Donkey Kong still to this day has incredibly iconic pixel art visuals and chiptune sound design (though both differ slightly from the Nintendo Entertainment System port of the game that Nintendo has usually favored when porting the game to other platforms), and the level design here is superb as well. Its claim to fame isn’t just being the first, though. While this was not technically the first Platformer (it is preceded by the games Space Panic and Crazy Climber), it was the first one to include jumping as a primary game mechanic, making this game the grandfather of pretty much every Platformer ever made. The original Donkey Kong is not just the first appearance of the titular ape, but also the first appearance of Mario, amusingly named Jumpman in the Japanese release of the game and only getting the name Mario upon the game’s release in America. Donkey Kong was not Nintendo’s first videogame, but without Donkey Kong, there would very likely be no Nintendo today (or at the very least, Nintendo may well have shuttered its videogame development and stuck with the simple toys and playing cards they were known for making prior to their work on videogames). It bears mention that this game’s success is something that Nintendo owes its entire videogame empire to. However, for the sake of being comprehensive, this game is a classic of the Platforming genre, where the titular ape has kidnapped a helpless damsel named Pauline, who must be rescued by the plucky carpenter (yes, carpenter) Mario, who must climb various structures to reach Pauline at the top while avoiding hazards along the way. This release of the game, a part of Hamster Corporation’s Arcade Archives series, is one of only a select few home console ports of the game to be truly accurate to the arcade game.įor those who have somehow missed the original Donkey Kong, that is one impressive rock you’ve been hiding under. However, most later ports featured a changed version of the game, with slightly-altered visuals and sound, and even missing one of the game’s four stages, the cement factory stage.

The classic Arcade-style Platformer, Donkey Kong, was originally released in Arcades in 1981, and would later go on to be ported to almost every major Nintendo platform in some form or another.

Players: 1-2 (Local Alternating), Online Leaderboards

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