Donkey Kong: Funky MonkeyThis game was my childhood. This was literally the very first video game I ever played. I spent many a car ride staring down at that pixelated screen, dodging barrels and climbing vines as my parents dragged us off to wherever we were going. I think this was probably one of the most perfect games to be published on this platform, both in terms of its gameplay and graphics, which are superb, and in terms of its difficulty and structure.
The gameplay is Mario doing what he does best: jumping, climbing, and swinging the occasional hammer. The controls are tight and fine tuned. Almost every time I died I knew that I had perished by my own fault. I say almost because there was the occasional level (here's looking at you, Airplane level...) where some jumps seemed impossibly long and I just could not get the right combination of staying on the ground long enough but not long enough to fall in a bottomless pit. The graphics are delightful, with Donkey Kong's wild expressions stealing the show over Mario's stoic 'stache.
The sound is wonderful, with each themed level coming with its own theme set, perfectly nuanced to remind exactly where you are. In case you forgot, that Egyptian sounding music means you're still on the Pyramid level. And that music that plays before every boss fight... I got excited every time I heard it, even though it was so short and simple.
The structure and difficulty were perfectly made for the Gameboy insomuch as the save points were set at every four levels. It was the perfect pick up and play for a short period game, and when you were bored, you could put it down and save it for later very easily, because you would only go back a maximum of three levels. With the Gameboy's small size and Donkey Kong's easy to save for later structure, the two were made for each other.
And really, even if you had to go back those three levels, it's not like it would take you that long to beat them again. After all, this is mostly a puzzle game, trying to figure out where to jump next, which lever to pull to make which gate open... once you've beat a level, it's pretty much done for good. I first played this game probably 15 years ago. And yet I still remembered most of the solutions. In fact, I reached the end of the game with 99 lives.
So at first I was going to rate the game as easy, not too difficult... but then the final boss fight happened. The difficulty spike at the end was huge. I had breezed through most of this game, jumping and hammering my way to what I thought would be an easy finale. Nooohoho. Remember those 99 lives? By the time I actually saw the credits roll, I had been reduced to the low 80s. That might not seem like much, but you have to realize I maybe lost half that many over the course of the entire game. That's a pretty big spike.
But regardless of the end, I think this is a timeless classic. I hadn't played it for years, and it still brought a smile to my face (not just a nostalgic smile either) and the levels were so impressive that I remembered most of them all those years later. It's one I'm glad to have found again.
Graphics
10 Sound
10 Addictive
9 Depth
8 Story
7 Difficulty
8
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