Released near the end of the SNES' hayday, DK Country showed that the SNES can hang with the newbies of the 32-bit era.
Lows: Controls are a bit unresponsive, can be very frustrating at times, hard boss battles, cheap deaths.
Verdict: A great adventure that will keep you entertained for hours.
Donkey Kong. The one game that saved Nintendo over 30 years ago, is a classic. Then the boys at the Big N gave DK his own game, and it was the visually impressive Donkey Kong Country, released for the Super Nintendo in 1994. In DKC, you play as Donkey Kong, as he and his companion Diddy Kong must stop the evil King K. Rool, and rescue their precious supply of bananas. Playing DKC is like your average side-scrolling platformer, so you should get used to it easily. The gameplay is tons of fun as there as you can throw barrels and explosives at oncoming enemies or you can just jump on them instead. There are also lots of secrets and bonus games to hunt down in each level as you can score extra bananas to get extra lives and what have you. The level design is fine as well, as each stage has a challenging, but not too frustrating atmosphere. If you lose either DK or Diddy, you can find barrels that have the "DK" marking on them and you can use those to get your companion back, no matter who you play as. There are lots of funny things in the game that will give you a bit of a chuckle here and there. The graphics are visually impressive and ahead of it's time, as it looks like it belongs on the PlayStation or Saturn. Even though the controls are a bit unresponsive, they are still fine for the most part. To save your game, there are various save points throughout the game, and you go to talk to Candy Kong to save your game. DK Country is great, but not without problems however. This game is to be taken seriously because it is as chalenging as your average Mega Man game. The game can be frustrating even on newcomers, as it takes a lot of time to get used to everything DKC has to offer. The boss battles aren't impossible, but they can easily give you a run for your money if you aren't careful. There are also some stage design flaws that can lead to many cheap deaths. Those are all the cons of DKC, but how does it hold up? Pretty well. Donkey Kong Country is one of the defining titles of the Super NES, as it is worth checking out. You can pick this up for the Game Boy Advance as well, so if you own a SNES or GBC, pick this up whenever you can. Don't miss out now.