PixlBit

In a year that has great games like Ni no Kuni 2, Valkyria Chronicles 4, and the promise of many other games on the way, sometimes the simplest surprises on the best.

Today a game was released that I have been waiting for for years.

It's not a big, fancy RPG, fighting game, adventure game, or shooter.

It is none other than my favorite arcade game of all time - Donkey Kong. As of this morning it is available on the Switch as part of Hamster's Arcade Archives series. In addition to their usual games from SNK, Nichibutsu, Taito, and others, Hamster has a deal with Nintendo to bring Nintendo's arcade catalog to the Switch. Even before the NES came out, Nintendo made a lot of my favorite video games, and their best arcade games surpassed even Namco's venerable offerings in my book.

Unfortunately, such a popular arcade game had a rocky path to getting home releases. Most home releases of Donkey Kong were heavily butchered and had levels missing, Most of them, including the NES version, dropped the Cement Factory level, and the Atari 2600 version only had the barrel level and the "boss" level. I was spoiled by the Atari 8-bit version that I had at home, which had all the levels in the game plus sounds that closely approximated the arcade game. I never liked Nintendo's official NES release of Donkey Kong, which dropped the Cement Factory level like most other versions, and, while it had good graphics for the time, had wimpy sounds and music.

Unfortunately, even after game consoles became powerful enough to run arcade ROMs starting with the PlayStation and the Namco Museum series, Donkey Kong still never got a comparable release on Nintendo's consoles. The usual story given is that the code for Donkey Kong was supposedly owned by a Nintendo contractor, Ikegami Tsushinki. Their trademark is actually stamped on DK arcade motherboards. Nintendo took the code developed by Ikegami and developed Donkey Kong Junior on their own, without the consent of Ikegami. A court battle ensued which Nintendo actually lost. Rather than pay huge royalties to Ikegami, Nintendo chose to develop their own versions of DK and DK Junior for the NES from scratch. As a result, arcade fans were stuck with gimped NES versions of Nintendo's arcade games. One exception is that Rare somehow managed to get the arcade version into Donkey Kong 64 without attracting the attention of Ikegami's lawyers.

I guess Nintendo and Ikegami must have finally made peace. Hamster kicked off their Arcade Archives series on the Switch with the arcade Mario Bros, which is still a fun classic arcade game after all these years, and they brought in VS Super Mario Bros and Punch-Out!! They are also supposed to be releasign VS Balloon Fight at some point. But Donkey Kong and DK Junior were always kind of iffy. Now the original classic is on the Switch, and I'm super-excited. I just played a few rounds of it, and I may even make a video for my YouTube channel. This game is still just as fun after all these year.s. It's amazing how a game with only four levels can still be so enjoyable, but I have turned my humble portable Switch into the arcade of my youthful dreams with the Arcade Archives games, Namco Museum, and the SF 30th Anniversary Collection. And now I can play a legitimate release of my favorite arcade game any time I want to.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a building to climb, barrels to smash, and a girl to rescue.