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The game debuts Mario, who became Nintendo's mascot and one of the world's most recognizable characters. The phenomenal success of Donkey Kong positioned the company for market dominance from 1981 through the late 1990s. Universal City Studios filed a lawsuit alleging Donkey Kong violated its trademark of King Kong, ultimately failing. Miyamoto's characters were mass marketed in multitudes of products, including breakfast cereal, toys, and television cartoons. Other companies cloned the game and avoided royalties altogether. It was ported to the Game & Watch, selling 8 million units, while Nintendo licensed the game to Coleco, a developer of arcade conversions for home consoles, selling 6 million cartridges the game's various ports sold more than 15 million units worldwide. They broke new ground by using graphics as a means of characterization, including cutscenes to advance the game's plot and integrating multiple stages into the gameplay.Īlthough Nintendo's American staff was initially apprehensive, Donkey Kong succeeded commercially and critically in Japan and North America, where it became the highest-grossing arcade game of 19, respectively. Drawing from a wide range of inspirations including Popeye, Beauty and the Beast, and King Kong, Miyamoto developed the scenario and designed the game alongside chief engineer Gunpei Yokoi. Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo's president at the time, assigned the project to first-time video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto.
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It is the first game in the Donkey Kong series as well as Mario’s first appearance in a video game.ĭonkey Kong is the product of Nintendo's increasingly desperate efforts to develop a hit to rival Pac-Man (1980) and break into the North American market. Its gameplay involves maneuvering Mario across platforms to ascend a construction site and rescue Pauline from the giant gorilla named Donkey Kong, all while avoiding or jumping over obstacles. Really, this is a must have in anybody's collection.Donkey Kong is a 1981 arcade platform video game developed and published by Nintendo. That feeling of satisfaction that it caused in me is so hard to describe. And then, I cleared my first K-level - those crazy K-levels. until I got to a certain level and said "oook, I was wrong there too". Contrary to others, I was not impressed by the music.
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I started the game being a bit sceptical, but that did last just a few minutes. I found this jewel - which I bought just for my summer holidays out of Game Boy nostalgia. When I thought nothing could make me love 2D platformers anymore, when I thought I will never be able to like 2D platformers on TV, when all that happened. First time ever it happens to me with a platformer. This is how good I feel about this game, and why you should try it. It has been a very, very long while that I played a game and not only I said "I love this game" (which I say a lot) but I also said "and It has been a very, very long while that I played a game and not only I said "I love this game" (which I say a lot) but I also said "and objectively, what a freaking masterpiece this is".
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