Donkey Kong has had a big identity Crisis ever since Nintendo sold rare to Microsoft back in the early 2000s and it had never recovered despite having a couple of pushes into making him into one of the big franchises that it used to be. Here is a breakdown of everything the famous gorilla whose spin-off lead to the now famous Super Mario seris that outshined him. Despite that Donkey Kong has found a way to remain relevant, and at a certain point even bigger than Mario himself. It’s not a history of every game ever released but more of a what they wanted to do with him.
How big was Donkey Kong during the 80s and 90s? To many they might just think of him as a Mario spin-off character because of Mario kart, Mario Party and the sports titles. But Donkey Kong is what put Nintendo on the map, he literally made Nintendo. People didn’t care about Mario, they cared about the ape. The game gave a mascot to Nintendo, and an arcade game that was able to dethrone the mega hit Pac-Man by being the next evolution of what a game could be in arcades. It dominated the end of the Golden Age of arcades which is why you see it in all those old arcade documentaries or movies.
The game of course got a sequel with Donkey Kong Jr. which was also a huge hit even if it didn’t outdo the original game. And of course it lead to a spin-off of jumpman to his own game with Mario Bros. which was also a hit in arcades that never got to the level of the original Donkey Kong or Donkey Kong Jr. While we did get Donkey Kong 3, it was not as well received and near the end of the era of arcades as well. But his impact had already been made. Donkey Kong got a cartoon, Donkey Kong Junior as well, you had a Donkey Kong cereal, and tons of other merchandising from plush toys, figures, coloring books, tooth brush, you name it. Clearly it was a priority to get the Arcade trilogy on the NES as soon as it came out.
It was the playable character who got the name recognition during the Nintendo Entertainment System era though as Mario became a household name bigger than Donkey Kong. While it did get a spin-off with Donkey Kong Jr. Math and the cancelled DK Music, he had been replaced. He still appeared in Captain N the game master but the torch had been passed to Mario. Now Donkey Kong had always been intended to be a playable character, but limitations didn’t allow this to happen which is why Dk Jr. was even created. And this happened finally with the Super Nintendo.
While Nintendo had been playing around with the idea of making Donkey Kong relevant as seen with the 1994 remake. Nintendo allowed Rare to use this one big dormant IP to Rare to see if they could do something and they succeeded. Unlike the other arcade icons DK was able to make a comeback in the 90s and even for a short while take some of the spotlight from Mario beating him at his own platforming game. With digitized graphics and gameplay Donkey Kong Country helped the SNES and was a household name again, its sequel was just as well recieved even if it didn’t include Donkey Kong. We got ports with the Donkey Kong Land series and while the third entry wasn’t as well received DK’s legacy had been revived.
By the time Donkey Kong 64 came out, the IP had already dried in relevancy, while appearing in Mario spin-offs and selling a lot, it didn’t have the impact it did before. Partly since the game didn’t do anything new and lacked the newnewss of say the Banjo Kazooie series. Diddy Kong Racing was a hit but the Kong influence in that game was minimal. After the Rareware sale to Microsoft the Donkey Kong projects which weren’t looking great got cancelled and it seemed Nintendo didn’t know what to do with the franchise. At first they let Rare do a couple of ports. And then they slowly started integrating the Donkey Kong universe cast to the Mario universe until they randomly stopped.
This is when they started to use Donkey Kong as an franchise to experiment with and it got plenty of experimental games from the King of Swing series to the DK Bongos. And this is to show that while the DK bongos might feel like Nintendo not caring about the IP, it really isn’t the case. They spent a lot of time making and marketing the bongos, the idea was perhaps not as amazing as they thought it’d be. But it got 3 games in the series, one cancelled game and one critically acclaimed game that eventually became the team that made 3D Mario games. Nintendo was trying but they just couldn’t get thigns right.
This is when they let Retro studios handle the franchise and it felt like a return after being gone since the 90s with Donkey Kong Country Returns. It was a hit but Nintendo did not capitalize on it, we did get a sequel that sadly didn’t do well because it came out on the Wii U, not to mention the name and theme didn’t help even if it’s regarded as the superior game. It did go on to sell a ton on the Switch. It was still the Mario vs Donkey Kong series that seemed to be his greatest success since the 90s.
We’re now seeing a different era of Donkey Kong beginning with a big push from Nintendo. He got a starring role in the Super Mario movie, his own theme park attraction, a redesign to match his new attitude, and finally a new 3D game to help launch the new console with Bananza. This doesn’t mean Donkey Kong will be able to reclaim its spot it had in the 80s or 90s but the franchise has never had a better opportunity and push as it has now.