Donkey Kong Country

Donkey Kong Country is a side-scrolling platformer developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1994. It reintroduced Donkey Kong, joined by his nephew Diddy Kong, on a quest to recover a stolen hoard of bananas from the crocodilian King K. Rool and his Kremling army across Donkey Kong Island. The game was a technical landmark, using pre-rendered three-dimensional models built on Silicon Graphics workstations and compressed onto the cartridge, giving it a rendered, textured look unlike anything else on the hardware. Its levels move through jungle, cavern, snow, factory, and above all beach and underwater settings, and its David Wise soundtrack, including the celebrated underwater theme Aquatic Ambience, became as famous as the visuals. Players alternate between the two Kongs, each with distinct strengths, and ride animal companions such as Rambi the rhino. A major commercial success, it sold millions of copies, helped Nintendo compete late in the sixteen-bit console war, and launched a long-running franchise of sequels and spin-offs. It remains a defining showcase for the SNES and, with its tropical island setting, one of the most summer-evoking games on the system. Its 1995 sequel, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, carried the pirate-and-sunset aesthetic even further, all sunken ships and sea.