Donkey Kong Country
Best SNES Franchises
A spin-off of the Donkey Kong series (which also celebrated a special anniversary this year), 1994’s Donkey Kong Country was developed by Rareware, the folks previously behind games like Battletoads, Jetpac, and Sabre Wulf.
Rareware used pre-rendered graphics to great effect, making the characters of Donkey Kong Country look 3D, as well as providing gorgeous, jaw-dropping 2D environments to run, jump, and roll around in. David Wise’s glorious soundtrack accentuated the platforming action splendidly, ambient during some levels and being absolute bops during others.
Fortunately, there was more to the game than just its attractive visual style, as the gameplay was downright excellently executed as well. Playing as both Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong felt great with the former feeling like he had a proper amount of heft to him while Diddy felt light on his feet. This would affect gameplay as well. DK could easily take out larger Kremlings while Diddy Kong would simply bounce off of them, unable to defeat them.
Donkey Kong Country would see two more releases on the Super Nintendo, one new release each holiday season, impressively enough. More impressive, however, was how each game expanded on the formula beautifully, adding new playable Kong characters, wonderfully designed levels, and new features like DK Coins to discover, an optional, unlockable Lost World, and more.
Since Microsoft’s purchase of Rare, the more than capable Retro Studios of Metroid Prime fame (including the upcoming Metroid Prime 4) has crafted two more games in the series, picking up where Rare left off: Donkey Kong Country Returns on Wii and 3DS, and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze for Wii U and Switch. While there’s been another extended absence of a new DKC game since, it’s lovely that the quality of the series between developers did not diminish.
