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Gameboy (3DS Virtual Console)
// May 29 2024, 6 min read, #gaming #review
I talked about the mechanics of this game quite a bit in my previous post[1] about game design inspiration, so here I'll talk more about my history with this game.
[1] Previous Post: Lack of Inspiration
I got my Gameboy Color from my mom's parents, and a christmas or two later I asked my dad's parents for Donkey Kong Land on the Gameboy Color. Instead my gramma gifted me Donkey Kong (1994) for the original Gameboy. I was initially quite disappointed, as I definitely wanted the Donkey Kong Country inspired game. But I gave it a whirl anyway and I was enthralled.
This game was very hard for me as a young kid. I remember once reading the back of the box in the car while my dad was driving (why did I have the box in the car then, it was well past Christmas?). It touted its battery backed save storage that would last ten years. That felt like forever to me as a little girl, but I also didn't think I could ever complete the game before it lost it's charge. I cried about it!
Funny enough, thirty years later it still had its charge. My save was still there and my goal this time around was to complete the game before it lost power.
I did, though, complete the game way back when. In fact I believe it just might be the first video game I ever completed! I was so fucking proud of myself and I'm sure I cried once again. Donkey Kong (1994) is huge, it's got like a hundred levels and they get quite difficult as you progress. It's such a fantastic puzzle-platformer and really kickstarted my love for puzzle games.
There was a release on the 3DS Virtual Console, which I apparently did download and complete. I truly don't remember that, but I was searching through my broken 3DS' memory card the other day and not only found the game data but screenshots I had taken of completing it, and my backlog list has it marked completed too. Okay I guess. So I'm actually working on my third completion attempt?, second on the original cartridge.
Unfortunately, when I went to boot it up on January 23rd 2024.. my save was gone. The battery wiped sometime in the past year 😭 I wasn't super far into this most recent playthrough, only into world 2 maybe, but it's still frustrating and a little sad to lose my original childhood completed save. My wife is ordering new CR1616 tab batteries to replace it though.
I could emulate it on my RG353V, but I never actually experienced Donkey Kong (1994) with the Super Gameboy enhancements: unique and expanded color pallets per stage, stereo sound and music, and actual voice samples! The onscreen border around the gameplay, which looks like a Donkey Kong arcade machine, is cute, but not really a big draw for me. The emulators on my RG353V offer the SGB color pallets and even the screen border, but not the voice samples. I really want the whole experience. I adore this game and I want to play it in the most functional and ideal way. To relive a bit of my childhood, but better.
Also, I have no idea why my Gameboy Color couldn't feasibly do the same SGB enhancements? It just doesn't, SGB enhanced games don't present those enhancements on the GBC, which was extremely capable of doing them. Probably Nintendo not wanting to cannibalize the SGB market, but I think it would have survived just fine since the SGB output to a bigger screen that actually lit up.
I will definitely be emulating it on my RG353V for later replays though, since that's just much more convenient than on the actual hardware 😉
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So I've finally got a new save battery installed and on March 12th, 2024 I completed the game for a third time (second? I honestly have no memory of the aforementioned 3DS completion despite documentation). Wow! This game is still as wonderful as I remember it being. World 8 is bananas hard. Unexpectedly hard, as the previous worlds were smooth ramp ups, and then World 8 is just a sheer cliff. World 9 is a lot easier though, as a nice respite. And for a bit of extra fun/relief, world 9-5 is just 0-1 (the famous first level from the arcade and the first level of this game). The music suddenly really goes hard in the 9th world and it's amazing. The final Donkey Kong fight is hard, fun, and so rewarding when you finally get it.
So what about the Super Gameboy enhancements, was it worth it? The color palettes were used to most effect with several different bright and vibrant colors used in cutscenes, the level select screens, and the pause screen. Those screens are just so gorgeous like this! Each level has its own palette, but they're limited to palettes of only four colors sadly, though the score and timer overlay at the top of the screen retains its unique colors no matter what. I imagine there was some kind of processing limitation to using more colors in active gameplay areas. The Gameboy Color wasn't out yet, and the SGB is basically just a Gameboy that takes small advantage of the SNES. Overall the palettes added variety which was nice!, but it wasn't game changing. I was honestly hoping for something more impressive, but it was more than I got as a kid on the Gameboy Color (which did have user selectable color palettes for monochrome games, but they were only selectable at boot time). The only voice sample is Paulina's scream, "HELP! HELP!" It's such a silly little addition, but it's fun :) I honestly did not gain a whole lot playing it this way specifically, but I really enjoyed playing it on a big screen for the first time.
I simply cannot recommend this game enough. I just adore this game and I'm so happy to see that it was still just as challenging and fun nigh on thirty years later. It is absolutely one of my most treasured games, and I'm so glad I still have the cartridge. I've somehow lost a lot of my games over the years, I've even lost one whole PlayStation 2 (I still have one though, with Network Adapter and official hard drive addon)?? I'm not sure what's happened. My mother and sisters either couldn't find everything when I last asked, or my mother chose to sell some stuff off without consulting us first (dick move, and not without precedent as she admitted to selling Animal Crossing for Gamecube because she was addicted to it. Instead of, I don't know, GIVING THE GAME BACK TO ONE OF HER DAUGHTERS???). If anything ended up with my father, it's Gone gone. That man is deep in the religion shithole and full of the requisite bigotry that comes with that and I will never be talking to him again. He could be hanging on to them still, he could have sold them, passed them on to his new wife's kid, or trashed them. I will never know. And this burns me up so bad.
But at least I still have my Donkey Kong (1994) cartridge for the Gameboy.
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