I never even knew there WAS a fourth level in Donkey Kong. Amazing that Nintendo would go out of their way to do that, but then not bother to release it to most of the world.
I can understand not knowing, because most of the console versions didn't have the cement factory level. And if you played the US Arcade version, it takes a while to actually reach the cement factory level.
The version inside Donkey Kong 64 contains all four levels. I imagine the cement level was the one omitted because it's the one the least amount of players even reached in American arcades. The order went Barrel, Rivets, back to Barrel, then Springs & Lifts, then Rivets. Then only on the third and subsequent loops did you get the full run of barrels, cement, springs, and rivets. So cement was the seventh stage a player would encounter.
Yeah the US Arcade version had an interesting level system. Seemed like you got more replayability since you're not playing the same 4 levels in order, like in the Japanese version.
The NES handles 8 sprites per line, where Mario is two sprites wide. So indeed the cement pans would inevitably excede the sprite limit and cause flicker. Another aspect that affected these ports is that Nintendo contracted a 3rd party company to program Donkey Kong Arcade (under Miyamoto's direction). After the game became super popular they had to reverse engineer their own game for the ports and sequels, because they didn't own the code. The company they contracted even sued them for doing this, but I think they used the DK money to crush the lawsuit.
Well I feel silly now... always thought it was a PIE factory. Of course I was 11yrs old when it showed up at my local bowling alley. Still not convinced!
I have a strategy guide from 1982 that calls the “pies” cement tubs, and a pocket guide that focuses on Donkey Kong by the same company also calls them that, so it makes sense to me. Also, not long after, a Game & Watch game called Mario’s Cement Factory, so it makes further sense in light of that.
Not only are there cement pans in the cement factory level, but also the _conveyors_ which means more code because they had to code Mario's movement on those conveyors and that could take more filesize in the code along with the sprites of the cement pans. Also, small fun fact, the Gameboy Color Donkey Kong hand dozens and dozens of levels, one of which being the OG Cement Factory level.
Now if I do recall correctly, I think that Donkey Kong '94 had 100 levels instead of 4 levels, and that some levels also took up two screens, either horizontally or vertically, not to mention that it also had more items to get, new enemies to face, and actual boss fights, which, to be honest, makes that game much deeper than its predecessors.
There's an underlying motive to why the Famicom version is the one that Nintendo re-released with updates instead of an emulated arcade ROM: It goes back to the original arcade game being subcontracted to Ikegami Tsushinki, and Nintendo later breaching contract to make Donkey Kong Junior, leading to a lawsuit and eventually an undisclosed settlement in 1990. The Famicom game is therefore now the "official version" of the game, since it's the one wholly programmed by Nintendo to run on Nintendo hardware. But during the commercial lifecycle of the platform that legal issue was still open, so further investment in a franchise that was in the midst of a fight over ownership(for the second time, since Nintendo was also sued for similarities to "King Kong") was probably judged to be not worth the effort - notice how between 1984(Donkey Kong Circus, Donkey Kong Hockey for Game & Watch) and 1994(GB Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Country) there were no new titles, only rereleases. Donkey Kong 64's use of the arcade ROM for a minigame is the odd exception to the rule, explainable because: Rare did it(so Nintendo wasn't paying close attention), it was buried deep in the game(so it wasn't being advertised as "contains Donkey Kong"), and the ROM's presentation is modified to start the player in a later loop of the game with fewer extra lives(so it's a derivative, not the original).
This reminds me of when Nintendo released an update version of the original nes mario bros. With better physics/movement,I could be wrong but if I remember correctly it was also only released in Europe as well
Yep, "Mario Bros Classic Serie", which features the same improved controls from Kaettekita Mario Bros but without the advertisements and without the altered player sprite colours.
Nintendo also released an updated version of Super Mario World for Super NES via Super Mario All-Stars. This version had a new Luigi sprite similar to his appearance in Super Mario Bros. 2 which was later port to GBA as Super Mario Advance 2.
This channel is so professionally produced, it's great to see the growth. When I first started coming here I assumed that this was a big channel and then I noticed the numbers and I was surprised.
Something i noticed when playing our NES version on an emulator with a memory viewer is that if you find the address for the level number, it starts at 1, and if you beat the level, the level value goes to 3. Level 2 gets skipped! And if you do manage to load level 2, its just a glitchy mess that is playable but unbeatable.
I remember getting this game during the 3DS promotion and being so happy I did, but I seem to recall that Nintendo made the game available again for a time on the 3DS here in the States. I forget what the time frame was, but I could swear they did.
@@pojr I also got that version. It's for the Ambassador Program Edit: I downloaded it in the promotion as well. It was separate from the Ambassador Program.
They just sold it on the Australian 3DS eShop outright, alongside the unaltered NES game on Virtual Console. I don't remember if "Original Edition" (which is what the updated version was called) cost the same or slightly more, but it made buying the unaltered game pretty much redundant lol
Yup, I got the same deal for being an early adopter. I went to go play it one day while bored at work and was pretty damn surprised at what I was seeing.
When I worked as a videogame developer, saving space for ROMs or CDs was always an issue for us. The Donkey Kong cartridge was only 16K. They could have made a 32K cartridge, but in those days ROMs were expensive, so going with the 32K would have made the game less profitable. The only issue is whether the game will still sell with just 16K ROM, which it did. However, there are tricks that can be done with compression. This was pretty easy on the SNES which had 192K RAM, but the mere 2K RAM on the NES might have prevented this. Still, I believe it would have been possible with some clever coding. Videogame development is very expensive. Back then you had to have a game done by September or sooner so that you could make the Christmas market. Something like 80% of the cartridges were sold during the Christmas shopping season. So speed took priority over quality.
The watered down version of Contra for example north america got compared to the japanese gryzor version with full cut scenes. Those games instead all appeared on famicom disk system due to rom chip shortage.
The cement factory was the one cut simply because it was the latest one in the arcade game and one that a lot of players probably never even saw. same with why the really early ones did that the other level. Many very novice players never saw anything but the first level and the one where you walked over the "pins" to collapse the girders. Because the arcade would have you play this order 1,2,1,2,1,3 and I forget how many more until you got to the cement factory. But going through the second stage the second time and the first stage a third time was decently hard enough that a lot of people died there. Even though it wasn't really THAT hard. And then the one with the elevators and bouncing girders finished off a lot more players before they ever got to the cement factory. The same is true with Donkey Kong Jr. Many early ports don't have Mario's Hideout because the arcade followed a similar repeating pattern of the first two boards before getting to the third board (with the birds and that annoying trampoline at the start) that the average player never saw Mario's Hideout.
The ColecoVision version is almost arcade perfect for the time. Coleco made some artistic choices but the look and sound are beyond impressive. Try Coleco's Super Donkey Kong which features all the cutscenes that the years-later NES version lacked (plus of course the secret hidden level Nintendo made them "remove").
Yep I remember that now,I had the Coleco Adam Computer & for the most part had most of the cut scenes & the 4th level. I forgot about that until I read your post! Thanks!
the &*00 was nearlyequivlent to the NES Nintend even orginal tried to get Atari to make its game consol in the US. That is why the 7800 version was so much the same NES
The 7800 got a homebrew version that is as arcade perfect as you can make it. Better sound, more accurate graphics, all four stages and the cut scenes. It's cool to see Nintendo finally got a complete version released for a home system. Here's the improved 7800 version: ua-cam.com/video/FVksiALE6e0/v-deo.html
The 7800 would have been a significantly improved console had it had something better for sound like a commodore SID chip. Alas it was a time Atari was on its last legs.
The use of the arcade levels as a prologue was a genius move on Nintendo's part. They knew people would be angry if it's just a different game with the DK license slapped on it so they fool players by putting the four arcade levels in the beginning and eventually lead to the full game afterwards.
The Atari 400/800/5200 version of Donkey Kong had the cement factory, but the stages were compressed to fit the aspect ratio like some of the other consoles. The ANTIC/GTIA chipset in those systems didn't have a lot of sprites, so it used a high-resolution screen with a somewhat sloppy software sprite system. Drawing clean sprites that occluded the playfield would have been too slow, so when barrels and fireballs and cement pies pass in front of a ladder, you can see a minor artifact... and when two barrels overlap each other, their bitmaps cancel each other out.
Took the words out of my mouth. I had the Atari 400 and enjoyed all levels at home back in 1982. I never realized that I would be part of such a niche system. The aforementioned systems are always omitted during these types early gaming reviews.
@@humormewithspecificsMe too, however I’ve recently learned the Atari 400/800 are classified as Personal Computers, not Home Consoles. As a kid I just assumed because it used cartridges it was a console, but in retrospect it was a much more diverse platform than a Console. Still never learned how to write my own game in BASIC though.
It is true that the NES can use a maximum of 32KB of program ROM without enhancement chips, but in 1983 Nintendo didn't even have ROMs of that size available to them. Donkey Kong and all the early Famicom games only have 16KB of program ROM. So that is likely why the cement factory level was omitted.
The NES / Famicom can technically directly access 64KB of Memory / ROM (believe it is configured to 32KB though.) Most games are not a limitation of the cart size, but a limitation of Nintendo not wanting to pay for much more expensive ROMS back in the day. Same goes to Atari and the rest, the smaller the ROM size the larger the profit they made.
The cement pan flicker comes from a NES sprite limitation - when more than 4 sprites exist on a horizontal row, the NES cannot display them all. The NES compensates for this by only showing 4 at a time rendering the others invisible. The NES will cycle which of the 4 sprites are visible during each vblank routine, causing the flicker we see on old NES games.
If my memory serves me correctly, the one of the (key?) requirements for the NES engineering team to create a console that will be able to run Donkey Kong that is very closely matching the arcade version. Which would also explain why it was the only port of the game that was so close to the original.
My first console was a ColecoVision and I don't really recall raising a stink over why the version of Donkey Kong I had at home didn't contain the cement factory. When you're a kid you don't really question these things too much, you're just happy to play the game at all. I'm glad you pointed out the first board on that version is messed up and not backwards, people have been misunderstanding that for years. The vertical resolution on that machine was too low to fit the full height of the stage so half up the screen one of the platforms is missing which flips Donkey to the right side of the screen, if it were backwards then Mario would start on the right side of the screen too. So yeah, it's a little messed up, heh. At any rate, great video!
DK64 has the full version of Donkey Kong in it, you actually have to play and beat all 4 levels to gain an item you need to advance the game! There are also a couple of other cool old games hidden away in DK64 too!
@@MaxOakland There's an older game called Jetpac that Cranky has you play. It's another game where you need to achieve a certain score to get a coin you need to continue the game.
Having played the original Donkey Kong at the arcade in the early 80s, it's always been a favorite arcade game of mine. I did buy the excellent Arcade Archives version on Switch when it was released.
The Atari 400 version was released in 1982 or 83 only 16K and included all four levels, It was the first home version to include all the levels. And although not arcade perfect, I still think it plays the best of the bunch.
Worth mentioning is the secondary arcade version, Crazy Kong, a boot that had Nintendo's approval inside Japan, but when the maker exported them, they got shut down. That is unseen outside of emulators and is a little weird in spots.
The lack of the cement factory on the famicom/nes version is kinda inexcusable because the Commodore 64, Atari 800, and Vic-20 versions had 4 stages (in the more complex international order even) on measly 16K cartridges
If you don't know, the Atari 7800 version of Donkey Kong is based on the NES version, due to the color palette, HUD and lack of cement factory/most cutscenes. And it came out in 1988
Seeing as how we got the arcade perfect version in not only DK 64, but now in the Arcade Archives series on Switch; we technically didn't miss out on anything here aside from the sheer novelty of seeing the true 50m stage on NES.
One more thing, there is a documentary about two guys fighting for the world's high score on Donkey Kong. The name of the documentary is "The King of Kong: A Fist Full of Quarters."
I can't speak for everybody in the 80s because things traveled more by word of mouth back then, but the people in my circles DEFINITELY knew about the cement factory and that it was missing from the home ports. Even though we never reached the cement level in the arcade, kids would talk about it like some kind of holy grail. It was really common to hear rumors of advanced levels in the arcade games. Some were true and some weren't. For DK though, there were scratch-off Donkey Kong cards that showed the level and confirmed the rumors. There was also a Mario's Cement Factory handheld that lent some credibility and books and other media. Some of the later computer ports, like Commodore 64 did have it! By the time the NES came out we had already gone through all of the console ports and everybody knew they lacked the cement factory. When the NES version dropped it was a pretty big disappointment that it was missing. We almost assumed it would be in there because it was official Nintendo and most games were pretty good ports. The other thing about the NES version was that the game play was really watered down from the arcade version. A lot of kids from those days were constantly chasing the arcade ports. When MAME came out in the early 90s it was amazing because you could finally play the "real" games at home.
I'm so thankful that UA-cam recommended your videos. Keep up the awesome work! Also, I can't for the life of me remember the Genesis song you use in your conclusion sections. I've heard it in Sonic ROM hacks but can't remember the original game. I must know! Thanks again!
Subscribed! Great video, nice pro looking work and editing. You could use that 1 minute conclusion as a short. A nice little bite sized set of facts. Looking forward to more!
Donkey Kong 94 on the game boy is the definitive edition of arcade Donkey Kong, which includes all original levels plus 97 extra levels across 9 worlds.
Europe also received an updated rerelease of Mario Bros. on the NES, with the ability to turn mid-air, graphics more accurate to the arcade version and the stage intermissions that were missing from the original NES version
The NES rom I found of Donkey Kong Original Edition has the whole game rotated 90 degrees, to provide the arcade-accurate vertical screen alignment. Also, the sounds are similar, but clearly different. This video makes it seem like there's yet another version, a home version with horizontal screen alignment. What gives?
One of the best versions I've ever played is on the Atari 8-Bit Computer, not only does it have all four screens, but if you wait before starting the game you also get the intro , it's a very impressive and an amazing bit of programming.
One thing you forgot to mention. Donkey Kong Original Edition was also released on the Nintendo 3DS as part of the Ambassador's Program. This means those who got the 3DS and connected it to the internet early in its lifespan got the game plus 9 other nes games and 10 GBA games (DK original and the GBA games would never see a public release in the eshop)
Sorry, but I think you misremembered that, the game that was given to ambassadors was Donkey Kong Jr. The other 9 were Super Mario Bros., Zelda 1 and 2, Metroid, Wrecking Crew, Balloon Fight, Ice Climber, Mario & Yoshi and NES Open Tournament Golf.
What's funny is I have Donkey Kong for The Atari 400/800 Home Computer and it has all 4 levels. But there's a darker back story on DK arcade and why the main cement factory was missing in many game ports and that is the lawsuit between Nintendo and the programmers at Ikegami Tsushinki who was actually programmed the arcade game. And when Nintendo started secretly copying the game's code, they got sued. For a good back story head over to a UA-cam video title 'Nintendo STOLE this game and got sued for $14,000,000' by Thomas Game Docs.
You should check out some of the homebrews for the ColecoVision and the 2600. They have pretty much fixed the earlier versions of donkey Kong as well. It's ColecoVision donkey Kong arcade is great.
Thank you for correctly referring to the level as the Cement Factory! It's my pet peeve when people say 'pie factory'... Duh, pies come from bakeries. 😂
I thought Donkey Kong, the arcade version had 255 screens. I saw it in a movie called the King of Kong. One screen is called the kill screen since it would randomly crash.
The Atari 8-bit computer version has all 4 levels and is the best of the releases of the time. It would have also been on the 5200 console except Coleco had the rights to console ports. Also, it had the intro animation and all fit into a 16K cartridge.
Exactly what I was missing in this video. You can play it on an Atari XEGS so you can also call it a home console port. To be exact it is a computer port on a console version of a computer. Fair enough 😅
Also someone made a fan port of Donkey Kong for the NES which makes the game display in vertical mode where you have to turn your TV 90 degrees to play it. The arcade is a vertical CRT the NES home version was in horizontal mode.
Also know that Coleco had two versions of Donkey Kong, one for the original ColecoVision and one for the Coleco Adam computer. The Coleco Adam computer version had all four levels but there's a catch, there's three difficulty you had to go through to get to all four levels. There's easy setting which when you first start only had you go to 25mm and 100mm, finish those and the medium setting kicks in sending you back to 25mm then after that 75mm and eventually 100mm again. After you clear 100mm for the second time the game sent you back to 25mm and then eventually 50mm (which is the Cement Factory, level), then 75mm, and eventually 100mm. Note that each difficulty also gets harder as well. Also even though the newer NES version had the Cement Factory level in the game, it's still missing the buy in screen (the screen that says "How High Can You Go?" showing the number meter you're at), this screen was seen on most version of DK including the Game Boy version but was missing from the NES version.
Only 3.39K subs? The content quality and production is just as good as mrwhosetheboss. Other game tech channels better put on their seatbelts this guys gonna zoom to 10 million subs in no time. Just don't forget about your fans mister!
Wow, crazy how I just found out about this version's existence a couple weeks ago (from an offhanded comment in a video by a guy named PhantomBane) and all of a sudden there's now this recent video on this obscure version. Used to think for years that the NES version without the 2nd level was the only NES version to exist. I have since played this version now and quite like it.
Anyone noticed how in the japanese ad used in this video the kid very briefly blows into his cartridge before sticking it in the console. AFAIK Nintendo always officially discouraged blowing in cartridges but showing that in the advertisement shows how in touch they were with their user/fanbase back then. Compare that to now when Nintendo kinda seems to hate their own customers seeking out opportunities to disappoint, offend and punish at every corner
This is a great console generation to be an arcade fan. You have got Arcade 1up, Hamster, DotEMU, and several fist party developers releasing arcade collections.
According the website "the cutting room floor." The data for the cement/conveyer level is on the original Nintendo cartridge. It simply goes unused. I think they said it was omitted due to time constraints.
Nintendo needs to make this title available again. Also, you forgot to mention the theme song that plays when you power up the game menu. The arcade version didn't have that.
I don't know if you can dig a little deeper, but I thought it was said to have been originally coded this way and then cut out, not that Nintendo 20 years later got some coders to code in the 4th level. They just at the time had to trim it down for various reasons but still had the original untrimmed version.
I love seeing the Famicon laser gun actually looked like a real gun. I can see the U.S. not allowing it picturing a kid waving it around at cars on a freeway. haha!
they also added this newer version on the 3ds virtual console which i brought on release, i was confused when seeing two versions i had no idea the original NES game had missing levels until i started collecting NES games and hardware!
What a lot of people don't realize is just how OLD the Famicom was by the time the NES was released in the US. The base hardware without any enhancement chips in the cartridges is REALLY limited in terms of both storage capacity and graphical output Also, I'm wondering if there are any fan projects that ported DK more faithfully to the NES??
The Atari 400/800 Port of Donkey Kong included all 4 stages. I grew up on that version and couldn’t understand why the NES port I played later didn’t include the Pie Stage.
You would still think that it should have been fully portable. I know the arcade was on a Zilog 80 and not the 6502 or NES derivative, but the RAM and ROM availability was there for everything.
I played the Apple II version as a kid, which had all four levels. What I never realised though was that the character you played as was actually Mario…
As folks who love Donkey Kong,on the Switch u play Donkey Kong just like I remember in the arcade & it’s not that expensive. Yes u get all the “Cut Scenes” & all 4 levels!
You should do a video on video game terminology. (Control deck, system, machine, console, dpad ect..) Though I'm sure it would be quite an undertaking I'm kind of upset that I never knew the 4th level LOL. But then again we never got the full game at home.. until like 5 consoles later
You failed to mention that the Atari XE game system DID feature all FOUR levels from the arcade version. They did flip the first level but all four are there.
This game actually works on real NES hardware, too-the ROM is available on Vimm’s Lair and can be run on real hardware via an Everdrive cartridge (similar deal with Sega SG-1000 games; they work on the Master System hardware if you download the ROMS to a flashcart)
I just recently stumbled on this channel, and glad I did 👍 Having said that, Nintendo is a company I have a big love/hate relationship with, as many of their games have brought me some of my most fond gaming memories over the past 42 years of my life, and I thank them for that, but I also feel that Nintendo many times over the years has given it's western consumers the big shaft up the backside by not releasing things like this here, among some of their other notorious practices I think we all know about lol!
I never even knew there WAS a fourth level in Donkey Kong. Amazing that Nintendo would go out of their way to do that, but then not bother to release it to most of the world.
lol but why is DK so simple but SO HARD 😂
How can you not know about the pie factory? It's been common knowledge at this point.
I can understand not knowing, because most of the console versions didn't have the cement factory level. And if you played the US Arcade version, it takes a while to actually reach the cement factory level.
@@pojr that would explain it, I was never really that good at Donkey Kong
Game Boy version has it. Granted the whole game is a remake, but they included the pie factory.
The version inside Donkey Kong 64 contains all four levels.
I imagine the cement level was the one omitted because it's the one the least amount of players even reached in American arcades. The order went Barrel, Rivets, back to Barrel, then Springs & Lifts, then Rivets. Then only on the third and subsequent loops did you get the full run of barrels, cement, springs, and rivets. So cement was the seventh stage a player would encounter.
The version in Donkey Kong 64 is the Arcade ROM though, not a NES port.
Yeah the US Arcade version had an interesting level system. Seemed like you got more replayability since you're not playing the same 4 levels in order, like in the Japanese version.
@@WilliamPorygon Neither is the Intellevision version. He was talking about home ports.
@@pigs18 Exactly. He was talking about ports. Not emulations.
@@WilliamPorygon It's not the arcade ROM. It's a port.
The NES handles 8 sprites per line, where Mario is two sprites wide. So indeed the cement pans would inevitably excede the sprite limit and cause flicker. Another aspect that affected these ports is that Nintendo contracted a 3rd party company to program Donkey Kong Arcade (under Miyamoto's direction). After the game became super popular they had to reverse engineer their own game for the ports and sequels, because they didn't own the code. The company they contracted even sued them for doing this, but I think they used the DK money to crush the lawsuit.
Well I feel silly now... always thought it was a PIE factory. Of course I was 11yrs old when it showed up at my local bowling alley. Still not convinced!
I have a strategy guide from 1982 that calls the “pies” cement tubs, and a pocket guide that focuses on Donkey Kong by the same company also calls them that, so it makes sense to me. Also, not long after, a Game & Watch game called Mario’s Cement Factory, so it makes further sense in light of that.
I've seen it referred to as both. And on paper, it makes sense for it to be the pie factory. Don't the cement pans look just like 🥧?
@@pojrI wanna eat the cement TwT
@@RawrX32009 Well it does look like pie lol.
@@pojr Yeah😭
Not only are there cement pans in the cement factory level, but also the _conveyors_ which means more code because they had to code Mario's movement on those conveyors and that could take more filesize in the code along with the sprites of the cement pans. Also, small fun fact, the Gameboy Color Donkey Kong hand dozens and dozens of levels, one of which being the OG Cement Factory level.
Definitely good to shout out Donkey Kong ‘94. I suspect it’ll come to Switch Online at some point.
Now if I do recall correctly, I think that Donkey Kong '94 had 100 levels instead of 4 levels, and that some levels also took up two screens, either horizontally or vertically, not to mention that it also had more items to get, new enemies to face, and actual boss fights, which, to be honest, makes that game much deeper than its predecessors.
@@paxhumana2015yes. And that sprung another series, Mario vs Donkey Kong (the next release would be in 2004 on the GBA).
It wasn't very long ago I leaned that is "cement", not pies on that level.
That's not a Game Boy Color game it's a Game Boy original game color games are the ones in the green cartridges.
There's an underlying motive to why the Famicom version is the one that Nintendo re-released with updates instead of an emulated arcade ROM: It goes back to the original arcade game being subcontracted to Ikegami Tsushinki, and Nintendo later breaching contract to make Donkey Kong Junior, leading to a lawsuit and eventually an undisclosed settlement in 1990. The Famicom game is therefore now the "official version" of the game, since it's the one wholly programmed by Nintendo to run on Nintendo hardware. But during the commercial lifecycle of the platform that legal issue was still open, so further investment in a franchise that was in the midst of a fight over ownership(for the second time, since Nintendo was also sued for similarities to "King Kong") was probably judged to be not worth the effort - notice how between 1984(Donkey Kong Circus, Donkey Kong Hockey for Game & Watch) and 1994(GB Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Country) there were no new titles, only rereleases.
Donkey Kong 64's use of the arcade ROM for a minigame is the odd exception to the rule, explainable because: Rare did it(so Nintendo wasn't paying close attention), it was buried deep in the game(so it wasn't being advertised as "contains Donkey Kong"), and the ROM's presentation is modified to start the player in a later loop of the game with fewer extra lives(so it's a derivative, not the original).
and it was technically modified to include a coin with the Rare logo on it
This reminds me of when Nintendo released an update version of the original nes mario bros. With better physics/movement,I could be wrong but if I remember correctly it was also only released in Europe as well
Yep, "Mario Bros Classic Serie", which features the same improved controls from Kaettekita Mario Bros but without the advertisements and without the altered player sprite colours.
Nintendo also released an updated version of Super Mario World for Super NES via Super Mario All-Stars. This version had a new Luigi sprite similar to his appearance in Super Mario Bros. 2 which was later port to GBA as Super Mario Advance 2.
4:24 The best version is the Commodore 64 version of Donkey Kong (Ocean version). It inludes all levels and all cutscenes.
This channel is so professionally produced, it's great to see the growth. When I first started coming here I assumed that this was a big channel and then I noticed the numbers and I was surprised.
I appreciate it! Thank you for being here!
I worked in a cement factory for the last 8 years, this is the most accurate depiction of what I deal with everyday.
The whole stay to the left until all the fireballs pop out, and then rush the ladders on the right to the top thing? ;)
How often do you have to deal with an angry gorilla?
Something i noticed when playing our NES version on an emulator with a memory viewer is that if you find the address for the level number, it starts at 1, and if you beat the level, the level value goes to 3. Level 2 gets skipped!
And if you do manage to load level 2, its just a glitchy mess that is playable but unbeatable.
I remember getting this game during the 3DS promotion and being so happy I did, but I seem to recall that Nintendo made the game available again for a time on the 3DS here in the States. I forget what the time frame was, but I could swear they did.
Nice that you were able to grab it while it was still available
@@pojr I also got that version. It's for the Ambassador Program
Edit: I downloaded it in the promotion as well. It was separate from the Ambassador Program.
They just sold it on the Australian 3DS eShop outright, alongside the unaltered NES game on Virtual Console. I don't remember if "Original Edition" (which is what the updated version was called) cost the same or slightly more, but it made buying the unaltered game pretty much redundant lol
Europe had it for sale on the 3DS eshop (I bought both): it's labeled as Never Released on the menu screen.
Yup, I got the same deal for being an early adopter. I went to go play it one day while bored at work and was pretty damn surprised at what I was seeing.
When I worked as a videogame developer, saving space for ROMs or CDs was always an issue for us.
The Donkey Kong cartridge was only 16K. They could have made a 32K cartridge, but in those days ROMs were expensive, so going with the 32K would have made the game less profitable. The only issue is whether the game will still sell with just 16K ROM, which it did.
However, there are tricks that can be done with compression. This was pretty easy on the SNES which had 192K RAM, but the mere 2K RAM on the NES might have prevented this. Still, I believe it would have been possible with some clever coding.
Videogame development is very expensive. Back then you had to have a game done by September or sooner so that you could make the Christmas market. Something like 80% of the cartridges were sold during the Christmas shopping season. So speed took priority over quality.
The watered down version of Contra for example north america got compared to the japanese gryzor version with full cut scenes. Those games instead all appeared on famicom disk system due to rom chip shortage.
The cement factory was the one cut simply because it was the latest one in the arcade game and one that a lot of players probably never even saw. same with why the really early ones did that the other level. Many very novice players never saw anything but the first level and the one where you walked over the "pins" to collapse the girders. Because the arcade would have you play this order 1,2,1,2,1,3 and I forget how many more until you got to the cement factory. But going through the second stage the second time and the first stage a third time was decently hard enough that a lot of people died there. Even though it wasn't really THAT hard. And then the one with the elevators and bouncing girders finished off a lot more players before they ever got to the cement factory.
The same is true with Donkey Kong Jr. Many early ports don't have Mario's Hideout because the arcade followed a similar repeating pattern of the first two boards before getting to the third board (with the birds and that annoying trampoline at the start) that the average player never saw Mario's Hideout.
The ColecoVision version is almost arcade perfect for the time. Coleco made some artistic choices but the look and sound are beyond impressive. Try Coleco's Super Donkey Kong which features all the cutscenes that the years-later NES version lacked (plus of course the secret hidden level Nintendo made them "remove").
Yep I remember that now,I had the Coleco Adam Computer & for the most part had most of the cut scenes & the 4th level.
I forgot about that until I read your post! Thanks!
the &*00 was nearlyequivlent to the NES Nintend even orginal tried to get Atari to make its game consol in the US. That is why the 7800 version was so much the same NES
The 7800 got a homebrew version that is as arcade perfect as you can make it. Better sound, more accurate graphics, all four stages and the cut scenes. It's cool to see Nintendo finally got a complete version released for a home system. Here's the improved 7800 version: ua-cam.com/video/FVksiALE6e0/v-deo.html
The Nintendo Switch Donkey Kong is also exactly like the 1981 Arcade Version!
The 7800 would have been a significantly improved console had it had something better for sound like a commodore SID chip. Alas it was a time Atari was on its last legs.
The Gameboy version of Donkey Kong has the cement level but it also has a lot more levels too
The use of the arcade levels as a prologue was a genius move on Nintendo's part. They knew people would be angry if it's just a different game with the DK license slapped on it so they fool players by putting the four arcade levels in the beginning and eventually lead to the full game afterwards.
The Atari 400/800/5200 version of Donkey Kong had the cement factory, but the stages were compressed to fit the aspect ratio like some of the other consoles. The ANTIC/GTIA chipset in those systems didn't have a lot of sprites, so it used a high-resolution screen with a somewhat sloppy software sprite system. Drawing clean sprites that occluded the playfield would have been too slow, so when barrels and fireballs and cement pies pass in front of a ladder, you can see a minor artifact... and when two barrels overlap each other, their bitmaps cancel each other out.
Took the words out of my mouth. I had the Atari 400 and enjoyed all levels at home back in 1982. I never realized that I would be part of such a niche system. The aforementioned systems are always omitted during these types early gaming reviews.
@@humormewithspecificsMe too, however I’ve recently learned the Atari 400/800 are classified as Personal Computers, not Home Consoles.
As a kid I just assumed because it used cartridges it was a console, but in retrospect it was a much more diverse platform than a Console. Still never learned how to write my own game in BASIC though.
Ahh the Club Nintendo days.. I still have a lot of goodies from that program.
Nice! Wouldn't mind seeing a video about the stuff you got from it. You might be the only person I know who was a club Nintendo member
@@pojr when I do my full gameroom tour, I'll be sure to point them out!
All of my Wii games still have registration codes dating after it’s EOL
Lucky!
So do I! Disappointed that there were some years I wasn't able to reach gold status and get the really good stuff, but glad I could get what I could!
The Colecovision version was also updated in 1984 for the Coleco Adam computer.
God i miss Club Nintendo, it was so much better than My Nintendo could ever wish to be.
You've been gaining a lot of subscribers the past few days, the algorithm has smiled upon you!
It is true that the NES can use a maximum of 32KB of program ROM without enhancement chips, but in 1983 Nintendo didn't even have ROMs of that size available to them. Donkey Kong and all the early Famicom games only have 16KB of program ROM. So that is likely why the cement factory level was omitted.
The NES / Famicom can technically directly access 64KB of Memory / ROM (believe it is configured to 32KB though.) Most games are not a limitation of the cart size, but a limitation of Nintendo not wanting to pay for much more expensive ROMS back in the day. Same goes to Atari and the rest, the smaller the ROM size the larger the profit they made.
I remember actually downloading this on my 3DS. I was a Club Nintendo member back in the day. 😁
As was I, and I got it!
The cement pan flicker comes from a NES sprite limitation - when more than 4 sprites exist on a horizontal row, the NES cannot display them all. The NES compensates for this by only showing 4 at a time rendering the others invisible. The NES will cycle which of the 4 sprites are visible during each vblank routine, causing the flicker we see on old NES games.
If my memory serves me correctly, the one of the (key?) requirements for the NES engineering team to create a console that will be able to run Donkey Kong that is very closely matching the arcade version. Which would also explain why it was the only port of the game that was so close to the original.
My first console was a ColecoVision and I don't really recall raising a stink over why the version of Donkey Kong I had at home didn't contain the cement factory. When you're a kid you don't really question these things too much, you're just happy to play the game at all. I'm glad you pointed out the first board on that version is messed up and not backwards, people have been misunderstanding that for years. The vertical resolution on that machine was too low to fit the full height of the stage so half up the screen one of the platforms is missing which flips Donkey to the right side of the screen, if it were backwards then Mario would start on the right side of the screen too. So yeah, it's a little messed up, heh. At any rate, great video!
You’re mistaken in saying the Atari 7800 “is much older than the NES” - Atari 7800 is newer than Famicom.
Donkey Kong Country on Super NES still one of my all time favorites
DK64 has the full version of Donkey Kong in it, you actually have to play and beat all 4 levels to gain an item you need to advance the game! There are also a couple of other cool old games hidden away in DK64 too!
That’s so cool. What other games are hidden in it?
@@MaxOakland There's an older game called Jetpac that Cranky has you play. It's another game where you need to achieve a certain score to get a coin you need to continue the game.
20 years? You mean 27 years later...
Having played the original Donkey Kong at the arcade in the early 80s, it's always been a favorite arcade game of mine. I did buy the excellent Arcade Archives version on Switch when it was released.
The Atari 400 version was released in 1982 or 83 only 16K and included all four levels, It was the first home version to include all the levels. And although not arcade perfect, I still think it plays the best of the bunch.
Worth mentioning is the secondary arcade version, Crazy Kong, a boot that had Nintendo's approval inside Japan, but when the maker exported them, they got shut down. That is unseen outside of emulators and is a little weird in spots.
The lack of the cement factory on the famicom/nes version is kinda inexcusable because the Commodore 64, Atari 800, and Vic-20 versions had 4 stages (in the more complex international order even) on measly 16K cartridges
Not really, most of the other console versions had even less.
@@maxxdahl6062 most don’t have the intro scene but only 5 out of 18 conversions lack the cement factory
@@DumbBunny5328 All of the console versions beside the famicom/NES have at least two stages gone.
I remember the Vic-20 version of Donkey Kong having the cement factory level
@@dereketnyre7156 Yeah most of the computer versions had them all. But the console versions other than NES tended to have at least two stages gone.
If you don't know, the Atari 7800 version of Donkey Kong is based on the NES version, due to the color palette, HUD and lack of cement factory/most cutscenes. And it came out in 1988
Another great video. This channel covers ideas I have not seen anywhere else.
Thank you! That's one of my biggest aims, to make videos you usually can't find anywhere else
You are doing a great job with your channel!
Congratulations on your channel's growth! I really enjoy your content, and it looks like your hard work is starting to pay off! Well deserved!
Thank you!
Seeing as how we got the arcade perfect version in not only DK 64, but now in the Arcade Archives series on Switch; we technically didn't miss out on anything here aside from the sheer novelty of seeing the true 50m stage on NES.
The Donkey Kong arcade machine that can be unlocked in Donkey Kong 64 also has the cement factory level.
Heck ya, keep em coming Pojr! Glad I stumbled on this channel!
Thank you!
One more thing, there is a documentary about two guys fighting for the world's high score on Donkey Kong. The name of the documentary is "The King of Kong: A Fist Full of Quarters."
I can't speak for everybody in the 80s because things traveled more by word of mouth back then, but the people in my circles DEFINITELY knew about the cement factory and that it was missing from the home ports. Even though we never reached the cement level in the arcade, kids would talk about it like some kind of holy grail. It was really common to hear rumors of advanced levels in the arcade games. Some were true and some weren't. For DK though, there were scratch-off Donkey Kong cards that showed the level and confirmed the rumors. There was also a Mario's Cement Factory handheld that lent some credibility and books and other media. Some of the later computer ports, like Commodore 64 did have it! By the time the NES came out we had already gone through all of the console ports and everybody knew they lacked the cement factory. When the NES version dropped it was a pretty big disappointment that it was missing. We almost assumed it would be in there because it was official Nintendo and most games were pretty good ports. The other thing about the NES version was that the game play was really watered down from the arcade version. A lot of kids from those days were constantly chasing the arcade ports. When MAME came out in the early 90s it was amazing because you could finally play the "real" games at home.
You've come a long ways pojr, you do both old and new gamers proud, keep up the amazing work.
I'm so thankful that UA-cam recommended your videos. Keep up the awesome work!
Also, I can't for the life of me remember the Genesis song you use in your conclusion sections. I've heard it in Sonic ROM hacks but can't remember the original game. I must know!
Thanks again!
Thank you! The conclusion music is from Cosmic Carnage on the Sega 32x. I first heard it from Metal Sonic Hyperdrive.
Subscribed! Great video, nice pro looking work and editing. You could use that 1 minute conclusion as a short. A nice little bite sized set of facts. Looking forward to more!
Donkey Kong 94 on the game boy is the definitive edition of arcade Donkey Kong, which includes all original levels plus 97 extra levels across 9 worlds.
Still play that, its my favourite of them all
Europe also received an updated rerelease of Mario Bros. on the NES, with the ability to turn mid-air, graphics more accurate to the arcade version and the stage intermissions that were missing from the original NES version
The NES rom I found of Donkey Kong Original Edition has the whole game rotated 90 degrees, to provide the arcade-accurate vertical screen alignment. Also, the sounds are similar, but clearly different. This video makes it seem like there's yet another version, a home version with horizontal screen alignment. What gives?
One of the best versions I've ever played is on the Atari 8-Bit Computer, not only does it have all four screens, but if you wait before starting the game you also get the intro , it's a very impressive and an amazing bit of programming.
One thing you forgot to mention. Donkey Kong Original Edition was also released on the Nintendo 3DS as part of the Ambassador's Program. This means those who got the 3DS and connected it to the internet early in its lifespan got the game plus 9 other nes games and 10 GBA games (DK original and the GBA games would never see a public release in the eshop)
Sorry, but I think you misremembered that, the game that was given to ambassadors was Donkey Kong Jr. The other 9 were Super Mario Bros., Zelda 1 and 2, Metroid, Wrecking Crew, Balloon Fight, Ice Climber, Mario & Yoshi and NES Open Tournament Golf.
There's a Commodore 64 version too, shipped on Cartridge. I had a copy. (My friend has the cart now, he got all the c64 stuff when I moved out)
Great video! Congratulations on 3k subs! You are one of my favorite UA-cam channels and I wish you much success.
Thank you so much!
What's funny is I have Donkey Kong for The Atari 400/800 Home Computer and it has all 4 levels. But there's a darker back story on DK arcade and why the main cement factory was missing in many game ports and that is the lawsuit between Nintendo and the programmers at Ikegami Tsushinki who was actually programmed the arcade game. And when Nintendo started secretly copying the game's code, they got sued. For a good back story head over to a UA-cam video title 'Nintendo STOLE this game and got sued for $14,000,000' by Thomas Game Docs.
I was in on the Club Nintendo program, and I still have this on my 3DS
You should check out some of the homebrews for the ColecoVision and the 2600. They have pretty much fixed the earlier versions of donkey Kong as well. It's ColecoVision donkey Kong arcade is great.
Thank you for correctly referring to the level as the Cement Factory! It's my pet peeve when people say 'pie factory'... Duh, pies come from bakeries. 😂
While true, there are factories that mass produce baked goods such as pies.
Hear us out...
What if the pies were made of cement?
@@x-fun3149 creament pies 💀
@@mynamehasspacesinit8687 Would make for one hell of a pie fight!
I thought Donkey Kong, the arcade version had 255 screens. I saw it in a movie called the King of Kong.
One screen is called the kill screen since it would randomly crash.
I recommend the Atari 8-bit version which has all four stages and even the intro animation.
The Atari 8-bit computer version has all 4 levels and is the best of the releases of the time. It would have also been on the 5200 console except Coleco had the rights to console ports. Also, it had the intro animation and all fit into a 16K cartridge.
Eh I would say the commodore 64 one was better and also had all the stages.
Exactly what I was missing in this video. You can play it on an Atari XEGS so you can also call it a home console port. To be exact it is a computer port on a console version of a computer. Fair enough 😅
Also someone made a fan port of Donkey Kong for the NES which makes the game display in vertical mode where you have to turn your TV 90 degrees to play it. The arcade is a vertical CRT the NES home version was in horizontal mode.
Also know that Coleco had two versions of Donkey Kong, one for the original ColecoVision and one for the Coleco Adam computer. The Coleco Adam computer version had all four levels but there's a catch, there's three difficulty you had to go through to get to all four levels. There's easy setting which when you first start only had you go to 25mm and 100mm, finish those and the medium setting kicks in sending you back to 25mm then after that 75mm and eventually 100mm again. After you clear 100mm for the second time the game sent you back to 25mm and then eventually 50mm (which is the Cement Factory, level), then 75mm, and eventually 100mm. Note that each difficulty also gets harder as well. Also even though the newer NES version had the Cement Factory level in the game, it's still missing the buy in screen (the screen that says "How High Can You Go?" showing the number meter you're at), this screen was seen on most version of DK including the Game Boy version but was missing from the NES version.
Maybe that's why they released the Mario's Cement Factory Table Top Game. To offer the level in some way.
Only 3.39K subs? The content quality and production is just as good as mrwhosetheboss. Other game tech channels better put on their seatbelts this guys gonna zoom to 10 million subs in no time. Just don't forget about your fans mister!
By the way, great video and congrats on the growth.
Wow, crazy how I just found out about this version's existence a couple weeks ago (from an offhanded comment in a video by a guy named PhantomBane) and all of a sudden there's now this recent video on this obscure version. Used to think for years that the NES version without the 2nd level was the only NES version to exist. I have since played this version now and quite like it.
Anyone noticed how in the japanese ad used in this video the kid very briefly blows into his cartridge before sticking it in the console. AFAIK Nintendo always officially discouraged blowing in cartridges but showing that in the advertisement shows how in touch they were with their user/fanbase back then. Compare that to now when Nintendo kinda seems to hate their own customers seeking out opportunities to disappoint, offend and punish at every corner
This is a great console generation to be an arcade fan. You have got Arcade 1up, Hamster, DotEMU, and several fist party developers releasing arcade collections.
I knew I wasn’t crazy and knew this game existed. I could never find the rom for it though.
According the website "the cutting room floor." The data for the cement/conveyer level is on the original Nintendo cartridge. It simply goes unused. I think they said it was omitted due to time constraints.
They then released Donkey Kong: Original Edition on the 3DS eShop and it's the only NES VC game i bought on the 3DS eShop.
The Donkey Kong Game Boy game from 1994 contains adaptations of all 4 levels (Cement Factory included) of the Original Donkey Kong.
Nintendo needs to make this title available again.
Also, you forgot to mention the theme song that plays when you power up the game menu. The arcade version didn't have that.
Good point. Weird that the DK theme song (used in donkey Kong country) came from the nes game, not the arcade game.
I don't know if you can dig a little deeper, but I thought it was said to have been originally coded this way and then cut out, not that Nintendo 20 years later got some coders to code in the 4th level. They just at the time had to trim it down for various reasons but still had the original untrimmed version.
I love seeing the Famicon laser gun actually looked like a real gun. I can see the U.S. not allowing it picturing a kid waving it around at cars on a freeway. haha!
they also added this newer version on the 3ds virtual console which i brought on release, i was confused when seeing two versions i had no idea the original NES game had missing levels until i started collecting NES games and hardware!
So that’s what happened to the infamous “Pie Factory” stage! Thanks for telling this story!
Nintendo only recently stopped making NES anything. The Donkey Kong for Gameboy was really fun.
I never understood how DK Jr could have four levels but the original couldn't. They were both Famicom launch titles.
This channel is going places, I keep gettin recommendations from the algorithm and every video is a banger.
What a lot of people don't realize is just how OLD the Famicom was by the time the NES was released in the US. The base hardware without any enhancement chips in the cartridges is REALLY limited in terms of both storage capacity and graphical output
Also, I'm wondering if there are any fan projects that ported DK more faithfully to the NES??
The Atari 400/800 has the cement factory and Mario is super fast love that version. This is not a revised game either it came out in 1983.
Very true. I actually did talk about this version in my Atari Keyboard video
The Atari 400/800 Port of Donkey Kong included all 4 stages. I grew up on that version and couldn’t understand why the NES port I played later didn’t include the Pie Stage.
You would still think that it should have been fully portable. I know the arcade was on a Zilog 80 and not the 6502 or NES derivative, but the RAM and ROM availability was there for everything.
The TI-99 version had the cement factory. That's the one I had at home, and it had all levels.
I got the repro cartridge years ago and was wondering how it came about… thanks for the information!
I played the Apple II version as a kid, which had all four levels. What I never realised though was that the character you played as was actually Mario…
The conveyor level was also on the version for the TI 99 4/a. I don't see many youtubers reviewing the Texas Instruments games.
As folks who love Donkey Kong,on the Switch u play Donkey Kong just like I remember in the arcade & it’s not that expensive.
Yes u get all the “Cut Scenes” & all 4 levels!
I’ve noticed that the Arcade Japanese version of Donkey Kong has all 4 stages but the US arcade version has 3 stages.
You should do a video on video game terminology. (Control deck, system, machine, console, dpad ect..) Though I'm sure it would be quite an undertaking
I'm kind of upset that I never knew the 4th level LOL. But then again we never got the full game at home.. until like 5 consoles later
Ah yes im glad to hear a game thats 40 years old get an update
You failed to mention that the Atari XE game system DID feature all FOUR levels from the arcade version. They did flip the first level but all four are there.
I've had this rom with the updated version for about 10 years +. Thank goodness! Thanks internet! lol
If I remember correctly the arcade rom of Donkey Kong is around 17KB so 32KB would have given possibly more data to work with.
didnt know about this one...gotta buy a repro cartridge
This game actually works on real NES hardware, too-the ROM is available on Vimm’s Lair and can be run on real hardware via an Everdrive cartridge (similar deal with Sega SG-1000 games; they work on the Master System hardware if you download the ROMS to a flashcart)
Cement? I always thought it was pie.
Damnit, my life is a lie!
I just recently stumbled on this channel, and glad I did 👍
Having said that, Nintendo is a company I have a big love/hate relationship with, as many of their games have brought me some of my most fond gaming memories over the past 42 years of my life, and I thank them for that, but I also feel that Nintendo many times over the years has given it's western consumers the big shaft up the backside by not releasing things like this here, among some of their other notorious practices I think we all know about lol!