Genre: Arcade
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

Where Donkey Kong had the basic, Commodore 64-like look, Donkey Kong Jr amps things up a bit with lush jungles and creepy electrode-filled labs. Like Nintendo's Famicom adaptation of Donkey Kong, this port looks phenomenally like the arcade original, although-- once again-- intros and cut scenes are all absent.

Mario's squeaky shoes from the first title are replaced with expressive gorilla galloping and vine crawling sounds, which are remarkably emotive. As is the case with the graphics, Jr outdoes his dad in the audio department, with superior effects, and some catchy stage progression music.

Donkey Kong Jr utilizes a brilliant vine mechanic, whereby the player shifts between adjacent vines in stages using left and right on the dpad. Holding on to two vines at a time increases ascent speed, at the cost of descent speed. The game's four stages are every bit as cleverly designed as those from the first game, although the difficulty is ramped down a bit from its brutal predecessor.

Right from its charming premise, through its sound effects and vivid visuals, to its stage designs, Donkey Kong Jr is every bit the game that its predecessor was-- and perhaps even more. Certainly, the addictive factor returns in full force. The Famicom may have started slowly in Japan-- but that certainly wasn't due to a lack in quality of these early arcade ports!