Donkey Kong (universe): Difference between revisions

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Donkey Kong'' (universe)}}

|developer        = [[Nintendo]]<br>[[Rare]]<br>[[Namco]]<br>[[Paon]]<br>[[Retro Studios]]<br>Monster Games<br>Hamster Corporation

|publisher        = Nintendo<br>Rare (''Diddy Kong Racing'')<br>Hamster Corporation

|genres            = Action adventure<br>Platformer<br>Puzzle<br>Racing<br>Music

|latestinstallment = ''[[mariowiki:Donkey Kong 3|Arcade Archives Donkey Kong 3]]'' (2019)

The character [[Donkey Kong]] was introduced to the fledgling video game industry at the same time as [[Mario]], in the hugely successful 1981 [[mariowiki:Donkey Kong (game)|coin-op arcade game named after him]] that defined Nintendo's future business as a video game company. The game was named after the ''de facto'' villain, a gorilla (which was named after the classic 1933 movie monster ''King Kong''), instead of the player-character Mario (or "Jumpman", as he was named at the time), because designer Shigeru Miyamoto felt Donkey Kong had to be the strongest character in the love triangle displayed on-screen. The game used then-innovative techniques to tell the on-screen story of how the stubborn pet gorilla of "Jumpman" the carpenter steals away his girlfriend, [[Pauline]], and it is up to the hero to save the damsel in distress. The success of the game prompted Nintendo to release two arcade follow-ups. The first, ''{{iw|mariowiki|Donkey Kong Jr.|game}}'' in 1982, involves the gorilla's son {{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong Jr.}} embarking on a similar quest to free his father from the cage that Mario (in his only truly "villainous" appearance) keeps him trapped inside. ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong 3}}'', in 1983, sees Donkey Kong invade a greenhouse to eat vegetables and stir up flower-devouring insects in the process; a one-time protagonist, {{s|mariowiki|Stanley the Bugman}}, must shoot bug spray both at the bugs and Donkey Kong to protect the flowers and vegetables.

While Donkey Kong rivals Mario relatively closely as one of Nintendo's most popular characters today, what was essentially an eleven-year hiatus awaited the character following the release of ''Donkey Kong 3'', as he never made a new "official" appearance in a release during that time period that was not some kind of port or compilation of the original games. Evidently, this was due to Nintendo's newfound focus on nurturing [[Mario (universe)|Mario's new NES-based franchise]] that exploded onto the public spotlight as a result of the world-famous, industry-defining ''{{s|mariowiki|Super Mario Bros.}}'' for the NES in 1985. Given that the seminal side-scrolling platformer had singlehandedly defined Nintendo's future styles and practices as a video game company more strongly and specifically than ''Donkey Kong'' had four years earlier, Donkey Kong was, for a time, treated as a relic of Nintendo's past; in fact, ''{{s|mariowiki|Super Mario Kart}}'', a 1992 release for the SNES, features Donkey Kong Jr. as one of the eight playable racers rather than his father. The hiatus was only partially alleviated in June 1994 when a Game Boy game titled ''{{iw|mariowiki|Donkey Kong|Game Boy}}'' was released; while technically a remake of the original coin-op, it retooled the gameplay and provided an enormous increase in stage count (from 4 to 100), making it a standalone title that is considered to be one of the best Game Boy games of all time.

The hiatus for Donkey Kong was definitively ended later that year, however, thanks to the efforts of the British game developer [[Rare Ltd.|Rareware]]. Rare sought out a partnership with Nintendo as a second-party developer and appealed to them with their work at Silicon Graphics using pre-rendered three-dimensional sprites. Nintendo acquired 25% of Rare's stake (which gradually grew to 49%) and commissioned Rare to develop a new game centered on Donkey Kong using this technology. Rare adopted the trade name "Rareware" and released ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong Country}}'' for the SNES in November 1994. This game was a bold reinvention of the ''Donkey Kong'' universe; a 2D sidescrolling platformer that received widespread critical acclaim and became the third best-selling SNES game in the system's lifespan. It was also groundbreaking for being one of the first games on a home console to utilize pre-rendered 3D graphics, in addition to a widely praised score by British composer David Wise. Rare debuted the familiar modern-day incarnation of Donkey Kong with this game, which included his trademark red necktie (which was actually introduced in the aforementioned Game Boy ''Donkey Kong''), and introduced a full supporting cast of expressive side-characters, animal buddies, and enemies all created by Rare during their affiliation with Nintendo. The most well-known of these new side characters is [[Diddy Kong]], Donkey Kong's "little buddy" and partner. Originally intended to be a redesign of Donkey Kong Jr., the character came into his own after Nintendo expressed concern with how drastically different his design had become. Together, the Kongs must traverse their new homeland, Donkey Kong Island, and retrieve their stolen banana board from the clutches of the Kremling leader, [[King K. Rool]].

Some retrospectives express doubt on whether the success of ''Donkey Kong Country'' necessarily reflected the actual quality of the gameplay itself, but regardless Rare developed and released two sequels on the SNES: ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest}}'', starring Diddy Kong and his newly introduced girlfriend {{s|mariowiki|Dixie Kong}}, and ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!}}'', starring Dixie Kong and a gorilla toddler named {{s|mariowiki|Kiddy Kong}}, both of which were reviewed as improvements. All three ''Country'' games were each accompanied by their respective Game Boy counterparts, the ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong Land}}'' games. This was a subseries of interquels translating the pre-rendered visuals of the SNES titles onto the original Game Boy. Rare then created the highly acclaimed and successful ''{{s|mariowiki|Diddy Kong Racing}}'' for the Nintendo 64 in 1997; the game was retooled from an N64 reboot of the ''R.C. Pro-Am'' series and featured a host of original characters starring alongside Diddy Kong, some of which would later headline their own video game series. Following this, Rare released the first fully-3D ''Donkey Kong'' title, ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong 64}}'' in 1999, a game cut from a similar cloth to their previous work on {{uv|Banjo-Kazooie}}. Meanwhile, Donkey Kong's thoroughly established resurgence in the Nintendo lineup guaranteed he would forever appear in either starring or side-roles not only in future ''Mario'' spinoffs, but in the Nintendo crossover series ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]''. However, in September of 2002, [[Microsoft]] bought out 100% of Rare's shares and left the ''Donkey Kong Country'' brand and characters under Nintendo's full ownership.

Donkey Kong remained a regular in ''Mario'' games as always, and his contributions have included the full ''{{iw|mariowiki|Mario vs. Donkey Kong|series}}'' series of puzzle games that pay homage to the original ''Donkey Kong'' coin-op's scenario. The characters and setting originally introduced by Rare and associated with the ''Donkey Kong Country'' brand have also made fairly regular appearances in games published by Nintendo, but are largely developed by a variety of second-party developers: Paon developed the Game Boy Advance puzzle game ''{{s|mariowiki|DK: King of Swing}}'' and its Nintendo DS sequel ''{{s|mariowiki|DK: Jungle Climber}}'', as well as the Wii racer ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong Barrel Blast}}''; [[Namco]], meanwhile, developed all three titles in the ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Konga}}'' series of GameCube rhythm games that use a unique bongo drum-themed peripheral for input (a peripheral also used as a controller for the Nintendo-developed GameCube platformer ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong Jungle Beat}}'').

Throughout the 2000's, the mainline ''Donkey Kong'' series has been on hiatus not unlike the buildup to Rare's SNES trilogy. This second hiatus for the ''Donkey Kong'' franchise came to an end when Texas developer [[Retro Studios]] was approached by Nintendo and Miyamoto to produce a new ''Donkey Kong Country'' game. Having concluded their saga with the original ''[[Metroid (universe)|Metroid Prime]]'' trilogy, along with several core staff leaving the studio to pursue other interests, Retro jumped at the chance to revitalize another dormant Nintendo franchise. The result of these efforts was ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong Country Returns}}'', a return to the sidescrolling gameplay style of the ''Donkey Kong Country'' games released for the Wii in 2010. Critical reception to this game was incredibly positive, with points of praise going to the level design and challenge while criticism was aimed at the sometimes disruptive motion controls. A port of ''Returns'' by Monster Games was released for the Nintendo 3DS in 2013 featuring an easier difficulty option and additional exclusive levels. Following the Wii version's success, Retro Studios felt there were many opportunities to seize on with a sequel on more powerful hardware. As such a direct sequel, ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze}}'', was released for the Wii U in February 2014. Reception was far stronger to ''Tropical Freeze'' than it was to ''Returns'', with points of praise going to the more ingenious level design, impressive visuals, and musical score by original series composer David Wise. The game was re-released for the Nintendo Switch in May 2018 with a new easier difficulty and featuring Funky Kong as a playable character. Since the Switch port's release, Retro Studios has had no plans for a third ''Donkey Kong Country'' game as the team has since shifted focus to developing ''Metroid Prime 4'' for the Nintendo Switch.

*'''{{SSBMusicLink|26: Hammer|26: Hammer}}''': Sped-up 8-bit music that occurs when a player picks up the Hammer, in homage to the music that would occur when Mario would pick up a hammer in the original ''Donkey Kong''.

*[[File:KongoJungleIconSSBM.png|right|link=Kongo Jungle (SSBM)]] '''DK Island: {{SSBM|Kongo Jungle}}''' ([[Starter stage|Starter]]): This stage does not represent any specific location in any ''Donkey Kong'' game, but is instead a general representation of one type of location in Donkey Kong's home jungle environment, which is on multiple wooden platforms built into the edge of a waterfall near a cabin. One type of Kremling enemy, a [[Klap Trap]], sometimes flows down the river and snaps at players as it falls off the waterfall. Like in ''Smash 64'', there is a Barrel Canon underneath the stage moving from side to side.{{clear}}

*[[File:JungleJapesIconSSBM.png|right|link=Jungle Japes]]'''DK Island: [[Jungle Japes]]''' ([[Starter stage|Starter]]): This stage, though sharing the name of the first level of ''Donkey Kong 64'', more closely resembles the jungle level tileset from ''Donkey Kong Country''. It is set on multiple wooden platforms built on top of a fast-flowing jungle river, a river that makes it hard for characters to recover from if they fall in. The silhouette of [[Cranky Kong]] is seen passing by the window of a cabin in the background. Klap Traps that swim and jump out of the water to bite at players amount to very powerful stage hazards.{{clear}}

*[[File:PastKongoJungleIconSSBM.png|right|link=Kongo Jungle (SSB)]]'''[[Past Stages]]: {{SSB|Kongo Jungle}}''' ([[Unlockable stage|Unlockable]]): The original Congo Jungle stage from ''Super Smash Bros.'' is one of three such stages to have been ported to ''Melee''; besides a correctly spelled name, it is seemingly an exact replica of the stage, with a slightly larger size and a slight delay to the launch process of the Barrel Cannon that is underneath the stage.{{clr}}

*'''{{SSBMMusicLink|Hammer}}''': Sped-up 8-bit music that occurs when a player picks up the Hammer, in homage to the tune that would play when Mario would pick up a hammer in the original ''Donkey Kong''. It is Song 76 in the Sound Test.

''[[Super Smash Bros. Brawl]]'' debuts the second playable character from the ''Donkey Kong'' series; these two characters occupy a column on the game's roster shared with the stars of the other two ''Mario'' subseries, {{SSBB|Yoshi}} and {{SSBB|Wario}}, which neighbors the column devoted to the core ''Mario'' series itself. {{SSBB|Diddy Kong}} and [[Dixie Kong]] were originally planned to be a tag-team fighter that the player can swap between the two during battle like in ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest}}''. However, this idea was scrapped due to technical issues and Diddy Kong was left as a solo fighter.<ref>http://www.geocities.jp/bgrtype/gsl/words2/dairantosmabrax/smashbrothersx.html</ref>

*[[File:DonkeyKongIcon(SSBB).png|50px|right|link=Donkey Kong (SSBB)]]'''{{SSBB|Donkey Kong}}''' ([[Starter character|Starter]]): Donkey Kong returns from his ''Super Smash Bros. Melee'' appearance with a more natural look to his fur, but with no particular changes to his attack and movement patterns otherwise. His new [[Final Smash]] is the [[Konga Beat]], in which he enters an invincible, immobile mode and slaps on bongo drums to the beat of the DK Island Swing theme from ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong Country}}'' - for each successfully timed button input by the player during this process, DK emits a large damaging shockwave. These drums are a replica of the bongo drum controller peripheral used for the GameCube games ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong Jungle Beat}}'' and ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Konga}}'', which in turn was based on an "ultimate musical attack" DK could use in ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong 64}}''. As a fighter, Donkey Kong has regained a good degree of power and force in his attacks, has better mobility and as a result, he is now a mid-tier character; despite this, the different ''Brawl'' environment and his ever-present weaknesses against projectile-using characters in high-level play causes him to remain in the mid tier in the competitive community.{{clr}}

*[[File:DiddyKongIcon(SSB4-U).png|50px|right|link=Diddy Kong (SSB4)]]'''{{SSB4|Diddy Kong}}''' ([[Starter character|Starter]]): He's back again and this time he was revealed to promote the Western release of ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze}}''. His proportions have been tweaked to match his recent appearances, like his head being smaller. Due to his arms and legs stretching while performing attacks, several of his moves involving his limbs now have longer range in general. A significant nerf is that he can now only have one [[Banana Peel]] out at a time. Much like Donkey Kong, his general expressiveness has been exaggerated.{{clr}}

*'''{{b|Hammer|item}}''' (battering): A large mallet from the original ''{{iw|mariowiki|Donkey Kong|game}}''. The player who picks it up enters a state of constantly swinging it, inflicting damage to opponents who make contact with its head. However, the '''Hammerhead''' occassionally falls off, leaving the user vulnerable as they swing a useless stick. Other players can pick up the Hammerhead and throw it as a powerful projectile. The length of the attack is much shorter than it was in ''Melee'' and ''Brawl''.

*02. [[File:DonkeyKongIcon(SSBU).png|50px|right|link=Donkey Kong (SSBU)]]'''{{SSBU|Donkey Kong}}''' ([[Starter character|Starter]]): The leader of the bunch returns once again as a starter character, this time with a  new Final Smash called [[Jungle Rush]].{{clr}}

*36. [[File:DiddyKongIcon(SSBU).png|50px|right|link=Diddy Kong (SSBU)]]'''{{SSBU|Diddy Kong}}''' ([[Unlockable character|Unlockable]]): Diddy Kong returns for the third time, this time as an unlockable veteran. During the transition, Diddy Kong received a new Final Smash called [[Hyper Rocketbarrel]].{{clr}}

*'''[[Hammer (item)]]''': A large mallet from the original ''Donkey Kong'' game, functioning largely the same as it did in previous games. Aesthetically, the music that plays when a character picks up hammer now sounds closer to the original arcade game's corresponding theme, and if a hit connects, the corresponding sound and visual effects are shown.

*{{GameIcon|SSB4-WiiU}}'''{{SSBUMusicLink|Donkey Kong|Donkey Kong Country Returns (Vocals)}}''': A vocal arrangement of the tile theme from ''Donkey Kong Country Returns''. Returns from ''Smash for Wii U''.

*{{GameIcon|SSB4-WiiU}}'''{{SSBUMusicLink|Donkey Kong|Jungle Level Jazz Style (For 3DS / Wii U)}}''': A Jazz-influenced arrangement of "DK Island Swing" from ''Donkey Kong Country''. Returns from ''Smash for Wii U''.

*{{GameIcon|SSB4-WiiU}}'''{{SSBUMusicLink|Donkey Kong|Jungle Level Tribal Style (For 3DS / Wii U)}}''': An arrangement of "DK Island Swing" led by a shakuhachi flute. Returns from ''Smash for Wii U''.

The ''Donkey Kong'' universe has media represented throughout the ''Super Smash Bros.'' series with a total of 21 games. The latest game represented in this universe is ''{{s|mariowiki|Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze}}'', released on February 13, 2014.

*The ''Donkey Kong'' universe is one of three universes that currently have multiple playable characters without any semi-clones or Echo Fighters, the others being {{uv|Kirby}} and {{uv|Final Fantasy}}<!--Do not add Xenoblade until we know more information about Pyra and Mythra-->.

*The ''Donkey Kong'' universe is the only series to have all of its characters not have traditional voice actors, but instead realistic animal noises for their voices.