Gary Kitchen had about 3 months to write 2600 DK, he needed a year. He had 4,096 bytes of memory in which to store all of the code, graphics and sound effects. In addition,he had 128 bytes of RAM memory to keep track of everything. The 2600 was limited to displaying two (2) sprites (animating, moving characters), plus one (1) ball and two (2) missiles. The ball and missiles were simple square/rectangle projectile objects while the two sprites were 8-bits wide, with the ability to display rudimentary animation frames. The Donkey Kong arcade machine, was capable of displaying “128 foreground sprites at 16x16 pixels each.” In addition to the limitation on the number of objects on the screen, due to memory constraints, the Atari 2600 was limited to displaying unique background graphics for only 1/2 of the screen. So the right side of the screen could only display a copy or a reflection of the left side of the screen. Since the iconic slanted ramps of Donkey Kong are non-symmetrical in nature,he had to come up with a way to “work around” the hardware to achieve the slanted ramps.
When Donkey Kong was available for the Coleco. The story for it was amazing... Former President of Nintendo of America, Minoru Arakawa said once that they gave a second chance with Coleco on the deal with Donkey Kong. So one of of its representatives was actually begging , pleading, pouting to the point that Nintendo gave it to them out of sympathy...They figured if any man did this for a video game, it had to be that good. Anthony..
I think part of what makes Donkey Kong such a timeless classic is it's randomness factor. No enemy truely behaves a set way and are quite erratic in their movement which can often catch the player off guard. Same thing with the barrels in how the rate at which Donkey Kong tosses them out and whether they go down a ladder or not is also completely random. This ensures that no two games will play quite the same and it makes for endless replayability. It truely is a brilliantly concieved game. Great episode and one that I have heavilly anticipated.
Our parents bought my brother and I a Colecovision in 1982, and we loved the port of DK. We discovered a trick for it too. If you climb the first ladder half way, climb down, move 2 small steps to the left, then jump to the right and you will jump right through the floor and land on the next board! Oh, and to make this port play better, while climbing the ladders, stop after only a couple of steps then dumb the rest of the way. You will climb at twice the speed! It feels much closer to the arcade this way too.
Great video,thanks for taking me bk to my youth.In 1981 I graduated HS,and me and a friend used to go down to this pub,every weekend with rolls of quarters,I’m taking about $50 total,and use them for 2 games,one was Zaxxon and the other was Donkey Kong.We used Togo threw pitchers of beer and play those 2 games all night. Thanks again brings back some good ol memories 🙂🙂
There's a NES/Famicom version with all four stages, it was released as a digital game inside the Mario 25th Anniversary red Wiis, and nowadays can be found around the net to play in any NES emulator.
C+VG seemed absolutely shocked when Ocean released the C64/ZX SPECTRUM abd Amstrad CPC conversions. Claiming Ocean must of been hard-up for original software, they didn't know Ocean released it, Kong games were older than the C64 and should be left in peace.
Had the 8 bit atari computer version as a kid. Absolutely loved it. I'd never heard of Donkey Kong when I got it, but when I loaded it up, I recognised Mario immediately. One of my earliest memories of getting hooked on a game (along with "Mountain King" and "Oh Mummy") What a trip down memory lane!
The Atarisoft port for the C64 does have all 4 boards. They follow the US progression though. You won't see all four until DK is felled two times and you're on your third go around.
My favorite port that I had was the Atari 8-bit version. Had all 4 stages in the US order and very responsive controls. Ironically the programmer hated the arcade version so I guess he added some improvements... :)
For the US C64 version, you may have only seen 2 screens because it's emulating the US arcade stage order. A japan game does 1, 2, 3, 4, but the US version does something more akin to 1, 4, 1, 2, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.
Nes version has 2 version released The original (and plus with donkey kong junior pack) And the aniversary edition with a aditional level, the pie factory, and new animations
Might be the first, and maybe only time that I can say the Amstrad CPC had the closest to arcade perfect port of an aracde game for its time (the Ocean C64 version also comes pretty close but I think the richer colour pallette the CPC has just edges it for me). Arcana Software are a name I had never heard of and sadly they seem to of not made a huge amount of games, but they certainly showed some talent here.
I played this so much on my 2400 and my C64. I love this game and it’s fun to see all the different versions. It’s still strange to me that Nintendo didn’t include every level on the NES
About the DOS version: it was one of many games (like Ms. Pac-Man, Burgertime, Lock'n'Chase, and a few others) ported to DOS that only had full colour via CGA-composite out. Shame the C64 Ocean version is PAL-only on cassette, like the version of Xevious I imported years ago. Also to note: only AtariSoft's ports (which included the Atari 8-bit computers) and the ADAM port follow the US level setup. The ColecoVision port does its own thing, and every other port follows the Japanese one. Even the bonus version of the arcace game in DK64 follos the Japanese level setup. Plus, AtariSoft's ports were never optimized for PAL systems. Just NTSC. In fact, I think a lot if not ALL cartridge games for the C64 were primarily NTSC speed. Lastly, Europe originally got a special version of the NES port with "Original Edition" in the title on the Wii and 3DS Virtual Console, which added back the conveyor belt level. I believe since, it is now on the 3DS VC worldwide.
What is amazing and/or baffling about the "original edition" is that the cement factory level was hacked in by someone at Nintendo who had access to the original source code.
No, the arcade version was. He meant that the original Famicom and NES carts did not have that level in it. Nor did it have the animation of DK grabbing Pauline and climbing up the dual ladders at the top of every level but the rivets one.
Notice how it was always the Pie Facfory level that was getting the axe. Shame, it's the best level, really. Also, DK looks legit terrifying on MS-DOS.
My main version of Donkey Kong was the Atari 400/800 version (there was also an Atari XEGS re-release, but I don't know if it changed anything). Looks fine, plays well, and has all four stages. I logged many hours into that little game.
I think the reason why all stages weren't included in the NES/FC port was because of hardware limitations. Nintendo actually made an updated version of the NES port that included the pie factory stage around 2010, but it has considerable flicker in areas and is missing items (possibly to avoid more flicker), plus, Donkey Kong doesn't scroll independently (assuming he's a background layer).
I remember at one point seeing copies of the Atari 7800 version of Donkey Kong being sold at a dollar store around 1990! That was how bad that console bombed!
The 7800 never really had a chance. Atari planned to release it much earlier, but the video game crash and Jack Trameil's takeover of Atari derailed those plans. Once Nintendo revived the US video game market, Atari dumped the 7800 into stores with no promotion. After seeing the 7800 previewed in magazines, it just seemed to disappear and I figured that it was never finished. Then a year or two later, I was surprised to see the system for sale in a local toy store for about $80. I hadn't heard anything more about it up until that moment. I bought a used one a few years later along with a few games. It's a decent system and would have been a nice upgrade to the 5200.
Well, most of them. Some models of the 7800 had problems with a few games. I recall Robot Tank was one. Those models also didn't work with the Starpath Supercharger. I lucked out and got a fully compatible one. They were also notorious for having a non-standard power connector. Some people replaced it with a more common connector.
I remember Atari tried to push the 7800 in the U around 1988. Even as a kid I was like "Who'd by that crap when you could have a Master System or NES". And we were looking at Mega Drive and PC Engine previews in magazines then too.
+Retro Core - I bought a used one because I'd wanted one ever since seeing the preview images in Electronic Games magazine a couple years before. It turns out that they were artistic mockups, but they looked realistic enough that I thought they might be real screenshots. The actual games looked slightly different, but not that far off. To be honest, I wasn't that crazy over the look of NES games and the SMS seemed to be losing ground. Plus, I didn't really give them much consideration after a few early play sessions with the NES where I found the left-handed gamepads completely unusable. When the later 16-bit systems came out, I liked the look of the games, but never actually wanted to own the consoles specifically because of the controls. To this day, I hate gamepads, and dual analog controllers only rate slightly higher in my opinion. Even then, I can't play a platform game or scrolling shooter if I'm forced to use the left analog stick (which is the default on virtually everything). I can mostly guide characters around in 3D and steer vehicles in racing games, but I still do much better using my right hand.
Nintendo themselves did release 'Donkey Kong Original Edition' as an updated NES/famicom ROM containing all four stages. Also, I think the Atarisoft port for the C64 isn't correctly optimized for PAL. It runs correctly on NTSC machines, or at the very least it isn't like walking in molasses.
Yeah I'm sure it's meant to run faster over here on our machines. You can't just have NTSC-programmed C64 titles run on 50hz and take it for what it is.
Indeed, I tried this via emulation and with NTSC settings the game moves noticably faster. So... the Atari version is acceptable on an NTSC machine and Ocean provided a good version for PAL machines.
I know my brother had copied floppies of several Elite Systems titles and I thought their port of Paperboy went by very breezy over here, yet whenever I see playthroughs on YT, it's the other way around and it's hard wrapping my brain around that!
It's funny that, for the C64, since it was so popular in Europe and Australia, PAL mostly became the "standard". That's why, for example, a lot of "PAL people" feel, that the title music for Skate or Die, when played at the correct NTSC speed is just too fast! But this also meant that, since the NES was far less popular in Europe than in the US and Japan, most games were not optimized for that system and simply run too slow and can be "squashed" looking, because of the unused extra imagelines that a PAL display has. Even Sonic for the Mega Drive wasn't optimized. Again, you immediately notice this by the music. That's why I actually play on imported NTSC consoles 98% of the time, for the 8 and 16 bit generations. At least SCART was also standard over here, so RGB output is easier to achieve.
The US ports generally had a level arrangement of 1-4-1-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 etc. The Apple ][ version, at least, does have all 4 stages, but you won't see the "pie factory" until you hit level 3.
I've always heard the US version as being more difficult. It doesn't allow you to learn stage 2 and stage 3 at an easier difficulty and instead throws them at you at a faster pace when you first visit them. Also, the final loop that repeats is actually 1-2-1-3-1-4 not 1-2-3-4 so you have more chances to get killed by the wild zig-zagging barrels on the barrel stages (which can be impossible to dodge sometimes).
I have that version as well. If you play it in a Super Game Boy for the SNES, you get 16-bit sound to complement it as well as color. Pauline actually says "Help, Help!"
@Dokan right? That was the first I ever played and was disappointed when I tried the original years later. I was really looking forward to this video conceding that '94, despite it being in black and white, is the far superior version. Still a great video.
Great video! I always like to see discussions of arcade ports, and finally someone acknowledges how horrendous the Spectrum and MSX ports were. Every time people complain about the 2600 and Intellivision ports, they treat them like the worst ports created. They're bad, but the Spectrum and MSX versions are damn near unplayable. TI-99/4A and Vic 20 versions are underrated, though, glad to see them acknowledged here as well.
2:30 - Wait, what happened there? Amstrad version was really good, it showed this computer is capable of much more, than crappy Spectrum ports. My personal favorite version is Gameboy one :)
Retro Core it actually isn't; Nintendo don't actually have the rights to the original arcade code, and comparing the binaries of the DK64 version shows that it was built from scratch. Also, the missing board in the Famicom version was hacked back in some much more recent versions.
Great video! One correction: The non-Colecovision versions of Donkey Kong being "deliberately" bad is an urban legend, not fact. The accepted answer is that inexperienced programmers rushed those versions to market. It cost a LOT of money to produce and market games; there would be no point in intentionally gimping a product for existing consoles since it would just lose money. If Coleco had really wanted to use Donkey Kong to sell consoles, they would have simply never developed it for the other consoles, and made Donkey Kong a Colecovision exclusive.
Do I really have to say anything about this timeless classic Mark? 8^) Well okay..my personal favorite is on the Colecovision. Amazing port of a game that is and its also my families favorite version as well. Well done bro. Keep up the great work. Anthony.
It's amazing how Coleco got away with what they did with Donkey Kong back then. I doubt companies could do that these days. Oh, how times have changed.
This is one of the greatest BoP shows, will be a classic indeed. I didn't expect a TI99 port, now makes me wonder how other games for that computer will be, never put much attention to that system. Also I'm interested now in those game watch games, hehe. Great video man, as always.
Game & Watch Donkey Kong was my 1st handheld. When I was ~11 I use to sneak it into school. I believe the best knock-off version of Donkey Kong was Donkey King aka The King on the Dragon 32, also available for the TRS80 Coco. Play it in B&W Pmode 4 for best visuals.
From the start of the US C64 version the theme sounds just like the arcade. It made me think everything will sound like the arcade. But I was wrong..I wish the NES version. Would sound just like the arcade as much as it looks.
That MS DOS Donkey Kong is the fuel stuff for nightmares................. And the VIC-20 looks like... yeah, let's not talk about that one... And the MSX one looks like a Wampa! And the fuck with the music on the 7800! The guy was high or what?? WHAT ART THOU THINKING!
@@RetroCore I’m going for a specific ocean commedore 64 version instead of Sinclair spectrum. Unless how bad the Sinclair port of which company’s version it is. But Amstrad saves the day for me
Retro Core, I don't think the C64 Ocean/Arcana version is a UK exclusive but most probably a European or PAL territories exclusive. It was reviewed by the Italian version of Zzap! magazine so it was most probably officially released in continental Europe too. The MSX version is really a shame, they could have used the Coleco version as a reference (same hardware) but they went for the ZX Spectrum route once again!
Ah, you are probably right with the Ocean published version being a European exclusive rather than a UK exclusive. I wonder which version they got in Australia? It is a shame about the MSX port. That could have been much better than the garbage with received. Still, at least it's better than the ZX Spectrum version. That's the worst of all.
I'd have to say that the best console versions were Amstrad and Famicom (No surprise there). The Apple II is inexcusably bad, considering it is a "proper" computer and everything. But, it just goes to show that the capabilities of the system being programmed for are only part of the equation: It also largely comes down to the ingenuity of the programmer (Look at the difference between Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man on the Atari 2600, for example).
That Apple II port...holy crap, you just knew it was'nt gonna workout once you saw the artwork on the main menu Lol. Great super timing with this one as I just got into a recent Donkey Kong "revisit" kick for ports of the arcade original. I know there were two DK carts released for the U.S Nes that offered the arcade original if memory serves, of course I'm sure they both had the same roms. Then the same port again released to the GbA SP "Nes Classics" linup which also came as a free optional pack-in with the purchase of a GameCube at GameStop/EB Software a while back...still kept mine. Great great vid as usual.
Thanks for the comment, Turbo Gear 777. You are right about Nintendo re-releasing an updated version of Donkey Kong for the NES. I didn't know about that at the time of making the video but if I did I would have surely added it.
why is it that no one seems to comment on how pauline seems to just stand there with her hands hands in her pockets waiting impatiently to be rescued in the colecovision version. also don't even get me started on the stick figure in the msx and zx spectrum version
Wow, now that is an unexpected episode from "Battle of the Ports"! I'm not really a big fan of this game (I don't find much appeal to it) and the muffled audio pisses me off so much. Other than that, very well made video, Yakumo! :) Also that jump sound effect on the Atari 2600 version seems to be iconic when it comes to TV shows using it.
Yeah, the original game has a very low sample rate for the audio. sounds awful but then again it is a 1981 arcade so I'll let it pass. I'm not a big fan of the game myself either. I'd rather play pacman but still, it is one of the classic originators.
Now I understand why the audio is muffled. Thanks for clearing that up and yeah, something about the controls really make me hate this game. What's also odd is that Universal sued Nintendo because of "Donkey Kong" being pretty much "King Kong". The Gaming Historian has covered it before but I forgot what it was. I was like, "WTF?!".
Trust me, it sounded better in the arcade cabinet which added the bass to it. I don't mind it in MAME since i use my headphones to add the same type of bass anyway.
It really is Mark. It's in the book, The Ultimate History of Video Games. Great book by Steven L. Kent that they talk about it. I think you like it. 8^) Anthony..
I remember playing that version as a kid. The cart included the Donkey Kong Jr game too and I always thought that it was just 3 stages until years later.
MeebleMeeble huh are you serious ,did nintendo had to pay ikegamu extra royalty’s in case they wanted to include the pie factory level in the famicom port? That’s insane ,that’s like buying parts of a game in the playstore or appstore and then paying micro transactions to buy all sections of the game, i just always tout that nintendo couldn’t fit all levels on the cart due running out of space and lack of bankswitchting at the time,,am mean how could it be that the 2 C64 versions of it from hudson soft & ocean are in complete form ,, that’s beyond me.
Yeah that is true. But it isn't the newest version of Donkey Kong. The newest version is the GBA's NES Classics version or Famicom Classics in Japan, which came out I believe like 10 years after the Game Boy version in 2004. New levels, stages, and a final boss with a shocking ending. Truly the superior version.
The Coleco Adam had more or less the same hardware as the Colecovision , I suspect the improvements were mainly from the extra RAM and storage space Also , pink Donkey Kong on the PC just looks wrong , CGA had an option for warmer colours which would have fit the game much better, maybe it was one of those composite games
there were a bunch of other arcade conversions with the same "feature", like Tapper for instance. of course it still wasn't anywhere near as colourful as the arcade (and the composite video isn't nearly as sharp as what you would get on an IBM CGA monitor), but it was certainly an improvement , at least visually. of course , most PCs sold at the time weren't really capable of running any version of the game ,since the PC typically came bundled with an MDA graphics card which was only capable of monochrome text at a decent res (great for office work , but obviously useless for games)
It may be able to do better but we're talking Atari here. They were also behind some of the worst computer ports including the Apple 2 and DOS versions.
Haha! A great BotP episode just for the 'feedback' on the ZX Spectrum version. Standards were generally pretty low for home ports in those days, not that it excuses an effort as poor as the Spectrum version.
The issues with not having all the levels on the console ports was simply down to the cost of Roms. Back in the day Rom chips cost a fortune, and having to double the size of a Rom chip for the sake of a single level, over more profit was an easy but wrong decision for game manufactures.
Next time you play the ColecoVision port of Donkey Kong, try this. When you climb up the ladder, move the joystick up twice. That'll speed Mario up! I learned this without knowing it as a 6 year old!
+Retro Core I just wish that I had a video camera in the 80's I went to arcades all the time and did alot of Skateboarding I just wish that I had footage of the hobbies that I did as a Teen
Ah, the days when a crappy VHS camera was considered to be amazing and they cost an awful lot of money. I. Remember filming my first trip to Japan in 1997 with a Sony VHS-C camera that couldn't focus and had a broken viewfinder. I still thought it was amazing. How far we've come in the past 20 years.
@@RetroCore It's exactly the same as the NES original version, although while it's arcade perfect, it does suffer from annoying flicker on Pauline and the barrels that Donkey Kong himself tried to roll down on every platform.
The game borderlands 2 had an enemy based on donkey kong as one of it's many ...many... easter eggs. It was called donkey mong, and like dk and the enemy type it comes from, it throws stuff too
What was with some of the godawful renditions of Donkey Kong himself? TI-99/4A: Looks constipated Apple II: Some monstrosity in earmuffs? MS-DOS: Did ol' DK get possessed by a demon? MSX / Spectrum: GAAAAAHHH KILL IT
Probably others mentioned already but in Donkey Kong 64 there is a port of the arcade version and apparently is not emulation since until recently (for the Switch) Nintendo didn't have the rights to do a direct emulation of the arcade version, and thankfully the DK64 version is almost arcade perfect. Unfortunately you have to play trough a huge part of the game to unlock it and is not really a "bonus" since you have to beat it twice with one life to beat the game
Corrections: C64 (Atarisoft): Look at Pauline, why the heck he says "1103!". He supposed to say "Help!", not numbers. MSX: In the cutscene, DK looks normal, but in gameplay, he looks terrible! DK in gameplay is same with cutscene but missing color for body parts. Also, Pauline only shows his legs and not entire body ZX Spectrum: It looks same with MSX version but looks more crappier. Like in MSX version, Pauline also only shows legs.
The sound effects for Donkey Kong on the Atari 2600 have become some of the most iconic sound effects in all of media
Gary Kitchen had about 3 months to write 2600 DK, he needed a year.
He had 4,096 bytes of memory in which to store all of the code, graphics and sound effects. In addition,he had 128 bytes of RAM memory to keep track of everything.
The 2600 was limited to displaying two (2) sprites (animating, moving characters), plus one (1) ball and two (2) missiles. The ball and missiles were simple square/rectangle projectile objects while the two sprites were 8-bits wide, with the ability to display rudimentary animation frames.
The Donkey Kong arcade machine, was capable of displaying “128 foreground sprites at 16x16 pixels each.”
In addition to the limitation on the number of objects on the screen, due to memory constraints, the Atari 2600 was limited to displaying unique background graphics for only 1/2 of the screen. So the right side of the screen could only display a copy or a reflection of the left side of the screen. Since the iconic slanted ramps of Donkey Kong are non-symmetrical in nature,he had to come up with a way to “work around” the hardware to achieve the slanted ramps.
The 2600 version is one of the first video games I EVER PLAYED
When Donkey Kong was available for the Coleco. The story for it was amazing...
Former President of Nintendo of America, Minoru Arakawa said once that they gave a second chance with Coleco on the deal with Donkey Kong. So one of of its representatives was actually begging , pleading, pouting to the point that Nintendo gave it to them out of sympathy...They figured if any man did this for a video game, it had to be that good.
Anthony..
Now I never knew that. Pretty interesting.
When playing on the Colecovision, press up twice on the ladders and you will climb faster!
Handy hint. 👍
You sound always so calm that I couldn't stop laughing when you talked about the Sinclair version, was too unexpected XD.
I think part of what makes Donkey Kong such a timeless classic is it's randomness factor. No enemy truely behaves a set way and are quite erratic in their movement which can often catch the player off guard. Same thing with the barrels in how the rate at which Donkey Kong tosses them out and whether they go down a ladder or not is also completely random. This ensures that no two games will play quite the same and it makes for endless replayability. It truely is a brilliantly concieved game.
Great episode and one that I have heavilly anticipated.
Our parents bought my brother and I a Colecovision in 1982, and we loved the port of DK.
We discovered a trick for it too. If you climb the first ladder half way, climb down, move 2 small steps to the left, then jump to the right and you will jump right through the floor and land on the next board!
Oh, and to make this port play better, while climbing the ladders, stop after only a couple of steps then dumb the rest of the way. You will climb at twice the speed! It feels much closer to the arcade this way too.
wow, you were a game breaker at such an early age :) Nice info on the game playing tip too.
that sinclair zx port sounded like death on startup
That's the part I laughed at! 😂
Sounds like a PC crashing.
I'll still never get over how DK in the Atari 2600 version looks like an evil Poop Monster
SeafoamGaming I'll never forget how he looks like a boogerman in the Intellivision port
Hooray for the Amstrad CPC!!
I wonder who coded it. Do you prefer Donkey Kong or Killer Gorilla on your Amstrad. Both good versions
Cpc I got that emulator on steam too
My grandmother actually had donkey kong on game & watch and she was amazing at it.
Nice. My wife had one too. Ironically she hates games now.
Great video,thanks for taking me bk to my youth.In 1981 I graduated HS,and me and a friend used to go down to this pub,every weekend with rolls of quarters,I’m taking about $50 total,and use them for 2 games,one was Zaxxon and the other was Donkey Kong.We used Togo threw pitchers of beer and play those 2 games all night. Thanks again brings back some good ol memories 🙂🙂
Wow, cool. In 1981 I was only 6 :(
The obvious off key music in some of these ports is hilarious.
you said it. It's not even a complicated jingle to get right.
It's kinda bizzare that the sound effect of Atari 2600 port of Donkey Kong has become a public domain stock sound effect
There's a NES/Famicom version with all four stages, it was released as a digital game inside the Mario 25th Anniversary red Wiis, and nowadays can be found around the net to play in any NES emulator.
It's Donkey Kong "Original Edition".
It's available to download from the 3DS Virtual Console and it STILL isn't arcade-perfect.
I had the played 2600 port as a kid. My neighbor had the ColecoVision port and I thought how unjust the world was!
I can sure see that with the 2600 version looking so ugly.
C+VG seemed absolutely shocked when Ocean released the C64/ZX SPECTRUM abd Amstrad CPC conversions.
Claiming Ocean must of been hard-up for original software, they didn't know Ocean released it, Kong games were older than the C64 and should be left in peace.
Had the 8 bit atari computer version as a kid.
Absolutely loved it. I'd never heard of Donkey Kong when I got it, but when I loaded it up, I recognised Mario immediately.
One of my earliest memories of getting hooked on a game (along with "Mountain King" and "Oh Mummy")
What a trip down memory lane!
Oh, it's on. It's on like...uh...-snaps fingers-...Defender! Yeah, that's the ticket!
The Atarisoft port for the C64 does have all 4 boards. They follow the US progression though. You won't see all four until DK is felled two times and you're on your third go around.
ah, I see. that would explain why I never got to see them all. I gave up after the 2nd loop.
You can play all 4 stages by choosing correct difficulty (1-5).
1 - stages 1,4
2 - stages 1,3,4
3 - stages 1,2,3,4
4 - stages 1,2,1,3,4
5 - stages 1,2,1,3,1,4
Donkey Kong in the DOS version looks like Lotso the Bear from Toy Story 3. >__>
haha, now that you mention it, he does :)
More like Sully from Monsters Inc. ;)
MistaMaddog247 That's the first thing I thought, especially with the CGA pallette
I though it looked like the Pink Demon from Doom
@@RetroCore there is champs Kong which kinda looks better in ms dos but I had to use dosbox on steam which should support Japanese dos games too.
Mario's face in the Armstrad opening screen is the stuff of nightmares... yiiishh...
This is an awesome game I grow up with the famicom version
My favorite port that I had was the Atari 8-bit version. Had all 4 stages in the US order and very responsive controls. Ironically the programmer hated the arcade version so I guess he added some improvements... :)
I read about that too. Ironic how he made the best version, even better than the arcade.
For the US C64 version, you may have only seen 2 screens because it's emulating the US arcade stage order. A japan game does 1, 2, 3, 4, but the US version does something more akin to 1, 4, 1, 2, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4.
That is probably why I didn't see all the stages.
More like 14 134 1234 12134 121314
Nes version has 2 version released
The original (and plus with donkey kong junior pack)
And the aniversary edition with a aditional level, the pie factory, and new animations
Pleaee tell us more. Do you have links to these games?
At least Pauline wasn't given some generic term a la Johnny Hart's "B.C" like Cute Chick!
To fix the Mario climbing too slow problem you have to double tap up to make him climb faster.
Might be the first, and maybe only time that I can say the Amstrad CPC had the closest to arcade perfect port of an aracde game for its time (the Ocean C64 version also comes pretty close but I think the richer colour pallette the CPC has just edges it for me). Arcana Software are a name I had never heard of and sadly they seem to of not made a huge amount of games, but they certainly showed some talent here.
Donkey Kong is the best game of all time, its have many port even until these days in modern console
I grew up with the (awesome) cpc port. Thanks for showing the nice title screen. :D
I played this so much on my 2400 and my C64. I love this game and it’s fun to see all the different versions. It’s still strange to me that Nintendo didn’t include every level on the NES
About the DOS version: it was one of many games (like Ms. Pac-Man, Burgertime, Lock'n'Chase, and a few others) ported to DOS that only had full colour via CGA-composite out.
Shame the C64 Ocean version is PAL-only on cassette, like the version of Xevious I imported years ago.
Also to note: only AtariSoft's ports (which included the Atari 8-bit computers) and the ADAM port follow the US level setup. The ColecoVision port does its own thing, and every other port follows the Japanese one. Even the bonus version of the arcace game in DK64 follos the Japanese level setup. Plus, AtariSoft's ports were never optimized for PAL systems. Just NTSC. In fact, I think a lot if not ALL cartridge games for the C64 were primarily NTSC speed.
Lastly, Europe originally got a special version of the NES port with "Original Edition" in the title on the Wii and 3DS Virtual Console, which added back the conveyor belt level. I believe since, it is now on the 3DS VC worldwide.
Some good info there. thanks NightSprinter.
What is amazing and/or baffling about the "original edition" is that the cement factory level was hacked in by someone at Nintendo who had access to the original source code.
What do you mean, Laser Ghost? The arcade version was not supposed to have the "cement factory" level in it?
No, the arcade version was. He meant that the original Famicom and NES carts did not have that level in it. Nor did it have the animation of DK grabbing Pauline and climbing up the dual ladders at the top of every level but the rivets one.
Ohh, dude!! That's some awesome information!
Who would've thought at the time that Donkey Kong would've been as popular as Mario.
Notice how it was always the Pie Facfory level that was getting the axe. Shame, it's the best level, really.
Also, DK looks legit terrifying on MS-DOS.
I reckon the pie level was probably the most taxing to program.
My main version of Donkey Kong was the Atari 400/800 version (there was also an Atari XEGS re-release, but I don't know if it changed anything). Looks fine, plays well, and has all four stages. I logged many hours into that little game.
I think the reason why all stages weren't included in the NES/FC port was because of hardware limitations. Nintendo actually made an updated version of the NES port that included the pie factory stage around 2010, but it has considerable flicker in areas and is missing items (possibly to avoid more flicker), plus, Donkey Kong doesn't scroll independently (assuming he's a background layer).
You could be right with that idea.
I remember at one point seeing copies of the Atari 7800 version of Donkey Kong being sold at a dollar store around 1990! That was how bad that console bombed!
The 7800 never really had a chance. Atari planned to release it much earlier, but the video game crash and Jack Trameil's takeover of Atari derailed those plans. Once Nintendo revived the US video game market, Atari dumped the 7800 into stores with no promotion. After seeing the 7800 previewed in magazines, it just seemed to disappear and I figured that it was never finished. Then a year or two later, I was surprised to see the system for sale in a local toy store for about $80. I hadn't heard anything more about it up until that moment.
I bought a used one a few years later along with a few games. It's a decent system and would have been a nice upgrade to the 5200.
At least you could play your 2600 carts with it.
Well, most of them. Some models of the 7800 had problems with a few games. I recall Robot Tank was one. Those models also didn't work with the Starpath Supercharger. I lucked out and got a fully compatible one.
They were also notorious for having a non-standard power connector. Some people replaced it with a more common connector.
I remember Atari tried to push the 7800 in the U around 1988. Even as a kid I was like "Who'd by that crap when you could have a Master System or NES". And we were looking at Mega Drive and PC Engine previews in magazines then too.
+Retro Core - I bought a used one because I'd wanted one ever since seeing the preview images in Electronic Games magazine a couple years before. It turns out that they were artistic mockups, but they looked realistic enough that I thought they might be real screenshots.
The actual games looked slightly different, but not that far off.
To be honest, I wasn't that crazy over the look of NES games and the SMS seemed to be losing ground. Plus, I didn't really give them much consideration after a few early play sessions with the NES where I found the left-handed gamepads completely unusable. When the later 16-bit systems came out, I liked the look of the games, but never actually wanted to own the consoles specifically because of the controls.
To this day, I hate gamepads, and dual analog controllers only rate slightly higher in my opinion. Even then, I can't play a platform game or scrolling shooter if I'm forced to use the left analog stick (which is the default on virtually everything). I can mostly guide characters around in 3D and steer vehicles in racing games, but I still do much better using my right hand.
Nintendo themselves did release 'Donkey Kong Original Edition' as an updated NES/famicom ROM containing all four stages. Also, I think the Atarisoft port for the C64 isn't correctly optimized for PAL. It runs correctly on NTSC machines, or at the very least it isn't like walking in molasses.
Yeah I'm sure it's meant to run faster over here on our machines. You can't just have NTSC-programmed C64 titles run on 50hz and take it for what it is.
Indeed, I tried this via emulation and with NTSC settings the game moves noticably faster. So... the Atari version is acceptable on an NTSC machine and Ocean provided a good version for PAL machines.
Nice to know.
I know my brother had copied floppies of several Elite Systems titles and I thought their port of Paperboy went by very breezy over here, yet whenever I see playthroughs on YT, it's the other way around and it's hard wrapping my brain around that!
It's funny that, for the C64, since it was so popular in Europe and Australia, PAL mostly became the "standard".
That's why, for example, a lot of "PAL people" feel, that the title music for Skate or Die, when played at the correct NTSC speed is just too fast!
But this also meant that, since the NES was far less popular in Europe than in the US and Japan, most games were not optimized for that system and simply run too slow and can be "squashed" looking, because of the unused extra imagelines that a PAL display has.
Even Sonic for the Mega Drive wasn't optimized. Again, you immediately notice this by the music. That's why I actually play on imported NTSC consoles 98% of the time, for the 8 and 16 bit generations.
At least SCART was also standard over here, so RGB output is easier to achieve.
Whoa, calm down on the Spectrum port. You started sounding like Avgn lol
Hehe, sorry. 😁
No he's not, AVGN has uncensored cursing
The US ports generally had a level arrangement of 1-4-1-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 etc. The Apple ][ version, at least, does have all 4 stages, but you won't see the "pie factory" until you hit level 3.
I wonder why they changed the level set up for the US version?
Retro Core Easier progess for American children.
I've always heard the US version as being more difficult. It doesn't allow you to learn stage 2 and stage 3 at an easier difficulty and instead throws them at you at a faster pace when you first visit them. Also, the final loop that repeats is actually 1-2-1-3-1-4 not 1-2-3-4 so you have more chances to get killed by the wild zig-zagging barrels on the barrel stages (which can be impossible to dodge sometimes).
Great game. I do love the 1994 gameboy remake tho it’s fantastic.
What about Donkey Kong '94 for GB?
Sure it is a different game, but it contains all four arcade stages.
Anyway, great video as always!
I have that version as well. If you play it in a Super Game Boy for the SNES, you get 16-bit sound to complement it as well as color. Pauline actually says "Help, Help!"
That isn't a port. More like a direct sequel.
@Dokan right? That was the first I ever played and was disappointed when I tried the original years later. I was really looking forward to this video conceding that '94, despite it being in black and white, is the far superior version. Still a great video.
“Danky Kang” rembervthat famous gameshow answer?
Great video! I always like to see discussions of arcade ports, and finally someone acknowledges how horrendous the Spectrum and MSX ports were. Every time people complain about the 2600 and Intellivision ports, they treat them like the worst ports created. They're bad, but the Spectrum and MSX versions are damn near unplayable. TI-99/4A and Vic 20 versions are underrated, though, glad to see them acknowledged here as well.
I have no nostalgia for many of the old machines so I tend to just say it how it is. 👍
2:30 - Wait, what happened there? Amstrad version was really good, it showed this computer is capable of much more, than crappy Spectrum ports. My personal favorite version is Gameboy one :)
Yeah, the Amstrad is a capable system but it was never really used.
Ah, the GB Donkey Kong is good but maybe not for this video since It's not a port.
And of course there was the version in Donkey Kong 64...which is the same as the Arcade version.
Yeah, I didn't add that because it's just an emulation of the arcade ROM. same goes with the GBA release being an emulation of the NES original.
Retro Core it actually isn't; Nintendo don't actually have the rights to the original arcade code, and comparing the binaries of the DK64 version shows that it was built from scratch.
Also, the missing board in the Famicom version was hacked back in some much more recent versions.
Does this mean we'll get an update, maybe perhaps, hm hm!
Great video! One correction: The non-Colecovision versions of Donkey Kong being "deliberately" bad is an urban legend, not fact. The accepted answer is that inexperienced programmers rushed those versions to market. It cost a LOT of money to produce and market games; there would be no point in intentionally gimping a product for existing consoles since it would just lose money. If Coleco had really wanted to use Donkey Kong to sell consoles, they would have simply never developed it for the other consoles, and made Donkey Kong a Colecovision exclusive.
They were also outsourced so it's not like Coleco even really made them at all.
Rushing is *UN*intentionally gimping. Nobody wanted to produce a bad game, but they did due to inexperience and being rushed.
"Amstrad CPC ... sounds good"
So wet fart soundtrack sounds good?
Yeah, farts can be amusing.
When you talked about the ZX spectrum version I really laughed.
Do I really have to say anything about this timeless classic Mark? 8^)
Well okay..my personal favorite is on the Colecovision. Amazing port of a game that is and its also my families favorite version as well.
Well done bro. Keep up the great work.
Anthony.
It's amazing how Coleco got away with what they did with Donkey Kong back then. I doubt companies could do that these days. Oh, how times have changed.
wow that's doozie of an episode! I'm glad you put the Game & Watch version at the end, I played the hell out of that thing as a kid :)
This is one of the greatest BoP shows, will be a classic indeed. I didn't expect a TI99 port, now makes me wonder how other games for that computer will be, never put much attention to that system. Also I'm interested now in those game watch games, hehe. Great video man, as always.
Thanks for the comment, Lenardo. I was also surprised to know there was a TI99 port. In fact I've also never paid much attention to that machine.
Game & Watch Donkey Kong was my 1st handheld. When I was ~11 I use to sneak it into school.
I believe the best knock-off version of Donkey Kong was Donkey King aka The King on the Dragon 32, also available for the TRS80 Coco. Play it in B&W Pmode 4 for best visuals.
I had the game & watch version of Donkey Kong when I was a little boy. That was so fun!
The Game & Watch Donkey Kong was something I always wanted but never did get it. I ended up with Sqish.
So simple... and so... amazing.
Yep, it's a classic.
and so hard!
40 anniversary of donkey kong
From the start of the US C64 version the theme sounds just like the arcade. It made me think everything will sound like the arcade. But I was wrong..I wish the NES version. Would sound just like the arcade as much as it looks.
CPC version rocks!
It sure does. I was very surprised.
I was not, cause I grew up with this :-DDDDD
My first DK was that game&watch and later on the CPC. I remember that was so close to the arcade.
The UK C64 and the Amstrad ports are quite decent, since these two ports are based on the Japanese arcade version...
Holy crap, is the Spectrum version cursed!? XD
All I know is that it's the most cursed video game I've ever seen or heard.
That MS DOS Donkey Kong is the fuel stuff for nightmares................. And the VIC-20 looks like... yeah, let's not talk about that one...
And the MSX one looks like a Wampa!
And the fuck with the music on the 7800! The guy was high or what??
WHAT ART THOU THINKING!
That censorship of your vocal is f**kin unexpected humor. Good job Mark :D
Yeah, it's funny than just leaving in the swear words.
Well deserved swear words.
@@RetroCore I’m going for a specific ocean commedore 64 version instead of Sinclair spectrum. Unless how bad the Sinclair port of which company’s version it is. But Amstrad saves the day for me
Retro Core, I don't think the C64 Ocean/Arcana version is a UK exclusive but most probably a European or PAL territories exclusive. It was reviewed by the Italian version of Zzap! magazine so it was most probably officially released in continental Europe too. The MSX version is really a shame, they could have used the Coleco version as a reference (same hardware) but they went for the ZX Spectrum route once again!
Ah, you are probably right with the Ocean published version being a European exclusive rather than a UK exclusive. I wonder which version they got in Australia?
It is a shame about the MSX port. That could have been much better than the garbage with received. Still, at least it's better than the ZX Spectrum version. That's the worst of all.
Это твоя лучшая битва портов!!! уже 100 роликов твоих посмотрел, но этот просто шедевррр!!!
I'd have to say that the best console versions were Amstrad and Famicom (No surprise there). The Apple II is inexcusably bad, considering it is a "proper" computer and everything. But, it just goes to show that the capabilities of the system being programmed for are only part of the equation: It also largely comes down to the ingenuity of the programmer (Look at the difference between Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man on the Atari 2600, for example).
yeah, I think many of the bad ports could have been so much better. It's just a shame they had crappy developers.
Will watch this one tomorrow, too many versions of Donkey Kong and had too many beers tonight, Goodnight, LOL ;)
Watching with beers will make it more fun :P
That Apple II port...holy crap, you just knew it was'nt gonna workout once you saw the artwork on the main menu Lol.
Great super timing with this one as I just got into a recent Donkey Kong "revisit" kick for ports of the arcade original. I know there were two DK carts released for the U.S Nes that offered the arcade original if memory serves, of course I'm sure they both had the same roms. Then the same port again released to the GbA SP "Nes Classics" linup which also came as a free optional pack-in with the purchase of a GameCube at GameStop/EB Software a while back...still kept mine.
Great great vid as usual.
Thanks for the comment, Turbo Gear 777.
You are right about Nintendo re-releasing an updated version of Donkey Kong for the NES. I didn't know about that at the time of making the video but if I did I would have surely added it.
I'd like to see BurgerTime and Dig Dug!
They will becoming down the line. Just a matter of when really.,
K. Thanks for replying.
Retro Core And TwinBee!
The original Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. arcade games are the only Nintendo games I ever really liked. Never owned a Nintendo console or handheld.
I like the walking sound effect best on nes
why is it that no one seems to comment on how pauline seems to just stand there with her hands hands in her pockets waiting impatiently to be rescued in the colecovision version.
also don't even get me started on the stick figure in the msx and zx spectrum version
Hmm, I don't remember the VIC-20 port running so fast.
The Coleco people claim to this day that they made the Intellivision and Atari versions the best they could.
Maybe it was the best "they" could do but we know from home brew versions which are much better that Coleco are talking bollocks :P
Wow, now that is an unexpected episode from "Battle of the Ports"! I'm not really a big fan of this game (I don't find much appeal to it) and the muffled audio pisses me off so much. Other than that, very well made video, Yakumo! :)
Also that jump sound effect on the Atari 2600 version seems to be iconic when it comes to TV shows using it.
Yeah, the original game has a very low sample rate for the audio. sounds awful but then again it is a 1981 arcade so I'll let it pass.
I'm not a big fan of the game myself either. I'd rather play pacman but still, it is one of the classic originators.
Now I understand why the audio is muffled. Thanks for clearing that up and yeah, something about the controls really make me hate this game. What's also odd is that Universal sued Nintendo because of "Donkey Kong" being pretty much "King Kong". The Gaming Historian has covered it before but I forgot what it was. I was like, "WTF?!".
Trust me, it sounded better in the arcade cabinet which added the bass to it. I don't mind it in MAME since i use my headphones to add the same type of bass anyway.
It really is Mark. It's in the book, The Ultimate History of Video Games. Great book by Steven L. Kent that they talk about it.
I think you like it. 8^)
Anthony..
Also, the TI version has all 4 arcade levels.
Yeah. Why did the NES version cut out one of the stages is beyond me. It wasn't like Nintendo ran out of memory in the ROM chip.
I remember playing that version as a kid. The cart included the Donkey Kong Jr game too and I always thought that it was just 3 stages until years later.
MeebleMeeble huh are you serious ,did nintendo had to pay ikegamu extra royalty’s in case they wanted to include the pie factory level in the famicom port? That’s insane ,that’s like buying parts of a game in the playstore or appstore and then paying micro transactions to buy all sections of the game, i just always tout that nintendo couldn’t fit all levels on the cart due running out of space and lack of bankswitchting at the time,,am mean how could it be that the 2 C64 versions of it from hudson soft & ocean are in complete form ,, that’s beyond me.
Because the NES couldn't properly handle it.
Good job, but there were 2 completely different versions on msx and on amstrad.
The arcana ports are pretty good.
They are. That dev did a good job.
Cranky Kong was surely busy back then
It’s truly sad how a Game Boy remake of Donkey Kong is better than any of these ports.
Well, to be fair, it is a lot newer.
Yeah that is true. But it isn't the newest version of Donkey Kong. The newest version is the GBA's NES Classics version or Famicom Classics in Japan, which came out I believe like 10 years after the Game Boy version in 2004. New levels, stages, and a final boss with a shocking ending. Truly the superior version.
Awesome video I had no idea that it was ported to so many platforms.
I think there may be a few more that I missed out. I'm sure it must have appeared on some Japanese computers too.
The Coleco Adam had more or less the same hardware as the Colecovision , I suspect the improvements were mainly from the extra RAM and storage space
Also , pink Donkey Kong on the PC just looks wrong , CGA had an option for warmer colours which would have fit the game much better, maybe it was one of those composite games
Yeah, I heard that this was one of those composite games that looked colour when using the correct connection to the monitor.
there were a bunch of other arcade conversions with the same "feature", like Tapper for instance. of course it still wasn't anywhere near as colourful as the arcade (and the composite video isn't nearly as sharp as what you would get on an IBM CGA monitor), but it was certainly an improvement , at least visually.
of course , most PCs sold at the time weren't really capable of running any version of the game ,since the PC typically came bundled with an MDA graphics card which was only capable of monochrome text at a decent res (great for office work , but obviously useless for games)
NES/Famicom is my favorite, here. Another good one might be the one used for the Radio Shack computer.
"HOW HIGH CAN YOU GET?"
it depends on how much weed you have
Very true 😁
Ah SMG4. Back when he was good
I have to wonder if that was the best the 7800 could do. The resolution seems so low compared to the NES port.
It may be able to do better but we're talking Atari here. They were also behind some of the worst computer ports including the Apple 2 and DOS versions.
Hahaha AWESOME video!!! I am pretty sure that game and watch is worth some money these days!!
It sure is. A nice one with box is a pretty penny for sure.
Haha! A great BotP episode just for the 'feedback' on the ZX Spectrum version. Standards were generally pretty low for home ports in those days, not that it excuses an effort as poor as the Spectrum version.
Haha, yeah that Speccy version is awful. You can tell the developer just couldn't care less when coding it.
The issues with not having all the levels on the console ports was simply down to the cost of Roms. Back in the day Rom chips cost a fortune, and having to double the size of a Rom chip for the sake of a single level, over more profit was an easy but wrong decision for game manufactures.
Next time you play the ColecoVision port of Donkey Kong, try this. When you climb up the ladder, move the joystick up twice. That'll speed Mario up! I learned this without knowing it as a 6 year old!
Yeah, someone else pointed that out too. Kind of a hand cheat.
Retro Core I suppose, still as a kid, I thought that was something you normally did in the game!
Hardly very few ports can match the arcade's Jumpman's steps.
the Atari 7800 version intro sounds like a field of farting COWS but that's ok😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Hehe, I was a little drunk when writing that script.
+Retro Core I just wish that I had a video camera in the 80's I went to arcades all the time and did alot of Skateboarding I just wish that I had footage of the hobbies that I did as a Teen
Ah, the days when a crappy VHS camera was considered to be amazing and they cost an awful lot of money.
I. Remember filming my first trip to Japan in 1997 with a Sony VHS-C camera that couldn't focus and had a broken viewfinder. I still thought it was amazing. How far we've come in the past 20 years.
Retro Core Too much Asahi?
Yo, Mark, Gaming History Source has done it again. Donkey Kong gets another "Let's Compare remake" treatment.
By the way, did you know that there is an arcade accurate port of Donkey Kong for the Famicom?
No, I did not know that.
@@RetroCore It's exactly the same as the NES original version, although while it's arcade perfect, it does suffer from annoying flicker on Pauline and the barrels that Donkey Kong himself tried to roll down on every platform.
Ahhh yes, the INFAMOUS Atari 2600 port. 2:44 is where it is if you're wondering XD.
The game borderlands 2 had an enemy based on donkey kong as one of it's many ...many... easter eggs. It was called donkey mong, and like dk and the enemy type it comes from, it throws stuff too
hehe, Donkey Mong. that's so wrong.
well, there's also a king mong. there's also some creepers and timon and pumba from the lion king
What was with some of the godawful renditions of Donkey Kong himself?
TI-99/4A: Looks constipated
Apple II: Some monstrosity in earmuffs?
MS-DOS: Did ol' DK get possessed by a demon?
MSX / Spectrum: GAAAAAHHH KILL IT
Lol, artists that can't draw.
Probably others mentioned already but in Donkey Kong 64 there is a port of the arcade version and apparently is not emulation since until recently (for the Switch) Nintendo didn't have the rights to do a direct emulation of the arcade version, and thankfully the DK64 version is almost arcade perfect. Unfortunately you have to play trough a huge part of the game to unlock it and is not really a "bonus" since you have to beat it twice with one life to beat the game
Corrections:
C64 (Atarisoft):
Look at Pauline, why the heck he says "1103!". He supposed to say "Help!", not numbers.
MSX:
In the cutscene, DK looks normal, but in gameplay, he looks terrible! DK in gameplay is same with cutscene but missing color for body parts. Also, Pauline only shows his legs and not entire body
ZX Spectrum:
It looks same with MSX version but looks more crappier. Like in MSX version, Pauline also only shows legs.
@@mastersproutgamer9327 i know idiot, also i dont say that
Pauline is not a "he", it's a "she".
@@mastersproutgamer9327i was bad at english back then thats why
Amazing video! There's the first Donkey Kong level also in Super Mario Odyssey! Coleco was so cynical... :-D
Cool. Didn't know about that. My son will by Mario Odyssey tomorrow.