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It's time for another entry in my "Playing The Classics" series, where I play through some of the greatest games of all time and talk about the experience. In some instances, these are games I've never really delved into, and in other cases I've played them many times over. The choices are not an indication of rank, and it's actually quite random. Oh, and spoilers and stuff.
This time around, the game of choice was the 1994 SNES classic "Donkey Kong Country".
Past Experience
I've played through this a few times, including once on the GBA port from ~2003. I always really enjoyed it but distinctly remember hating a level or two, largely for difficulty reasons. What I (and everyone else) remembered most is the graphics. For 1994, they look incredible. They're not sprites! Amazing!
This is a small pic, but you get the idea.
The Playthrough
I'll get this out of the way - it's not as good as I remembered. At its best, the platforming is really exciting but at other times it's really just baffling. The same goes for the level design. A tip for all designers out there - a level whose theme is that it's really dark so you can't always tell where you're going is bad level design.
For some reason, I could have sworn that the industrial themed world, "Kremkroc Industries, Inc.", was the last one. I was stunned when there was a whole other world to go through. I have no idea how I got this impression. So, that was weird. It doesn't help that a lot of the levels in "Kremkroc" are frustratingly tricky, and any sense of relief I might've had was quickly squashed.
Having said that, the good outweighs the bad. Graphically, it's still very charming and neat looking, even if it doesn't look 'new' anymore. More often than not the levels provide a reasonable amount of challenge and secret stuff to find (seriously, there is a TON of secret stuff). The bosses are standard fare for this era, which isn't a bad thing at all. Find the pattern, exploit the weak spot, etc.
Summary
Donkey Kong Country is a flawed but still great game, one definitely worthy of being called a classic. If you enjoy 2D platformers and somehow haven't given this a spin, I suggest you do so. Prepare to be frustrated by a few later levels, but also to be won over by its charm. The sequels (which I hope to get to in this series eventually) are great as well, so if you enjoy this one there's no need to stop here.
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