Game Debate #49: Donkey Kong

[Reed Rothchild | 9,509]

 

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

One of my favorite games, but it does get repetitive after a few loops. It's still a lot of fun and a classic game. 9/10.

[TDIRunner | 2,721]

I'm going with a nine.  One of the things I truly love about this game is that during the time of the repetitive, single screen arcade games, this one gave you 4 completely different levels before looping back to the first.  Games like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Centipede are fun, but playing the same thing over and over again gets old for me fast.  At least with DK, you can see 4 different levels before starting over.  I always thought that was an amazing idea for the time.  Plus the game holds up well even today.

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

Before my time and I'm not a score based kinda guy. As much as I love the character of (Donkey) Kong, these early score based games just don't do it for me. 5. 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,509]

Yeah, I'm not sure what I'm gonna go with.  Is this even in my top 200 favorite games?  300?  400?  500?  Generally more of a fan of more modern designs.  I'd have to give it some thought...I think I gave Pac Man a 6.

[AstralSoul | 502]

It's pretty fun in short bursts but I'm not s score chaser and it gets old pretty fast. Still undeniably iconic and I love Donkey Kong as a character. If this was the Game Boy Donkey Kong it would've been a 10 because of how much variety it had. But the arcade version gets old quick. That's not so much a slight to DK because old arcade games like Galaga and Pac-Man and the like only hold my interest for so long before I'm bored. Besides I prefer Donkey Kong Jr. 7/10

[Hammerfestus | 3,820]

My experience comes from Donkey Kong Classics on the NES.  Played a lot of it when I was a kid.  I probably prefer DK Jr actually.   I liked the vine climbing. DKs a good time though and one of the better examples of that era of gaming.  It is something I’ll pop on from time to time on the Switch but the allure probably isn’t enough to get me to pull out the cart.  
8

[TDIRunner | 2,721]

This game is sort of like Tetris.  There are so many ports for so many different systems, one's experience with the game might be based on a lessor quality version of the game.  

[JamesRobot | 5,786]

Can't quite give it a 10.  I'll play it whenever I come across the arcade and probably play it on Nintendo once or twice a year.  Certainly a game everyone should play.

And of course you can't discount its HiStOrIcAl sIgNiFiCaNcE.  No DK, no Mario.

[Murray | 2,447]

[DefaultGen | 5,397]

19 minutes ago, TDIRunner said:

This game is sort of like Tetris.  There are so many ports for so many different systems, one's experience with the game might be based on a lessor quality version of the game.  

The first time I played Donkey Kong was in DK64, so obviously my childhood experience was with the greatest version on the greatest console. None of the 90s arcades I went to growing up ever had one weirdly enough. Even Dave and Busters has some modern version of Donkey Kong and they don't cater to vintage stuff at all.

Like many above, I can't give DK a 10 because I'll never play it for an hour straight at an arcade like a faster game like OutRun or Robotron. But it's still awesome and basically invented my favorite genre, not some 40 year old garbage like Pac-Man. 9/10

[Sumez | 2,931]

My take on Donkey Kong is incredibly split between my deep respect for the game and its mechanics, and my own enjoyment (or lack thereof) while playing it. Part of me don't find it that much fun, a 6/10 at best, meanwhile there are elements to it outside of my own experience playing it that I enjoy on at least an 8/10 or even 9/10 level, so I'll even that out to a 7/10.
I know that sounds kinda dumb, but I'll try to explain. Essentially, I just have a really deep fascination with the game that I can't deny.

For 1981 it was incredibly evolved, but also looking at it objectively, ignoring its place in history as the first real platform game, it stands the test of time super well, which is supported by the fact that genuine high level competition that really showcased the depth of the game didn't even start until after a documentary film was made about that stuff, putting the game back into the minds of a larger group of competitive players.

A few years ago I made an arcade perfect port of the game for the NES (as a counterpoint to the original official port which leaves a lot to be desired, to put it mildly), and in that process I read through all the assembly code for the game and got a stupidly large amount of insight into the mechanics, which I think helped cement some of the things you could probably already assume about the game. A few things stood out to me, and some might be more obvious than others:

• A lot of the mechanics that define the game are accidental, "happy accidents" if you will. I don't know if the theory that players were never meant to beat the fifth level's elevator stage is really true, but the developers definitely didn't put much thought into that high level of the game.
• The hardest stage in the game is the very first one (in the western version that is, since it skips a lot of the easy early stages of the original Japanese one). It's not intended to be so of course, but a lower difficulty rank means barrel control is less consistent, and the wildbarrels are harder to predict as well.
• Occasionally Donkey Kong drops a barrel straight down, known by the community as a "bomb". This is definitely a bug turned feature.
• I feel confident saying at least three different programmers worked on the game, noted by very different styles of implementing logic. That might partly be due to left-over code from Radarscope, but it might also just be that the team separated tasks entirely between two main programmers. Some mechanics feel like they are added later, and I've heard speculation that this was due to Nintendo themselves wanting a deeper level of score play on top of what was originally included in the game as programmed by Ikegami (outsourced contractors). This most importantly includes the mechanic that increases the score gain from jumping multiple barrels at the same time, which definitely seems like it was added later. This is probably the most important mechanic in the game for high level play, and DK would never have been the same without it.
• The game uses an algorithm to construct stages based on highly compressed level data that don't use up more than a tiny fraction of the ROM space available. It's weird, then, that the game only contains four different stages, and I can only imagine that at one point during development it was intended to have many more, featuring different layouts, but probably fewer gimmicks (like the conveyor belts and rivets).

My own favourite part of the game is when the effecient pattern on the rivet stage doesn't work out, and you have to improvise. It's a dangerous situation, but it always requires clever tactics and split-second decisions, which is my favourite part of any action game. I don't personally enjoy the barrel stages much, because playing them effeciently involves completely deconstructing the game into a bunch of mechanics that makes the experience much too rigid for my taste.
But on the other hand, seeing expert players milk that stage for the absolute maximum worth of points is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game. There are very few arcade games from that era that allow for such a deep degree of skillful score play!

Meanwhile, the elevator stage is IMO pure garbage, and the game would have been better off without it. The elevators will kill new players, while just wasting the time of experienced ones, and memorizing spring patterns in a super obscure manner just to survive the higher levels isn't fun for anyone.

Also who the hell thought it was a good idea to add a scoring element (the blue barrels) that awards a completely random amount of points? As it stands, the best players in the world will still consistently get the highest scores. But with the level the game is being played at now, it feels super stupid that such a big part of any new high score is essentially down to blind luck.

[Sumez | 2,931]

33 minutes ago, TDIRunner said:

This game is sort of like Tetris.  There are so many ports for so many different systems, one's experience with the game might be based on a lessor quality version of the game.  

I don't think any impression that isn't based on the arcade game really counts for anything.

It's not to sound elitist or anything, but pretty much everything that defines Donkey Kong on a deeper level is unique to the arcade version, so judging "Donkey Kong" based on one of the lesser ports of the time, is really just judging a different game entirely, even though it looks the same.  

That is of course not uncommon for arcade ports of the time though.

EDIT: A part of the reason that no good contemporary ports really exist is due to the fact that Nintendo never owned the code for the game, and anyone porting the game, even Nintendo, had to recreate the mechanics from scratch.
Curiously, Ikegami still exists, even though they haven't been involved in video games since the early 80s, and apparently they retained the rights to the code until very recently, which explains why even the DK64 version of the game is such a notably terrible port. If I'm not mistaken, the emulated port released on Switch a couple of years ago is the first good (official) port of the game, ever.

Edited May 13, 2021 by Sumez

[TDIRunner | 2,721]

Fortunately, I've played many versions of the game including the original arcade, so I feel confident in my vote of a 9.  Oddly enough, my Dave & Buster's did have an arcade version of Donkey Kong (or at least it did the last time I was there).  Sadly, it was tucked away in a corner and I could play it all I wanted without another person ever walking up to it.

[fox | 1,665]

Always preferred DK jr.  Original DK is fine for what it is, but if I saw it in an arcade, I'd think I would spend my quarters and time elsewhere.

Now if we are are talking about DK on gameboy, which is more puzzle platformer, that might be my fav game on the system.

[Inzoreno | 102]

I'm lucky enough that I have had the chance to play Donkey Kong on an original arcade cabinet and I will definitely say that it is the definitive way to play. Console ports just never feel quite right with the d-pad movement in my experience. It's a pretty fun game which gave us the long-lasting characters of Mario and Donkey Kong and really helped to establish Nintendo in the video game market. But with that said, I settled on giving it an 8. As mentioned in this thread already, it does get repetitive much faster than some other arcade games I love, such as Pac-Man or Galaga. I don't know exactly why, but it is a game that I will only play for a short bit and won't throw in a second quarter when I die. It might be due to the primitive nature of the platforming, which of course is nowhere near refined as it is in Super Mario Bros and later games. But having been raised on Super Mario, it's hard to go back to the platforming in this game. Whereas something like Pac-Man still feels great in this day. 8/10.  

[croagunk | 798]

I give it 7/10. It’s fun, but it’s not a favorite of mine.

[mbd39 | 2,017]

8/10

I've always enjoyed it even though I suck at it.

 

[Webhead123 | 675]

Donkey Kong is my earliest video gaming memory and essentially the reason I got hooked on video games in the first place. My parents bought a used ColecoVision from my babysitter and the two games I remember having with it were the Donkey Kong pack-in and Looping. I played both of those games for hours on end but Donkey Kong was something really special. Of course, I later moved on to the Atari, then NES, etc. but even then, I would regularly return to Donkey Kong either in the arcade or through various console ports (good 'ole NES had a great, if imperfect, port!). I was never particularly good at the game but that didn't matter to me. It was fun, charming and challenging in all the best ways.

9/10

[JamesRobot | 5,786]

22 hours ago, Sumez said:

My take on Donkey Kong is incredibly split between my deep respect for the game and its mechanics, and my own enjoyment (or lack thereof) while playing it. Part of me don't find it that much fun, a 6/10 at best, meanwhile there are elements to it outside of my own experience playing it that I enjoy on at least an 8/10 or even 9/10 level, so I'll even that out to a 7/10.
I know that sounds kinda dumb, but I'll try to explain. Essentially, I just have a really deep fascination with the game that I can't deny.

For 1981 it was incredibly evolved, but also looking at it objectively, ignoring its place in history as the first real platform game, it stands the test of time super well, which is supported by the fact that genuine high level competition that really showcased the depth of the game didn't even start until after a documentary film was made about that stuff, putting the game back into the minds of a larger group of competitive players.

A few years ago I made an arcade perfect port of the game for the NES (as a counterpoint to the original official port which leaves a lot to be desired, to put it mildly), and in that process I read through all the assembly code for the game and got a stupidly large amount of insight into the mechanics, which I think helped cement some of the things you could probably already assume about the game. A few things stood out to me, and some might be more obvious than others:

• A lot of the mechanics that define the game are accidental, "happy accidents" if you will. I don't know if the theory that players were never meant to beat the fifth level's elevator stage is really true, but the developers definitely didn't put much thought into that high level of the game.
• The hardest stage in the game is the very first one (in the western version that is, since it skips a lot of the easy early stages of the original Japanese one). It's not intended to be so of course, but a lower difficulty rank means barrel control is less consistent, and the wildbarrels are harder to predict as well.
• Occasionally Donkey Kong drops a barrel straight down, known by the community as a "bomb". This is definitely a bug turned feature.
• I feel confident saying at least three different programmers worked on the game, noted by very different styles of implementing logic. That might partly be due to left-over code from Radarscope, but it might also just be that the team separated tasks entirely between two main programmers. Some mechanics feel like they are added later, and I've heard speculation that this was due to Nintendo themselves wanting a deeper level of score play on top of what was originally included in the game as programmed by Ikegami (outsourced contractors). This most importantly includes the mechanic that increases the score gain from jumping multiple barrels at the same time, which definitely seems like it was added later. This is probably the most important mechanic in the game for high level play, and DK would never have been the same without it.
• The game uses an algorithm to construct stages based on highly compressed level data that don't use up more than a tiny fraction of the ROM space available. It's weird, then, that the game only contains four different stages, and I can only imagine that at one point during development it was intended to have many more, featuring different layouts, but probably fewer gimmicks (like the conveyor belts and rivets).

My own favourite part of the game is when the effecient pattern on the rivet stage doesn't work out, and you have to improvise. It's a dangerous situation, but it always requires clever tactics and split-second decisions, which is my favourite part of any action game. I don't personally enjoy the barrel stages much, because playing them effeciently involves completely deconstructing the game into a bunch of mechanics that makes the experience much too rigid for my taste.
But on the other hand, seeing expert players milk that stage for the absolute maximum worth of points is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game. There are very few arcade games from that era that allow for such a deep degree of skillful score play!

Meanwhile, the elevator stage is IMO pure garbage, and the game would have been better off without it. The elevators will kill new players, while just wasting the time of experienced ones, and memorizing spring patterns in a super obscure manner just to survive the higher levels isn't fun for anyone.

Also who the hell thought it was a good idea to add a scoring element (the blue barrels) that awards a completely random amount of points? As it stands, the best players in the world will still consistently get the highest scores. But with the level the game is being played at now, it feels super stupid that such a big part of any new high score is essentially down to blind luck.

I'm convinced.  @Reed RothchildPlease allocate a 10 for my score.  On further thinking, I do like DK better than Pac Man, and I'm pretty sure I gave that one a 10.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

I voted 9/10 for the original arcade version, not any of the far, far less worthy ports...

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

I gave it 6/10.  I don't think I've played a terrible version of it, but I'm not crazy about it either.  It's alright, and I fire it up from time to time, but it's kinda meh overall.

[YOURTURN | 1,256]

I gave it an 8/10 because I can recommend it. It's a fun time killer, and it tends to be a better waste of a quarter. Other than that it is best played for those retro moments.

[GPX | 1,369]

Classic early arcade memories for me. A game you can jump in (pun intended) anytime!

[asmikace | 68]

Solid 8. I consider it a pioneer in platforming and an arcade classic but it doesn’t engage me like some others