To say I have a history of Donkey Kong is more than enough. I played this game quite a lot during my childhood but I never could beat it. I don’t know what it was exactly, the game didn’t save properly; sometimes I wanted to start over I guess. But I do know for sure that at one point I got stuck as a kid because one puzzle in this game really made you test your ability to move fast, which kinda sucks because I was actually pretty close to beating the game too. Thankfully I got this game again via the virtual console, and avenged my childhood self with the scar this game left me with.
Now don’t let that talk fool you, I actually really do love this game, that’s why I was often frustrated with it. Playing the same levels again and again as a kid was annoying at times, but a lot of the levels are very fun and inventive. I also love the fact the game tricks you in the beginning only to show that the game is much more than the original Donkey Kong. And while most of the puzzles are fairly simple to get through, one mistake can cause you to lose all your work on the level, just to go back and try again. The timer is also quite effect as it works both as stress and something set for high scores. Also knowing how the controls work helps increase the level of skill you could have for this game. By being able to use your backwards jumps and back-flip jumps effectively, you could potentially reduce the amount of time and effort it takes to get to the goal. However if you don’t have the best jumping skill you can still solve the puzzle the way it’s meant to and it gives you more options to solve it for the less talented players. However there are quite a few puzzles in Donkey Kong that sometimes require a lot of tricky movements to get through, and while not always present, can make it very harder for players like the younger me. Although this really adds more of a challenge to the game than anything else, and such requirements for puzzles are few and far between. Overall though, Donkey Kong on the Game Boy really changed the way Donkey Kong was meant to be played, from a simple arcade game to a puzzler type of game, and really that’s what made it so great. The game is expansive and will often test your ability to think and perform under pressure, and really that’s what makes this game so lovely.
Final Thoughts:
Donkey Kong is more than just the arcade game that most people played turning the ’80s. It’s a great puzzler that gracefully mixes thinking and platforming into an expansive adventure through 100 stages. And for a Game Boy game it’s really over the top in what it delivers, along with some pretty good looking graphics and music from its time. Honestly one of my favorite games from my childhood, and something I am glad to have finally beaten it!