020 · DONKEY KONG 3
Donkey Kong 3 marks a departure from just about everything that made the classic Donkey Kong gameplay worth the quarter. For links to EVERYTHING we talked about here, check out the shownotes on www.NEStalgiacast.com
Donkey Kong 3 closes the trilogy, and it is not a platformer. You are Stanley, a bug man defending a greenhouse full of flowers from insects and a Donkey Kong who has moved in. Mike and Sean spent most of the episode asking how a game this strange got made and what it should have been.
What it gets right
- It tries something. You shoot upward from the bottom of the screen like Space Invaders, so nobody can call it a rerun. Sean said he still liked that Nintendo wanted to try new things.
- A funny way to end a stage. Shoot Donkey Kong and he inches up his vines until his head goes through the beehives. We never worked out why that doesn't make him angrier, or why he doesn't climb down and kick Stanley.
Where it falls apart
- Far too much going on. Mike's whole experience was anxiety. You spray Donkey Kong to push him up, but look away and he resets, and stay on him too long and the insects grab the flowers. You also shoot the bugs, dodge their projectiles, and watch for worms that block your shot. It felt like juggling with too many items, and we called it a mess.
- It doesn't feel like Nintendo. Mike's reason for skipping it was not dislike but absence: none of the love in Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. is here. Stanley is a random addition, and the "3" looks like a way to sell a million copies.
- No story behind it. Miyamoto is listed, but we couldn't tell how involved he was, and documentation is almost nonexistent. We took that to mean Nintendo doesn't want to talk about it.
- Not the finale we wanted. Mike wanted the full circle: Mario, then a gorilla, then finally playing Donkey Kong on a rampage for points. We agreed that would have been better, and that the game we got deserved its own series.
Beyond the game
We watched a clip of Donkey Kong 3: The Great Counter Attack, a Japan-only arcade follow-up that Nintendo licensed out. It goes all in on the shooter idea, with Galaga-style formations, a wasteland and Donkey Kong holding balloons. Sean said it felt more complete, and like watching a franchise lose its way in fast forward. We also talked about how Donkey Kong would be remembered like Pac-Man if the 1994 Game Boy game never happened, and noted Stanley appears in a Saturday Supercade cartoon, "Greenhouse Gorilla."
The bottom line
Skip it. Joe's written take was that it is more action-based but short and shallow, a phone game for waiting on a train that gets old fast, and not essential. Mike said the same. Sean never said the word, but called it too big a departure and a cop-out. Nobody put it on the Essential Games List. If a friend recommends Donkey Kong 3 over Breath of the Wild or Odyssey, we would reconsider the friend.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Donkey Kong 3, look out for flying coconuts, Donkey Kong is on the loose.
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. And I'm Sean. And we're here to talk about the end of a trilogy.
You know, there's really nothing. I don't know. Let's talk about it. Okay. So what even is Donkey Kong 3? Donkey Kong 3 is a game starring Mario where you go back and take your revenge on Donkey Kong. And he's kidnapped Pauline again. And now it's through 40 dazzling levels. Oh, wait, that's not none of that. Oh, okay. That's what Donkey Kong 3 could have been. It could have been that. Instead, you get, okay, so you have Donkey Kong and you've got Donkey Kong Jr. Those, it's like Donnie Darko. Donnie Darko director's cut. Nice. So like, I think that's, I think that's a good. Yeah, some people like the director's cut more, but the original fans think that the director's cut's garbage. Exactly. Sure. Because it just makes the new movie.
Sure. And then you get S Darko, which I don't think a lot of people have seen. And I don't think there are too many people that weren't hanging around arcades in the 80s that really have played Donkey Kong 3. It's important to mention that. Yeah. No one was really, like, no one was noticing this game. Yeah. And it's because it's a completely different, like, genre. And like S. Darko, it's garbage. It's garbage. I'm not afraid to say this. I'm sure if you're listening to this episode, you either, you're in three groups. You have no idea that there's a Donkey Kong 3 and you think we're talking about Dixie's trouble.
And the, or you know Donkey Kong 3 and you know how bad it is and you're like, I can't wait for them to rip on this like they did Stack Up. Or you love Donkey Kong 3 and you're like, I cannot believe that Mike and Sean have once again proven their bad taste to everyone in the world. Yeah, all of you. But no, you're not playing as Mario in this one. You're playing as Stanley. Stanley. Stanley Yelnats from Holes. Stanley is a bug man.
He's a bug man. And like Donkey Kong has taken refuge in like a greenhouse. Yeah. And it's now up to Stanley to stop, you know, to stop Donkey Kong and these insects from destroying his flowers. Yeah. I don't really, I don't know where they got all the ideas. Where are the construction? Yeah, I know. Like, this is, exactly. This is, I keep bringing, I keep thinking like this is just a direct to DVD version of this franchise. Because it's like they're clearly struggling for ideas. So like we can't even use the platforming anymore.
Because you can move between platforms. But it's literally just like moving forward and backward in like Space Invaders. Yeah, so I need to talk. At least you can't do. Yeah, we need to talk fast about that Space Invader part. Because if you listen to Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr., you know those are platforming games. This is not. This is like a shmup kind of thing. But not really because it's more like Space Invaders. I don't know what that genre is called. But like you just shoot in the same way that the Space Invader guy shoots where you're down below.
And you just shoot at these insects in Donkey Kong. And until like Donkey Kong gets up to a certain height. Basically you shooting at him makes him like inch up. And then like when he gets to a certain height, the level is over for whatever reason. Yeah, he like usually, I know that in one of the levels he accidentally puts his head through a honey.
I'm sorry. Yeah, beehive. Through beehives. Yeah, I guess that would end the level. That would end the level. Yeah. Wouldn't that just make him more mad? Yeah. Like wouldn't he just stomp harder? I think he would then fall in his confusion and anger directly onto Stanley Yelmax. No idea why Donkey Kong is just suspending himself in the air on these two vines when he could just go down there and kick Stanley's ass. You know? So, yeah.
I think the one thing I want to say real quick is that the only thing that I was feeling through this and through my entire experience, playing this game was anxiety because there's just way too much going on. And it's like you're playing. It's like you're juggling, but you're not used to as many like items to juggle. Yeah. So like the insects are the ones you really have to stop. You don't have to stop. Yeah. Donkey Kong. But if you take your tenure off of him, he's just going to reset back to the beginning. Yeah. And if you if you take your too much time on Donkey Kong, the insects come down.
They grab the flowers. And that's the end of that. Yeah. And but why is it? No, I get I get why you don't want the flowers taken. But it's just. Yeah. It just seems like there are too many things going on. A lot of objectives here. Yeah. So let's break it down like you have to shoot Donkey Kong. So this way he goes up and hits the beehive. You have to shoot the insects to kill them. So this way with bug spray. Yeah. So this way they don't this way they don't take the flowers. You have to protect as many flowers as possible for the most amount of points. So the game is also point based and it's not like a story based thing.
And on top of that, you have to dodge yourself from getting hit by the insects. You have to dodge the projectiles of some of the insects and shoot stuff. Yeah. To watch out for the worms that just crawl across the screen. And can make it so that you can't even hit Donkey Kong. Right. Yeah. They're just like block them. Yeah. It's it's just so much going on. It's a mess. And that was the part that really interested me. It was like, how did this game get made?
I really wanted to like. Please tell me. I wanted to look into the development of this game. I looked up so many things on, you know, the development, who was on it and stuff like that, who was responsible.
Miyamoto's listed. I don't know at what level he actually was, but documentation of this game is almost non existent. I think that says something about what Nintendo thought about this game. Nintendo doesn't want to talk about this game. They don't want to talk about their idea behind it. They don't want to talk about Stanley. Stanley. Last time I heard Stanley, it was a it was a trophy in Super Smash Brothers Melee. And everything's a trophy.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I think it was a sticker in Brawl, too. But like, who cares? Like, it's a sticker. There's even more stickers than there are trophies. But it just it's just so weird. It's like, why not Mario? Right. I think that would just sully his name for Mario to be a part of this mess. Yeah. I can understand that. It is a mess. Yeah. It's a mess. But you've made a mess, Miyamoto.
Wait, so Miyamoto made this game. This wasn't some like third. It was not a third party thing. This was Nintendo made and everything. Like I said, I can't I can't say with 100 percent confidence that Miyamoto wasn't just producing this and just taking a look and being like, yes, Donkey Kong. Yeah. You know, like at that point, he was probably like to be big gorilla. At this point, he was probably really focused on like, I got to make another Popeye game. Like, I really got to make another Popeye game. Everybody people expect Donkey Kong three of me. Where was Donkey Kong two?
Well, that was Junior. I don't know. I mean, yeah. Is it too much to ask for just like a world where Donkey Kong like and so that you don't forget what I was about to say. Let me pose the question that I'm dying to ask for this episode. What would you have liked Donkey Kong three to be?
Oh, man. You know, I I really don't know. I think that they're they were doing their best to not so much innovate, but at least mix it up a little. And I think that the one that would have been the most well received would have been would have been the most well received like Donkey Kong Junior version that we could have thought of. Like, it's just more Donkey Kong. I would have thought that Donkey Kong three would have been the the final, you know, like the full circle. So you have Donkey Kong. You play as Jumpman Mario.
Donkey Kong Junior. They couldn't make Donkey Kong yet. They couldn't figure out a way to do it. So they have Donkey Kong Junior. So you can play at least in the gorilla play style. Donkey Kong three. How you're not playing is Pauline.
I'm sorry. I said that. But obviously what I meant is, you know, Donkey Kong three, how you're not playing is Donkey Kong. How you're finally not in control and like doing like a rampage like thing, you know, where like you're destroying buildings and stuff like that, or you're trying to like rack up points through destruction of some kind. How you're not doing that in Donkey Kong three just blows my mind like that.
That would have been such a great finale. That would have been cool, but that like, I think the real like head scratcher here, like how they're ending this trilogy is just how different it is to the previous two games. That would have been just as much of a departure. I mean, it probably would have been a better game, but it also should have been a completely different IP. Yes.
Because it's so different than from what like Donkey Kong has established the kind of game that it is. Mm hmm. So I think it would still have to be a platformer. Yeah. I don't even like, again, that's what I was saying is like, why is Donkey Kong hanging on to these vines of it that I'm perfectly OK with you take another, you know, another different kind of creature, even maybe it's a giant insect, right?
That you have to shoot and stuff like that. And the game is like Stanley's greenhouse, you know, and like you just deal with that. Donkey Kong three sounds like they just did that because they had this game and then they were like, well, if you throw Donkey Kong in there, it might sell a million copies. True. You know, so that's what that it just seems lazy at the end of the day.
But I do need to talk about Donkey Kong three, the great counter attack. You always have you always have something like I always have a surprise. This one's a real surprise. It's a big surprise. Donkey Kong three got a like semi sequel of its own in Japan that never came to the States. It was just a arcade cabinet there. And Donkey Kong three, the great counter attack does play pretty differently. We're going to take a quick break. I want to show Sean. I had to wait for a surprise here. I'm going to show Sean and then we're going to talk about it.
Sean, you've seen Donkey Kong three, the great counter attack. Now, what are your thoughts? It's just it's just interesting to watch a franchise lose its way and kind of like it's not slow motion, but like in an accelerated fashion, just seeing it go from an icon of an era to like a pretty OK sequel to just this. Yeah, it's strange.
It's like Donkey Kong three, the great counter attack feels a little more complete, though, if I could argue, if only because they finally went all in on the shmup idea, you know, like in Donkey Kong three, you're just like you're half committing to the space invaders idea and Donkey Kong three, the great counter attack. You're like ripping off Galaga, you know, like you got formations for the insects. There's no more greenhouse. You're in a wasteland. Yeah, it looks post apocalyptic. Yeah, Donkey Kong is holding on to balloons.
And it's like none of it makes sense. Like the concepts are gone. And instead, you're just replaced with like this weird like do this, do that. And like Nintendo did not make that. I want to be clear, but they did like say you could make it. They licensed it. Yeah, they said like, hey, you want to make this? Great. Yeah, we're done with Donkey Kong.
And it certainly feels that way. OK, because Donkey Kong three could have been the end of Donkey Kong. We don't see him again in Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers 2, Super Mario Brothers 3, Super Mario Land on the Game Boy. You don't see this guy for a long time. Then all of a sudden, 1994 vaguely talked about it in the Donkey Kong episode. In 1994, you get Donkey Kong for the Game Boy. Yeah. And that is like, to me, that's the real form. That's Donkey Kong 2, right? Yeah, that's like Donkey Kong 2. But even more so, it's like Donkey Kong like 1.5. Because it starts off with the first original four levels of Donkey Kong. And then it's like 80 levels of that.
Again, it's just like all different crazy ideas. It's got movement options like you wouldn't believe. Mario can do a handstand. You can do backflips. It even had that little subversion where you think it's just Donkey Kong. And then like, oh, we brought him down. The structure's collapsed. And then he gets up. Yeah, and takes Pauline again. And it's like, oh, this is on. And it's just like, for me, that's incredible that that happened. But imagine a world where that doesn't happen. And instead, Donkey Kong 3 is the end of Donkey Kong. That would have been a very sad timeline. Would anyone think of Donkey Kong the same way? I think it would have been Donkey Kong would just be remembered for the first game.
But in the same way we think of Pac-Man. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Or even more so the same way you think of Space Invaders. Because that's like, you know, Pac-Man has had some like Pac-Man adventures and stuff like Pac-Man World. Maybe not so much like Space Invaders because it still has Mario. And you would still consider it a part of like the Mario adventures through his life. But yeah, I'd say it's closer to Pac-Man. Yeah. It's very bizarre. Thankfully, Donkey Kong did come out on the Game Boy because it really is kind of the Donkey Kong 3 or even the Donkey Kong 1.5 that I did always want. And that was a fantastic game. And then, you know, we do get the Donkey Kong Country games.
Yeah, that's completely different games. Completely different, but they come out the same time as the Donkey Kong Game Boy game and just completely abandon this Donkey Kong idea. Like, Donkey Kong games in the style of the arcade version, we'll never see that again, I think. No. I don't think we'll ever see any more levels of that idea expanded upon. The closest we'll ever get is the way Super Mario Odyssey handled it. And that's really not enough. It's just a nostalgic kick. It's just like a nice, like, hey, did you notice? Remember? That's the thing. Do you remember this? Yeah.
So, Donkey Kong Country is the way things will be going for Donkey Kong going forward. I'm just happy to have Donkey Kong in our lives. Yeah. But Donkey Kong's cool. And that this sad time in history would end. I would like to see Donkey Kong be as big as he was in Donkey Kong. Like, for size, I'm talking about. Like, scale. Yeah. He was massive. He was. If you look at it. Now he's, like, the same size as Mario, kind of. Like, maybe a little bigger, but, like, a little more muscular, no doubt. But, like, size-wise, they're about totally... So, I think, yeah, Nintendo, if you're listening, Donkey Kong, but bigger. Donkey Kong, but bigger. And in Smash.
Donkey Kong's in Smash. That was a joke because in Donkey Kong Jr., they said that he was too big to be the title character. It's a callback. You should watch the other episode. Listen to it. You can't watch it. So, let's do the Essential Games list.
All right. It's the Essential Games list. You got your PS4. You got your PC. Nintendo Switch. No, that Switch is hot right now. What are you playing? Did you just get it? So, you're probably playing Breath of the Wild. Or, did you just get it and you're playing Kirby Star Allies and you're like, this is the Switch? This is what they have? And you're like, no, dude. Like, come on. Play Odyssey. Play Breath of the Wild. But then you have this other friend over here saying like, no, play Donkey Kong 3. And you leave that friend forever. Okay? You don't speak another word to them because chances are if they make statements like that, if they're just willing to recommend Donkey Kong 3, they're also likely to recommend things that could kill you.
So, with that piece of foreshadowing, Mike, what are your thoughts on the Essential Games list? I'm so glad you asked. Unfortunately, first, I'm going to read Joe's thoughts because I didn't even read Joe's thoughts for Donkey Kong 3 ahead of time. I needed to be surprised by something. So, here are Joe's thoughts on Donkey Kong 3. If you don't know who Joe is, if you're just like, who's Joe? Why are we reading his thoughts? He is on this show occasionally. He's a good guy. He has fun thoughts. He worships Duck Hunt.
So, Donkey Kong 3 is very different from the last two games, Joe says, concerned. It is more action-based, but overall, it's still not a long game and doesn't have a ton of depth. Just like the other DK games so far, I can see it being fun today as the kind of game you play on your phone while you're waiting for a train or something, but it can get old fast.
Especially if you are not nostalgic for it. Not essential. It seems like Joe maybe liked it. I don't know. I mean, yeah. I think he seems to give these games the benefit of the doubt more often than not. He gave it the BOTD? Yeah, that one. The benefit of the doubt. That's true. The BOTD. That's the acronym. But if you want to know how I feel about this game, I don't really know how to... I want to do something for the fans of this game, right? It's not essential, okay? But you want to know why. And it can't be that I don't like the game, because I agree. That's not a good reason.
The reason why I think this game is not essential is because it has no Nintendo vibe on it, first off. It doesn't have any of their, like... Any of the love that they put into Donkey Kong 1 and Donkey Kong Jr. is not there in 3. The addition of this random Stanley dude, the only thing that's amazing about Stanley is that he also shows up in the Saturday Supercade episode about Donkey Kong 3. No way. Yeah. Saturday Supercade with Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. In one of the Donkey Kong episodes, it's called Greenhouse Gorilla. And it shows Donkey Kong messing with Stanley. Jeez. We can't escape cartoons. We can't escape random references in these shows, even in our essential games list.
And Stanley, being in this game, shows that Nintendo just kind of threw this thing together. The concept of this being another Donkey Kong game is laughable. Throwing the 3 on there is weird. Weird. But also, like we talked about very early in this and just kind of said one and done with it on the gameplay. It's a mess. There's too much going on. Too much to focus on. And it's not necessarily rewarding to the player. No. I imagine there is a strategy to be good at it, but I can't imagine that being all that fun. Not essential. Sean? I think this was back when they were primarily...
Nintendo has a reputation now. They have faltered on it in the past, and they have gained and lost goodwill with their followers over the years. But I think this was before that... This was definitely before that was even like a trope for them. They were just trying to make money, and they still needed to... I still liked that they wanted to try new things, but this was too much of a departure, and it seemed like a cop-out. Yeah. I'm still not entirely sure. I would have loved to get some kind of developer interview or something, or just like some traces of something. Yeah. But we don't have it, and so we'll never really know the full story behind Donkey Kong 3. I do know that the gaming historian on YouTube, he's a great guy,
he has like a Donkey Kong 3 video, just kind of on the history of it, but I don't know how much he goes into it. But I'll recommend that and link that into the show notes when I check it out. But that's all the time we have for this episode of Nostalgia. Join us next time for Donkey Kong Jr. Math. The edutainment game in the education series for the NES. Yes. We're not out of the forest yet, guys. We have one more Donkey Kong game to go, and then we can beat our chests in unison over the fact that we have survived the Donkey Kong apocalypse, which is certainly what's happening in Donkey Kong 3, The Great Counterattack. But you know what's a nice place to check out?
NostalgiaCast.com. That's N-E-S-T-A-L-G-A-A-Cast.com. You know what you can find there? The show. The articles about the show. Show links and stuff to other websites, you know, like websites probably that are more established than NostalgiaCast.com, because I think right now we're averaging like 40 hits a day, which, to be honest, isn't that much. But we appreciate you. But we appreciate those 40 hits, so keep checking the website. We also have like weird articles there, too. We have links to Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, YouTube. We just publish stuff. We like to make content. So if you want to know if NES Baseball is haunted, the website will tell you. We have a whole article explaining why it's haunted.
Yeah, that's the show. I hope if this is your first time listening that you're going to listen again. If this is your 20th time listening to us, that's impossible. No, this is the 20th episode. That's possible. Wow. Then thank you. Thank you. It's actually the 21st, you know, because you got to do the math ahead of time. So if you had the 85 special, which is great. Sean, would you recommend the 85 special? I would recommend it wholeheartedly. And you know what else I would recommend? A clean exit to this show. I'm Michael Esposito. You can find me on at Esposito Film on Twitter, and I will talk to you soon.
I'll see you soon. See you later.
