Donkey Kong 3: Dai Gyakushuu (Sharp X1) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
219A playthrough of Hudson Soft's 1984 arcade-style action game for the Sharp X1 PC, Donkey Kong 3: Dai Gyakushuu / ドンキーコング3 大逆襲.
Dai Gyakushuu, roughly translated, means something along the lines of "Massive Counter-strike." Or, if you want to be super boring and literal, "Big Counterattack."
This is a game I've been searching for for years now - it has to be at least five or so. I've scoured the darkest corners of Japanese retro PC gaming messageboards, forums and enthusiast websites several times over, but I've never found much more than a few photos of the disk, some old magazine screenshots, anecdotes about the game's origins, and the occasionally aggressive diatribes aimed at collectors that refuse to dump and share highly sought after, incredibly rare pieces of software. I always felt that this game was a sore missing spot in the piece I wrote on Hudson's officially-licensed Nintendo games for Japanese PCs, as it is far rarer than Super Mario Bros Special, Mario Punch Ball, or any other titles in Hudson's Nintendo PC lineup. If you want to find out more about those, check out the card links on this video, as well as my full write-up at http://www.nintendocomplete.com/hudsons-pc/
About all I could be sure of was that people were certain that it existed, but nobody knew anything about it. I'd considered buying one of the extremely rare, outrageously priced copies that appear on Japanese auctions, but I didn't want to even think about what buying an X1 PC and having it shipped from Japan would cost. I'd buy an x68k first, anyway :)
You can imagine my surprise and excitement when Famicomical ( http://medium.com/@famicomical ) announced in February that he had not only won a copy for an eyewatering 45000yen, but then proceeded to dump it and unleash it on masses, playable on both emulators and the original X1 hardware. Awesome stuff. Thanks so much, guy. I've spent so much time trying to find a means to play this! If I'd known about the project I certainly could've chipped in a bit toward it.
Donkey Kong 3: DG is a game similar to Mario Special and Mario Punchball. It's similar in many ways to the arcade/NES versions of DK3, but there are some distinct differences that make it a whole new game. This time you can't jump as you pepper DK's tuckus with repellant, and it feels like a really focused and intense remix of Galaxian - the enemy patterns, the leading shots, the constant death from above all feels familiar, and it's a pretty brilliant way to reimagine the (already excellent) gameplay of the original DK3. It does reach *omfg* levels of hard from round 15 through 20 - I got super lucky not getting a game over before Rd. 20 when I recorded this - there were a number of close calls.
I say 20 because there are twenty unique stage backdrops in the game, and when you reach 21, the game loops back to the first at a higher level of difficulty. There is no ending, so I play until I hit a super ugly streak in Rd. 25 and got a Game Over. I guess I lost my focus. This game really requires it. Those background graphics are awesome though - they are a good reward for your practice as you gradually get better.
And finally, it is an excellent game. I was expecting to be disappointed after searching for it for so long, and somehow I wasn't. It's definitely my new favorite of Hudson's PC games, with some excellent graphics with fairly fluid animation (for 1984 this is impressive!), reasonably responsive controls, and the format and mechanics were catered to the strengths of the PC format...in exactly the way that SMB Special's were not. I peg it about even with the arcade game in its quality and addictiveness. It's on par with Nintendo's level of quality, and this DK3 version nicely demonstrates how capable of a developer Hudson really was.
This really is a fantastic exhumation of a nearly forgotten limb of the DK family tree, and it is well worth spending a bit of time with. X1 Millenium is an emulator with a (mostly) English-language interface that will run the game perfectly if you're interested in giving it a go. I used it to record this video.
Oh, and lmao at the name of Stage 15: "On the Ground Picture." Was there something wrong with "Nazca" or "Hummingbird"? That phrasing... I laugh everytime it comes up on screen.
And again, thank you Famicomical. This is amazing.
_
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
Visit for the latest updates!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/NintendoComplete/540091756006560
https://twitter.com/nes_complete