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 The SNES and Game Boy Years In 1994 the character that launched Nintendo to international fame and made Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid household words was resurrected on Nintendo's new home console system, the Super NES. While it was a sequel to Super Mario Bros. 3 that kicked off the console's success, it was the string of Donkey Kong titles that breathed new life into the aging 16-bit system in the face of more-powerful systems like the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation.
Donkey Kong Country Before Donkey Kong Country was released for the Super NES in November 1994, gamers were skeptical. After all, the 16-bit Super NES was still using outdated cartridges compared to the CDs of the newer 32-bit machines out or on the way, it didn't support CD-quality sound, and it was just another 2D platformer. But what a 2D platformer it was.
Rare's success with earlier titles such as Battletoads ultimately lead the company to serious discussions with Nintendo about giving Donkey Kong his own Super NES title. So in 1994 Rare released Donkey Kong Country, challenging the new 32-bit systems head on with 16-bit technology. Rare had been working with Silicon Graphics designing new visuals called ACM (advanced computer modeling), and when it finally realized it could put graphics created on an SGI workstation onto an SNES cartridge, it knew it had something special.
Donkey Kong Country met with tremendous acclaim, both popular and critical. It became the biggest-selling 16-bit title of all time, selling more than eight million cartridges to date. The game was a hit because the graphics were groundbreaking, the controls were great, the gameplay was simple yet addictive, and there were so many secrets to uncover that you became obsessed with finding them all.
The game also took on and expanded the run-and-jump theme and turned barrels into both weapons and modes of transportation. You could tag-team between two apes, find helper animals, ride mine carts, and battle the forces of King K. Rool, an evil crocodile with an army of minions. Instead of the tired save-the-princess routine, you were fighting for Donkey Kong's very survival: King K. Rool had stolen the family's banana collection, an offense that merited the punishment of having his head jumped on by a 200-pound gorilla. Besides all of this, the game had character.
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