Genre: Arcade
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

Donkey Kong's elevators, feisty flames, and rolling barrels made the leap to nearly every 80s era console on the market-- but nowhere does Miyamoto's debut look and play as arcade perfect as in this Famicom port. But as good as the legendary sloped floor stage looks, how it became sloped-- as well as why the damsel must be rescued again after each stage when she'd just been-- is lost since the home ports, this one included, lack the arcade version's intro and cut scenes.

Like all arcade games of its era, Donkey Kong had its trademark sound-- Mario's running and jumping sounds, the off-kilter spring board sound effect on the elevator stage... all of these sounds transition exceedingly well to the Famicom's rather robust-for-the-era sound chip. The title theme and stage transition songs are both catchy and memorable-- particularly the famous "bum da bum bum daaaa" line when a new game is started!

In 1981, Donkey Kong's mechanics were revolutionary, adding the ability to jump to the "climbing" genre, as well as adding crazily flying objects, and multiple boards. This Famicom port is nearly pixel perfect, with all of the player animation frames intact, and hit boxes that "feel" exactly like the arcade original.

As great of a port as this is-- and it will undoubtedly bring great satisfaction to fans of the original arcade release-- Donkey Kong and its three forever-repeating stages are a little dated by mid-80s standards, even when compared to later releases from Nintendo themselves. That said, the addictive qualities that made Donkey Kong such a quarter muncher in the arcades are just as present here, and its easy to lose an hour or two at a time searching for that new high score.