Donkey Kong '94

By: Patrick "TheLaw" Morris

Welcome welcome welcome everyone welcome back to LegalSpeak a ColdNorth Production. I'm TheLawMorris and this is the video essay series in which I get to talk about the games I've been playing and what I think of the medium as a whole. Now that the dust has settled and we're living in a post E3 world at least until next year, I figured it would be a good time to throw it back to the early nineties so today we are going to be talking about Donkey Kong 94, lets get to it!

Now this is gonna be a new variant on LegalSpeak and I'm calling it the Court of Appeals. It will be a subseries within LegalSpeak where I take another look at an older game through a modern lens. I'll be assessing the merits of the game and how it may have aged. And finally I'll be making a recommendation of if the games hold up and could be enjoyed when played for the first time in modern day.

So for the first court of appeals I'll be reassessing a game that I loved as a kid but never played it beyond the age of seven, I'll be taking a look at Donkey Kong '94 for the Nintendo Gameboy. When I was a kid I was sick on what was apparently a fairly important day of work for my mom so instead of staying home with me she took me to work with her. On the way we stopped at Target and she bought me a silver Gameboy Pocket and because she knew I loved Donkey Kong Country on my Super Nintendo so much she also bought me a copy of Donkey Kong '94 so I would have something to do all day while she worked. I played that game all day and aside from Pokémon it was without a doubt my favorite Gameboy game ever.

Just recently I downloaded the game for my 3DS and played through the entire thing again. And after 101 levels all with their own little quirks and puzzles to solve I'm very happy to say that I was in no way misremembering this game. Donkey Kong '94 was made up of what was even at the time considered old school gameplay that had been proven in what is one of the most iconic arcade cabinets of all time. The control scheme is extremely tight and responsive making for an excellent platforming experience and because the game is based off the original arcade cabinet its not a simple side scroller. While there is some horizontal movement in certain levels the vast majority of screen movement happens on the vertical axis and each individual level is a puzzle not to be progressed through but to be solved. The game involves tons of backtracking through the same area as opposed to a linear path. Each puzzle can be approached in several different ways and it's really left up to the player to figure out how they want to complete each level. The mixture of puzzle solving and skill based platforming makes for a constant trial and error that is supremely satisfying when you figure out the trick to a level that you've been struggling with.

Throughout the game there are more and more mechanics added into the levels with a quick demonstration that smartly teaches the player what they're about to see coming up but in an environment that is so simplistic it in no way gives away the solutions to any specific levels. Players are forced to think about each new mechanic and how it interacts with the mechanics they have already been utilizing making for what eventually becomes mechanics layered on top of mechanics for some really challenging levels with a wide variety of situations to overcome. The game is paced excellently and that is almost entirely a result of when the new mechanics are introduced. The player is given the opportunity to save after a handful of levels beaten which not only keeps everything fresh but also gives a real sense of progression in a very short amount of time. Which leads me to one of the best parts about Donkey Kong '94 which is that it is clearly a game that was designed from the ground up to be played in short bursts because it was made for a handheld console. You were very clearly never meant to sit down with this game the way you would with a home console game and sink 2-3 hours into one play session. It's a game that was intended to be turned on played for a few minutes while on the bus or waiting for an appointment then put back in your pocket until you were ready to play again.

Besides Donkey Kong Country 2 no game is perfect and Donkey Kong '94 is definitely not perfect. But as I was playing through the game I was genuinely having difficulty finding something really detrimental to the entire experience. Then it hit me harder than a barrel I jumped late for: the game is actually pretty limited by its availability. It was originally released in 1994 for the Gameboy then it lay dormant until it was finally rereleased on the 3DS virtual console. This is a fantastic game that can easily be called one of Nintendo's hidden gems and very few people have even gotten the opportunity to play it because Nintendo hasn’t shown it the love it deserves. So it's difficult to find a flaw with the game itself the total lack of availability cripples it before it even has a chance to get into the players hands.

Donkey Kong '94 is criminally underrated. And when looking at it today of course it wont be able to stack up against the major home console releases like Super Mario Odyssey or Breath of the Wild but those aren't really the games that this game should be compared to. A more fair comparison for Donkey Kong '94 in today's market is mobile games. And when compared to mobile games this game is a straight up masterpiece. It was one of the first ever video game remakes that took what was established in the original and expanded on the idea making it a much more complete but more importantly better game with a lot more to offer. If you're thinking about playing Donkey Kong '94 for the first time in 2019 all I can advise for you is to go download that game right now. And if you don’t have a 3DS available to you while I wouldn't recommend buying the entire console just to play Donkey Kong '94 there are so many stellar games both new and old available on the console that you would be a fool not to buy the console and play this game even in 2019.

Did you get to play Donkey Kong '94? What are your thoughts on the game and when did you first play it? Let me know in the comments down below.

If you liked what you heard don’t forget to subscribe for a new video essay and two new podcasts every week! You can find everything we do all in one spot over at ColdNorthPro.com. I'll be back next week with something new to discuss so until then just go play some games.