Donkey Kong (Game Boy, 1994)
Donkey Kong is my all-time favourite video game. Nintendo released this title for the Game Boy in 1994, designed with some enhanced features when popped into a Super Game Boy cartridge for the SNES. I never really played this on the Super Game Boy, as I grew up with the original gray, bulky original.
What makes this my favourite? For starters, it’s one of the few games I’ve actually completed from start to finish (Super Mario Land is another one of those). As I mention in my About page, I’m not a “gamer”; I play games for fun but don’t always finish them. My most common type of game are sports and puzzle games (Tetris or Dr. Mario) that don’t really end. So being able to complete a game? Bonus.
Donkey Kong though, is a combination of a platformer and a puzzle game. You have a specific quest to guide Mario through the various worlds to rescue Pauline from DK’s clutches, but many levels also contain puzzle elements. Some levels need things placed not only in the right spot, but timed out just right as well.
The animations are fun and characters and backgrounds are well-designed for limited colour pallets. I’ve been playing this recently, and even though I have muscle memory for the gameplay, I feel like this game is easy for anyone to pick up and understand how to play. There’s a learning curve but it’s not steep. In fact the game helps you along the way in the cut scenes between certain levels.
I love this game. If someone asked me to recommend just one Game Boy game to get a feel for the device, I’d give them Donkey Kong. Heck…I would probably recommend this game in general.