Donkey Kong ‘94

Play it on: Switch Online

Goal: Get back in touch with my inner eight-year-old

When I was very young, I thought the original Donkey Kong arcade game was just about the best thing ever. Sure, at a certain point its four stages just looped endlessly, but its gameplay was so enjoyable and challenging and its characters so distinct and memorable that I was happy to pump quarter after quarter into it in pursuit of a high score. And hey, there was plenty of merchandise and even a Saturday morning cartoon to remind me of Mario and his simian nemesis when I wasn’t at the arcade. By the time 1994 rolled around, however, I’d mostly forgotten my youthful adoration of the game, having grown accustomed to much more sophisticated fare like Myst, Wing Commander, and Ultima Underworld. I didn’t think a throwback to the 1981 arcade game could knock my socks off, but it sure did.

See, in this Game Boy mega-update to the original, when you beat the fourth stage of the arcade game, your adventure is only just beginning, as Donkey Kong snatches Pauline again and leads you on an epic chase across dozens of clever puzzle-platforming stages. As I told Ethan when he asked me what makes the game so special, it feels like a glimpse into an alternate world of Mario platforming, because this isn’t quite the Mario we know from the SMB games. It’s one that feels as if he’s organically evolved from the stiff, hammer-wielding hero he was in the original Donkey Kong, though with his own new bag of tricks. It’s now been many, many years since I played this version of DK, long enough that I’ve mostly forgotten everything about it, so I’ll definitely be curling up with it on my Switch this weekend and giving it a chance to wow me all over again. — Carolyn Petit