Donkey Kong 3 and Donkey Kong Jr. Math Are the Black Sheep of the DK Franchise
NES Catalog #021-022
Nintendo is Great is a Substack devoted to playing and exploring every game ever released for a Nintendo console/handheld in chronological order.
Some posts are free, some are for paid subscribers only. Don’t forget to sign up below. Thanks for reading!
Donkey Kong 3
PUBLISHER/DEVELOPER: Nintendo
RELEASE DATE: July 4th, 1984 (JP), June 1986 (US), Sept. 15th, 1987 (EU)
ALSO AVAILABLE ON: Arcade, e-Reader, Gamecube (via Animal Crossing), Virtual Console (Wii, 3DS, Wii U), Switch (via Arcade Archives), Nintendo Switch Online
In 1983, Nintendo did a curious thing. They took the Donkey Kong series – their major cash cow at the time – and destroyed it with Donkey Kong 3. No more Mario. No more platforming. In Mario's place, Stanley the Bugman, a one-off exterminator character who never got the chance to develop any personality. Instead of platforming, shooting. Stanley the Bugman shoots Donkey Kong up his butt, level after embarrassing level. Seriously, poor Donkey Kong. That bug gas looks painful.
Indeed Donkey Kong 3 didn't look, play, or feel like either Donkey Kong or Donkey Kong Jr. Upon release, this made the game a critical and mostly commercial failure (the arcade cabinet did relatively well in Japan, but was a flop in the US). Today, Donkey Kong 3's rebellion against the previous two games' formula works in its favor. DK3's more immediate arcade action is considerably more enjoyable to return to than the previous titles' rudimentary platforming.
Let's be honest: all three original Donkey Kong games are old as sin. All are hard to play again if you don't have some nostalgic affinity for them, or if you're not a die hard points junkie who loves beating high scores. From an early 80s perspective, Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr.'s levels are well-designed and engaging, but there's only four of them. Once they're beaten, why play them over and over? Even if your nostalgia is strong for the Donkey Kong games, we can't imagine many people playing them for more than a few minutes at a time. Turn on the NES, go for a round of DK, systems off, sigh, feel your thinning hair, then quietly proclaim, "Those were the days..."
But if you have to play one remarkably old Donkey Kong game for more than five minutes, Donkey Kong 3 is the one. Charm and story are out the window. Addictive gameplay is in. Spraying Donkey Kong relentlessly in the butt, while protecting your plants and your person from ravenous bees and caterpillars is a chaotic blast. Yes, there are only four level layouts that repeat as you move further along, and yes, the levels all look basically the same. I don't care. Donkey Kong 3's pace is so frantic and tense that it's easy to get swept along in its insanity.
As early platforming attempts, Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. are simple, quaint, and beautiful in their own right. They also don't really hold up. Over the next decade, Nintendo would go on to perfect the 2D platformer as we know it with the Mario franchise. Nintendo's understanding of the platforming genre progressed so quickly that Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. moved from "addictive arcade game" to "historical artifact" by the early 90s. Not so with Donkey Kong 3. DK3 is an outlier, an outcast even, a game that doesn't sit well in Nintendo's vast back catalog, and certainly not within the Donkey Kong franchise.
This is a shame. Donkey Kong 3 isn't a perfect arcade game, and it's a horrible Donkey Kong game. The levels are too short, Stanley is forgettable, and Donkey Kong seems confused and bewildered, like he's not sure where he is. Still, Donkey Kong 3 is the only game in the original trilogy that stands apart, that has no equal, superior, or even inferior. Nintendo never looked back on Donkey Kong 3 and said, "We can perfect this style." Intentionally or unintentionally, Nintendo let DK3 exist as its own awkward anomaly. God bless them for that.
B
What I Wrote About Donkey Kong 3 in 2011
“As far as gameplay or overall gaming impact, Donkey Kong 3 contributed very little. It came out in 1983, the year of the Video Game Crash. As a result, it wasn’t nearly as popular as the first two, and those that did play it, didn’t think much of it. Still, time has been kinder to this entry than to its older brothers. Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr may have been more groundbreaking, but Donkey Kong 3 is arguably more fun.”
B
Donkey Kong Jr. Math
PUBLISHER/DEVELOPER: Nintendo
RELEASE DATE: Dec. 12th, 1983 (JP), June 1986 (US), 1986 (EU)
ALSO AVAILABLE ON: Gamecube (via Animal Crossing), Virtual Console (Wii, Wii U), Nintendo Switch Online
Just as Popeye has no business teaching English, Donkey Kong Jr., his pink clone brother, and his recently freed poppa should not be toying with numbers.
Now, it's not that DK and co. can't help younger players with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division skills. Donkey Kong is adept at holding up signs with numbers on them, and Donkey Kong Jr. is both a skilled vine climber and number selector. If you really want to, you can solve basic math equations with Donkey Kong Jr. Math.
Nevertheless, I have questions. Why would these apes participate in extracurricular math excursions? Who’s that weird pink ape, DK Jr.’s unnamed sister or something? What purpose does any of this serve? Donkey Kong got famous because he kidnapped Mario's girlfriend, and DK Jr. was hailed as a hero after he rescued his dad from Mario's abusive hands. They're platforming stars, not math teachers.
And anyway, proper edutainment – Donkey Kong Jr. Math's supposed genre - combines both education and entertainment, hence the name. This game provides plenty of education, provided you suck at basic math. The entertainment, however, is nowhere to be found. Donkey Kong Jr. Math is a math game through and through; whatever platforming you encounter still serves math, not the other way around.
Then again, Donkey Kong Jr. Math was part of the NES' "Education Series" when it released in the US in 1986, not the "Edutainment Series." At least Nintendo was honest, but that doesn't make Donkey Kong Jr. Math's existence any less confounding.
D-
What I Wrote About Donkey Kong Jr. Math in 2011
“Is Donkey Kong Jr Math one of the most useless games in existence? It’s a math game that treats you like you’re an idiot; unless you and a friend play two-player mode, in which case it’s a tedious exercise in vine climbing and number arranging.”
F
DK3 is certainly the easiest of the original DK games to hop back into, although it’s also the least memorable of the three.
DK Jr Math shows how hard Nintendo was trying to push the Famicom and NES as something more than a games system, at least in those early days.
I think we exchanged notes on DK3 before -- I really don't like the game. It feels more like C- territory to me. Maybe it's because it's like a SHMUP in which progress can be lost (without dying), because of the way the big ape can work his way back down if you don't keep up the pressure. A normal SHMUP has two priorities: don't die and kill the things. That's about right. DK3 adds a third priority (a fourth if you argue it's also an escort mission for the plants), and it doesn't even have power-ups. Not a fun combination for me.
But I'll also admit that I haven't sat and played it for long sessions. If I'm forced to choose between playing it or DK Jr. for an hour, I can see how I might prefer DK3. But if it's a choice between playing them for 5-10 minutes each, DK Jr. is going to win easily every time.
As for DK Jr. Math, I'll admit that as a kid I was fascinated by its possibilities. IIRC there was a picture of it on the back of my NES box, or maybe on a marketing insert in the box. This is the only place I ever heard of it. I never saw it for rent or for sale. It was never mentioned in any magazine. I never knew anyone who had played it. It was even more mythical than R.O.B. I still wonder how much I, a fan of DK Jr., might have enjoyed DK Jr. Math at just the right age. I don't think I'd have given it a D-. A few years later, I played Number Munchers a lot on our school's DOS PC.