(First of all, Rabbit Rampage is a game for the SNES that stars Bugs Bunny. I understand it wasn't that mainstream, yet I Know four people who owned it.)
This post is going to gush awesome, because it's all about the DKC games for the SNES. Yes, another blog about the SNES. Why? Come on, if the SNES doesn't deserve kudos, then what does? Certainly not the Dreamcast....
I know I've said before my first gaming experience was the Donkey Kong SNES pack, complete with palm tree decorated box (which I still have, at my mother's house). Since it was my first, it holds a special place in my heart, which is only shared with Zelda64.
What can I say about DKC? It was a challenge and it pissed you off. A lot of games now just lack that horrible, headache-inducing, teeth-gritting, goat-slaying challenge that old systems and games had. Nowadays, if you decide that the boss is too tough, chances are you can just randomly switch difficulties and finish him off on an easier mode. I will confess now to playing some games on easy mode, but this is generally so I get a feel for it if it is something I am unfamiliar with.
Not Donkey Kong. My cousins and I logged some serious hours trying to beat certain levels in that game. We didn't even use the 99 lives cheat, because the closest thing we had to Internet then was WebTV (that should be its own blog someday). Months of childhood went to trying to beat such levels as "Platform Perils" and "Elevator Antics". However, as challenging as it was, the blood, sweat and tears brought me closer to my cousins than a lot of people are to their own siblings. Together, the 3 (sometimes 4) of us went through frustrations that only gamers can truly understand.
Who has ever thrown a controller in frustration? Yes, I saw everyone's hand go up in the air. It was always the game's fault, or the system's fault, or perhaps the controller was not "working properly". Mostly likely, in the case of DKC, your timing wasn't perfect to the second and you missed a vine, or you slid down a snowy hill because even in video game land, there is no traction in a blizzard.
Pets. You got to have animal allies in a few levels. This is an awesome concept, and for the most part it was useful and let you fly, ram into, or stab enemies by the dozens. As cool as the stabbing may sound after a rough day, the animal ally who was capable of it was not so.
Yes, Engarde, I am talking about your wide-eyed, swordfish buns.
Engarde was an awesome blue swordfish with a huge..sword...fish..nose. Perfect to skewer underwater kremlins with, right? Too bad it's an example of idea and practice not being on the same page. This ally was just a pain in the butt, because you could charge up his sword attack and definitely get some baddies in the process, but he was set up to maneuvering was difficult and the charge attack was near unstoppable, which meant if the baddies moved, the fish got flushed down the porcelain bowl.
DKC 1 for the SNES: 9/10 (Engarde, you bastard, you ruined it)
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. I was SO excited when I heard this was coming out! I loved playing as Diddy in the first one, and now he had a sidekick all his own, a girl monkey named Dixie! Actually, she didn't have a tail so I am thinking she was an ape...but I digress.
I actually picked up this game the day it came out. It was so cool, not only did I have two awesome characters, but the environment and theme for this game was PIRATES. The first level took place on a pirate ship! If I thought DKC had me hooked, I was wrong. DKC2 nabbed me and practically puppeteered*** my existence for a few months, at least.
Dixie had a helicopter spin, and Diddy did cartwheels! AWESOME.
Not only was this game entertaining, it was also even more frustrating than the first title. How is that possible? Bramble levels. Bramble levels with an animal ally who was not only hard to control, but who spit eggs or rocks at enemies, but had to be rightnexttothem to have any effect whatsoever.
You, Squawks. The Macaw-type bird who was somehow strong enough to carry two monkeys (possibly one ape) through a maze of brambles and still manage to be alive afterward. Don't get me wrong, I love birds, and Squawks even made one appearance in DKC1; however, the mechanics of this ally were horrible. Brambles all over meant you couldn't touch ANYTHING, yet you still had to maneuver not only through that environment, but also around enemies, some of which you couldn't kill with the macaw rock-egg attack.
This game had some of the most difficult levels I have experienced in my whole gaming career, and to this day they give me trouble.
DKC2: 9/10. I just can't give perfect 10s.
I don't even want to talk about DKC3, but for the sake of the blog I will. To me, DKC3 was a game I played with high hopes, and only because it was a DK title. More recent version of this would be playing FFX2 because it's an FF game, or FF13 for the same reason.
I got DKC3 and started playing. Dixie was back but...oh no, Diddy was gone! In his place was Dixie's lumbering idiot of a cousin, Kiddy. Who, although similar to Donkey in his weight and actions, was one of the most annoying video game characters I have encountered to date, save for Rinoa from FF8.
He's a big, fat ape baby in a onesie, and when he dies he cries this horrible cry. The only good thing he can do is break things and throw Dixie up in the air. Awful.
The other fault I have with this game is not the difficulty, because it was plenty horrible (Lightning Look-Out strike fear in the hearts of anyone?) and posed enough of a challenge to keep that part of me sated. However, the cutesy, almost bumbling, aura given off of this game was displeasing. Yes, DK games are meant to be silly and cartoon-like, but this one almost pushed the limits. I am not sure if it was because of the changing graphics of games (by this point, both the N64 and the PS1 had launched) but something about the game was no longer crisp. Crisp is the best word I can use to describe how I feel about it.
DKC3: 6/10. Challenging, but that didn't make up for the fail. Banana birds? Come on....
Thus concludes my DKC discussion.
***puppeteered: analogy that something controls your life so much, it is as if the thing has its imaginary (usually) hand up your ass and is keeping tabs on your every move.
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