More Thoughts From Me #231: Donkey Kong Country Nostalgia

Donkey Kong Country is on the Nintendo Switch Online Service now (via the SNES app) and so I thought it was finally time to talk about the game. What’s it like playing DKC again? What’s my best memory of the game?

When I was much younger, during the SNES era, I was a huge fan of Donkey Kong Country. The first game in the series. I never did play the second or third one back then (still haven’t played the third one). DKC was one of the best platformers on the Super Nintendo system.

I wasn’t great at the game but I must thought I was pretty good because when Blockbuster Video (ask your parents) and Nintendo decided to hold a contest for it, I decided to enter.

In the contest, which I think was a lead up to the Nintendo World Championship, players had to beat a section of DKC in a certain amount of time. I remember practicing for this and thinking I was doing ok.

The big day came and I went to Blockbuster Video (wow, what a difference) and got in front of the screen. I thought I was going to do okay…

And of course I didn’t. I completely failed. I did not even rate in the contest.

Oh well. I shrugged it off. It was disappointing but it was still fun to play Donkey Kong Country and try my hand at the contest.

I remained a fan of the game. And so recently when Nintendo announced that the game was coming to the Nintendo Switch Online service, I was pretty excited. I could play Donkey Kong Country again!

When I played it though, well, yeah the graphics looked good and the gameplay is good…but the nostalgia wasn’t really hitting me. The game seemed…fine. Its not a bad game at all but…

I’ve played better platformers than Donkey Kong Country. I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence. DKC hasn’t aged badly but it has aged. Its not a Super Mario Bros basic platformer but compared to a lot of more modern platformers, its a bit basic.

Donkey Kong Country is still an important game to me. I think platformers would be really different without it. Will I play the game more? Maybe. But I have a lot of games to play right now, so I don’t think it’ll be as high a priority as I thought it would be.

You just never know what your reaction will be when you go back and revisit a game. Generally my reaction to games I loved in the past (Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario World, A Link to the Past, etc) has been great. I still love them.

I think its odd that I reacted to Donkey Kong Country the way I did. Who knows? Maybe I’m not in the right mindset for the game now. Maybe I’ll go back in a little bit more and play it again and think “What was I thinking?! This game is still amazing”. Right now though…its fine. Its a fine game.

What do you think of Donkey Kong Country? Are you playing it again (or for the first time)?

Next week: Bloodstained Curse of the Moon 2 is out and I’m going to talk about why I like this game and the first one so much.

More Thoughts From Me is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed here are mine and mine alone. Now we need Earthbound on the Nintendo Switch Online Service.