In 1994, Rare was working on a game for Nintendo starring a certain monkey and his little buddy. Donkey Kong Country was the first Donkey Kong game that Shigeru Miyamoto didn’t work on. The major selling point of the game was the looks/graphics. The graphics had the characters rendered in 3D on a 2D environment. This style wasn’t done too often at the time, and no one really knew how the game was going to be received.
Platformers were big on the Super Nintendo and Donkey Kong Country was a great addition to the system. DK and Diddy, his buddy, had to traverse DK Island to get his horde of bananas back from King K. Rool, the Kremling ruler. Combine the great-looking locations/lighting with great music and you have yourself a real winner. Along the way, you can use different animal friends to help in your quest, like Rambi the Rhino and Enguard the Swordfish.
Donkey Kong Country had that special something you were looking for in 1994. It had charm and character in the enemy animations, like the various Kremlings/vultures. It also has some great levels like the mine car levels, underwater levels, and snow levels. You don’t usually think that a large monkey can swim, but DK can!
Donkey Kong Country had to show Nintendo that it had staying power, and it did just that. Two more games in the DK Country series were released after DKC and both were some pretty deep games that kept the graphic style of the original DKC. Music and level design helped make Donkey Kong Country a keeper.
