helps visibility on YouTube in a way that's just as ambiguous as DK is precise relation to cranky like me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter go back and watch my other episodes and retrospectives and you keep geeking I'll keep critiquing thanks for watching

Channel: The Geek Critique

Views: 278,752

Keywords: The Geek Critique, TGC, Geek Critique, Josh Wallen, Donkey Kong Country (Video Game), Donkey Kong (Video Game Series), Video Game (Industry), Video Game Culture, DKC, Donkey Kong, DK, Diddy, Diddy Kong, Rare, Rareware, Nintendo, review, retrospective, Donkey Kong (Video Game Character)

Id: 6X1y8BwQLmU

Length: 16min 31sec (991 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 29 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/KF1992]

Wow this is an awesome video! DKC is one of my favorite series for sure, and I've never seen anyone go this in depth with it before. I especially liked when you got into the game design elements, as that's something that's recently drawn my attention/interest. Really great job and thanks for sharing!

[u/[deleted]]

I freaking love DKC, and this video showed me so many things I'd never noticed before. Very well done, I'd definitely love to see videos for the other games in the series!

[u/mrpengo88]

The fake ending was ingenious,

[u/Omegawylo]

I was blow away by this video!! Seriously, this is top-notch, professional grade work. You clearly know your stuff and did extensive research. You had me laughing out loud a couple of times. I'm about to scour your youtube channel for more amazing content. Keep it coming, man!

edit: Okay, I'm obsessed with your videos now. You're amazing. I love your use of the word "crunchy."

[u/omega9nine]

This video reminded me how mind blowing that soundtrack is. So much nostalgia!

[u/dagboer]

Great video. It's crazy how good they made that game look on a 16bit console!

[u/GLaDOSSlayer]

I'm not even a fan of Donkey Kong, but I really enjoyed that video and your Smash series. You really critique video games like they're art pieces, and that's appreciated and respected. I can't wait to see what else you have in store!

[u/Sonata17]

I miss the good o'l days when Rareware was a phenomenal developer. They used to be my favorite developer and my 12 year old heart could hardly bear it when I heard they were bought up by Microsoft. I now have an indescribable urge to play DKC...

[u/Tin_Whiskers]

This game was beautiful. The water levels were mesmerizing.