How do I even introduce these games? What can I say about the Donkey Kong Country games that hasn't already been said? They're video game legends at this point, massively influential, with an absolute rollercoaster of a reputation. Not every classic retro game manages to fully land for me, but I guess the most I can say about the Donkey Kong Country games is that even as a kid, they worked for me incredibly well. Even as someone who played these games years after they came out, I still came away having become absolutely smitten with them.
The Donkey Kong Country games are definitely some of the most important games on the SNES. They put Rare on the map as a developer to watch, they helped maintain the SNES's popularity and pretty much won the console war between Sega and Nintendo, they showed the full capabiities of the SNES's soundchip, they spawned massive speedrunning communities, they brought Donkey Kong back into the limelight as a major character, and most importantly of all, they popularized the usage of pre-rendered visuals in video games. As a kid, this sheer influence was actually kinda lost on people? Around the late 2000s and early 2010s, these games had a pretty awful reputation, partially because of the weird spinoffs the series got at the time and partially because the usage of said prerendered graphics caused everyone to think the games as a whole aged badly (thankfully this era has since ended). I was born years after these games came out and this sentiment always baffled me, the Donkey Kong Country games hold up incredibly well, especially in terms of gameplay.
Donkey Kong Country is probably one of the best-controlling platformers on the SNES. The chunky pre-rendered sprites belie just how fluid and responsive Donkey Kong feels to control, you really need to play it for yourself. The characters feel fast to play as, there's a generous amount of coyote time in how you can roll off a ledge and still hop back up, and speedrunners know that there is a ton of very fun tech you can pull off. These games just feel fantastic to play, probably even better than the Retro Studios games. DKC is also known for its neat team-up mechanic where you can play as two Kongs at the same time, swap between them, and even use combo moves in the second and third games. DKC1 lets you play as Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong, and encourages you to use them in equal measures as Diddy is faster and better for platforming, and Donkey Kong is better in combat. DKC2 lets you play as the superior Dixie Kong who can fly, and you can toss your partner to reach higher or farther away platforms. Though since Diddy and Dixie are the same size, I felt less incentive to use both. DKC3 thankfully fixes this by replacing Diddy with the much heavier Kiddy Kong, and adds even more team-up moves like slamming Kiddy into the ground to break platforms underneath you. While the team-up system was fun from the start, each game manages to iterate on it even further.
The first Donkey Kong Country game is probably my most replayed entry in the series, despite it also being my personal least favorite of the three. Compared to its sequels, it's far less ambitious in terms of level design and scope, but the narrow focus still makes for a masterfully-crafted and satisfying platformer. The levels in DKC1 have a fantastic sense of flow to them, you don't stop moving for anything. Each stage introduces and slowly develops a central mechanic, and these mechanics can be pretty inventive and fun like with the stop/go barrels in Stop & Go Station, the fuel-powered track in Tanked Up Trouble, and the slippery ropes in Slipslide Ride. Like with Crash Bandicoot 1 which was also on this list, DKC1 is also the strongest game in the series on a thematic level, starting in the entirely natural jungle, shifting to more man-made structures like minecart paths and temples, before culminating in the mechanical factories of the Kremlings. You also get to fight most of the bosses in K Rool's banana hoards that he stole from Donkey Kong, it all helps the game feel like a real adventure. DKC1 is the most consistently strong game in the series, and is an easy choice for whenever I want a quick blast of pure platforming goodness.
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest ups the ante in a lot of ways, though. While the first game took place on the fairly natural and predictable DK Isle, this game takes place in the far weirder and more menacing Crocodile Isle, which leads to vastly more interesting settings than its predecessor. Levels take place on a pirate ship, inside a volcano, in a beehive, and high up in the sky in a maze of brambles. The minecart levels of the first game have even been replaced by the even more fun theme park levels where you ride on a haunted rollercoaster. The atmosphere in DKC2 is also great, with a darker-sounding score, a rougher color palette, and environments that look far more dangerous. Aiding in this oppressive vibe is the fact that Diddy's Kong Quest is far and away the hardest game of the trilogy, with a genuinely brutal second half. While I'd be lying if I said some of that difficulty didn't feel all that fair, DKC2's best challenges far surpass what the first game was capable of. The bosses are also an objective improvement with more interesting designs and more complex patterns, and the final boss against Captain K Rool is one of my favorites in all of gaming.
This may be a bit of a hot take, but Donkey Kong Country 3 is my favorite game of the trilogy, improving even more upon DKC2 in my opinion. It actually took me a while to get around to playing it because everyone said it wasn't very good, so when I did finally give it a shot, I was surprised by just how good it was. The level design is spot-on, with each stage introducing and fully squeezing all the potential out of a concept before tossing it out and moving onto the next one. The levels are certainly a bit more gimmicky than in the last two games, but so many of those gimmicks are a ton of fun and constantly keep me guessing. Barrel Drop Bounce has you hop up waterfalls on falling barrels, Krack Shot Kroc has you spend the level avoiding a crosshair, Ripsaw Rage has you rush up a tree that's currently being sliced by a giant saw, and the minecart equivalents are now these fun toboggan stages that aren't even constrained to a track anymore. The settings aren't quite as wild and atmospheric as the ones in 2, but I love the naturalistic Canadian setting of 3 regardless. The bosses are also even better in my opinion, with a nice balance of inventive and unconventional fights like Squirt and Bleak, and fantastic traditional fights like Arich and KAOS. I also think DKC3 has the best amount of animal friends. They feel quite underused in the first game, while in DKC2, I felt they showed up way too much. DKC3 manages to give all the animal friends the perfect amount of playtime without overshadowing the core Kong platforming.
The Donkey Kong Country games are also chock-full of collectibles to find, and you can really gauge Rare's slow rise towards becoming the defacto king of collectathons. The first game just has a bunch of bonus rooms to do, and four Kong Letters to find in each stage. DKC2 introduces hidden DK Coins, and a very fun secret world that you can unlock by finding every bonus barrel, complete with a secret final boss. But DKC3 goes even further by adding in an entire explorable hub with its own sidequests and collectibles in the form of the Banana Birds. I adore DKC3's hub, it's so fun to explore because of how many hidden caves there are everywhere, and doing sidequests for the bears you meet along the way is quick and enjoyable. All three of these games also include multiplayer, some minigames on the map screen, and a bunch of charming cheat codes, with DKC3 winning on this front again with its very silly christmas cheat:
Talking about the visuals of the Donkey Kong Country trilogy is actually kind of tricky, especially if you're like me and wasn't there when the game came out. Prerendered visuals like these are pretty out of fashion nowadays, and while the DKC games were ground-breaking and regarded as beautiful-looking at the time, most people tend to think they haven't really aged that well. It also doesn't help that they were very much intended to be viewed on a CRT. But personally, as someone who's seen games that tried and failed way harder to implement prerendered visuals (looking at you, Sonic Blast), I think the Donkey Kong Country games hold up incredibly well. The characters are expressive, the backgrounds are stunning, and the composition is so incredibly strong that I'm never unconvinced that the Kongs and enemies don't exist within this world. And to top it all off, these games simply look charming, Rare's distinct offbeat visual style and sense of humor is in full-display here. Although, one aspect of these games' presentation that has undebatably held up perfectly is the music. All three Donkey Kong Country games have phenomenal soundtracks, perfectly balancing ambient atmosphere with catchy tunes. David Wise obviously deserves a lot of credit for how much he was able to push the SNES's sound capabilities and his seminal Phil Collins-inspired soundtrack for DKC2, but I think Eveline Novakovic deserves just as much credit for her work on the first and third games. DKC3's soundtrack stands up right alongside the second's for me, and I love its moodier, bassier style. There are so many highlights to even list, but particularly special mention goes to:
Fear Factory, Aquatic Ambiance, and Forest Frenzy from the first game
Stickerbush Symphony, Hot Head Bop, Crocodile Cacophony, and Bayou Boogie from the second game
And Water World, Rockface Rumble, Cascade Capers, and Nuts & Bolts from the third game
So yeah, the Donkey Kong Country trilogy is still great, dare I say amazing even. They still control incredibly well, the level design is still on-point, the collectathon elements are still satisfying, the music is still phenomenal, and the usage of prerendered graphics give the trilogy a vibe all its own. Their short dense lengths make for games that I find incredibly easy to replay, and the way each game iterates further on the last makes for a near perfect platforming trilogy with a great start and a phenomenal end. And to think these aren't even my favorite games in the series, though that'll be for a lot later.
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