There are many ironies regarding the character known as Donkey Kong. For example, diehard historians know that his name is actually a typo, as it was supposed to be “Monkey Kong,” and many thought the game would be a failure because of that. Second, he was technically the first Nintendo iconic, not Mario, as Mario wasn’t officially named in the legendary arcade game until later. Finally, the Donkey Kong Country series has a unique set of “starts and stops” over the course of its life, despite the games being popular in the minds of critics and gamers.
Even still, the franchise’s popularity remains today, especially on the Nintendo Switch, where by the end of January, all five Donkey Kong Country titles will be able for gamers to play both in physical form and on Nintendo Switch Online. To celebrate that fact, Nintendo dropped a special overview trailer highlighting the five titles.
From the original trilogy on the SNES that was developed by Rare, we see the iconic graphics and gameplay stylings that helped the title stand out from other platformers, including ones featuring Mario. The use of the “tag out” system, where you could swap between Kongs like DK, Diddy, or Trixie, was a key feature that many players loved, as everyone had their favorite Kong they wanted to play as.
Then, by the time we got to the Wii/Wii U eras, we got the two titles that Retro Studios made. They took the iconic mechanics and feel for the game and added modern graphics and quality-of-life improvements. They also amped up the difficulty in parts, especially for the Wii U title. While the most recent game was ported to the Switch very early on, the Wii title will arrive in January in HD form, completing the set. This doesn’t include the special handheld games that recently came to Nintendo Switch Online, though. Thus, there are actually seven mainline DK titles for you to enjoy if you want!
One of the true ironies of this trailer is that it highlights how we haven’t gotten a NEW title with Donkey Kong since the Wii U. We’ve had remasters and remakes of older games, including one from the Game Boy Advance era, but nothing new.
Many are hoping that the sales and love for Donkey Kong will reveal to Nintendo that it needs to take this franchise seriously again so that there isn’t a super long gap between new titles.
