Donkey Kong Country

Animated series

An animated TV series was based on the characters and world of the Donkey Kong Country game. Running from 1997-2000, the series featured all of the cast from the game plus additional new characters. The series was animated with computer-generated imagery (mostly with SoftImage).

Board game

In 1995, Milton Bradley combined two youth trends of the 1990s and brought together the world of Donkey Kong Country and a POG-slamming game.

Cranky Kong

Cranky Kong is actually the "original" Donkey Kong from the early 1980s and will drone on and on about how games don't need 16-bits and etc.

Donkey Kong Junior

Donkey Kong's sidekick for Donkey Kong Country was originally going to be an updated version of Donkey Kong Junior from the 1980s arcade game. Nintendo, however, objected, and told Rare to either keep Junior's original design, or create a completely new character. This resulted in the introduction of Diddy Kong, who has since replaced Junior in all later Donkey Kong games. Following this, DK Junior's appearances have been reduced to that of an unlockable/trophy in sports-based Mario spin-offs.

Game Boy Advance Version

The Game Boy Advance version has the contrast cranked up to make the game easier to see on the darker LCD screen.

Soundtrack

The music that Cranky Kong plays on the Victrola during the intro is a rendition of the actual Donkey Kong music from the original 8-bit Nintendo game.

Super Power review

The game got a full 100 % in the Swedish magazine Super Power. The game was rated in the one day they got to borrow the early cassette. The reviewer today claims that he committed a breach of duty, and was completely astounded by the graphics so he couldn't make a proper review of the game.

Technology

Donkey Kong Country was the first game to feature the new ACM graphics technique. ACM was a new graphics technique which allowed rendering of sprites, which made the graphics for the 16 bit games that used it (the DKC games, Killer Instinct and more) extremely detailed. When it first was presented most people took it as a game for what was at the time called Project Reality (i.e. Nintendo 64). People were really shocked when it turned out to be a game for the SNES.

Awards

• Electronic Gaming Monthly
  • November 1994 (Issue 64) - Game of the Month
  • 1995 Buyer's Guide - Game of the Year
  • 1995 Buyer's Guide - SNES Game of the Year
  • 1995 Buyer's Guide - Best Animation
  • 1995 Buyer's Guide - Best Game Duo

• FLUX Magazine

  • Issue #4 - #17 in the "Top 100 Video Games of All-Time" list

• GameFan

  • 1994 (Vol.3, Iss. 1) - Best SNES Action/Platform Game of the Year 1994
  • 1994 (Vol.3, Iss. 1) - Best SNES Special Effects

• VideoGames

  • March 1995 - Game of the Year 1994
  • March 1995 - Best SNES Game in1994
  • March 1995 - Best Action Game in 1994
  • March 1995 - Best Graphics in 1994
  • March 1995 - Best Gameplay in 1994

Information also contributed by Alexander Michel, Andreas Vilén, Big John WV, Pseudo_Intellectual, So Hai, WildKard and Zovni