This is one of my favorite video games of all time. This game is of course the sequel to the already famous first game, a sequel to it seemed unthinkable how are you going to measure up to that one, it was a risk but a good risk.
Plotline here is this time, your Donkey Kong's son and you must save him from Mario whom this time is a bad guy, keeping him in captivity and trying to kill your attempts. I know the plotline is slightly bizarre, making the main hero from the first game a villain, they probably should have made it some other villain but I guess they keep Mario just to keep with continuity so people wouldn't be lost. It's also understandable as video game franchise back then never had an established mythos and stories back then, let alone sequels weren't common at the time and there weren't any set rules yet. If you look at it from perspective where Mario probably thinks he's the hero but is Donkey Kong Jr and our perspective, it's the opposite, and I don't mind the plotline as your not saving a damsel in distress, this time your saving your dad/family member which I thought was kind of cool something different from the damsel in distress cliche at the time.
But enough about view and plot points, were here for this game for two reasons action and fun which this game delivers. The graphical presentation is good as usual with Nintendo as it's colorful and the characters and a little of the background look a little like something you'd see from 80's Saturday Morning cartoons. But what made it stand out the most in in the liveliness of the expressions of the characters spites, so they didn't look generic. From when they were in pain or simply taking action, I thought it was just really cool at the time, really brought that feel of playing an 80's Saturday morning cartoon. Music is good for what it is, there just little repetitive tunes but fit the game's nature, from the first stage has sort of that strange tropical tone to it on the first stage, the frantic tune in the four and final stage, even like the little positive tune when you complete the stage, just always gave that feeling of accomplishment.
Platform action is good as usual. There are four stages each of them are a different challenge from the other which keeps the game fresh and cause you to do some fast adjusting and adapting. There are a good variety of enemies like nasty bear traps come to life, evil trained birds, elector sparks with minds of their own, just silly random obstacles but that's pretty much what this game and its predecessor are a silly random obstacle course.
The platform action operates on the same kind of format where you just simply go from point A to B. But here it's a totally different execution as your mainly climbing from point A to B, this was a little revolutionary for it's time as this was one of the first games to have a climb feature, the only other game that had this was the arcade game "Crazy Climber". But unlike "Crazy Climber" where you were ascending a building, here you're in a contain platform format where you needed climb, move, and jump to point A and By.
I really like how in this game there are certain physics involved which add to the challenge because here you must learn to work with them, so they can work for you. You do have your basic left, right and jump function but you character doesn't move that fast on the ground, nor even jump so high or even fast. It's really in climbing the vines is where Donkey Kong Jr excels which makes sense as he's a gorilla after all and is known more for anerobic strength.
When you climb a single vine, you don't go very fast but when you slide down on the vine you go fast. You can go fast in ascension by grasping and climbing on to two vines at once to propel your ascension momentum. And you can move across left and right on the vines by grabbing on after the other.
Of course, getting from point A to B on the vines isn't all that simple, as sometimes the bear trap monsters, they can go up and down the vines and will nail you if you're on the wrong vine or tag you if you hand or foots on that wrong vine. You do have a form of weapon/trap that can stop them which are coconuts, or any other tropical fruit stationed on the vines, in the right place and time once you touch them you drop it on them; some pieces of fruit are more powerful which means they take more enemies down.
This is a vintage classic that a big climb of fun.
Rating: 4 stars.
