Let's Play Donkey Kong '94 [Part 2] | Big Brain, Bigger Monkey | Jack Is Streaming Solo
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Tifa is on a business trip, so Jack gets to play a game that he has fond memories of and she does not care for - Donkey Kong, aka Donkey Kong '94, aka "holy poop, they put how much content in this Game Boy game?!".
In 1981, Nintendo made an arcade game called "Donkey Kong". It's about a guy (a red and blue little dude called "Jumpman" at the time) saving a girl (Pauline) from a big, angry gorilla - the titular Donkey Kong. So you jump over obstacles, smash some with a hammer and after just four short stages, you save the girl. That's it! If you make it this far, the game starts over and gets more difficult. Keep playing and get a high score if you can, but it's just four stages.
In 1994, Nintendo released Donkey Kong for the Game Boy. It's the same arcade goodness - except now we call the little guy Mario - and you save the girl.
Except maybe, you pressed some buttons and realized that Mario has new moves.
And then you save the girl and suddenly, Donkey Kong gets back up and kidnaps her AGAIN.
Because this isn't just a Game Boy port, it's a dramatically expanded version with a total of 100 (!) stages!
Of course, you'd know all of this already, if you checked the back of the box or read the manual. Probably in the back of the car on the way home from the store, when you couldn't wait to play your new game. Sweet nostalgia...
Besides the ton of stages, Donkey Kong '94 also adds a couple new game mechanics. Most importantly, each regular stage is about you finding a key and getting it to the door in time, so that Mario can keep pursuing Donkey Kong. Every couple levels you get a boss fight against DK, which vary between just getting to him or figuring out a way to hit him a couple times.
The game does a really neat job highlighting new gimmicks in little cutscenes after each boss fight and the difficulty ramps up nicely throughout the whole game. Some stages get quite large and involved, but there's also a bunch of short-and-sweet brain teasers along the way.
To top it all of, Donkey Kong '94 is also a Super Game Boy game, so if you have one of those, you get to play a colorized version with a really cool screen border!
All in all, it's a really good game and arguably the best version of Donkey Kong to play. Now imagine if we got a proper remake of it... oh well, maybe for the Switch 2?