Donkey Kong Jr review

[JagFan422]

Well i got my 2nd 8-bit port and thought I'd review it for other people interested in 8-bit ports to the 5200.

 

The Game is Donkey Kong Jr. I'm sure you've heard of it.

 

The game starts with a nice menu and decent music. With a couple of options regarding difficulty and number of players, you start the game.

 

The graphics suprised me. They are better than I expected for 5200. And JR is almost comical looking, there's one expression he makes that makes me laugh every time i see it. The game is waaay beyond the 2600 version in terms of graphics and sound. The sound is very good as well.

 

The gameplay though sucks. But i believe it is a controller issue, no matter how hard i try, i manage to go to far right or to far left when on vines and trying to jump on the first level, there's not enough room for the controller. Even on the first diffuculty level, it is extremely hard to finish the first level because of the controller moving too quickly and making you fly off the ledges and dying. I'm getting better, but still takes me at least a dozen times to beat the first level, and i've never come close to beating the 2nd level.

 

Overall, i do enjoy it. The controls are frustrating, but the graphics and sound are so much more superior to the 2600 version, that i'm trying to adapt to the controls, but so far its not working out for me that good. It's definetly a step down from my previous port SpyHunter.

[Goochman]

This was a really good port for the XL line - alot more attention to detail than usual.

[Tempest]

The controls were kind of flaky in the original XL/XE version as well. The 5200 sticks are just making the problem worse I'm sure.

 

I remember playing the hell out of this at my friends house 'back in the day' ™. I really wanted this game and Robotron, but my parents wouldn't spring for them. It's a pretty good port, and was one of the best until the NES version came along, but that wasn't until about 1987 (even though it was one of the first games released in Japan).

 

An interesting little side note about the XL/XE version. The programmer was progressing slowly on the game, and hinted to Atari that they could speed up development if Atari paid them more. The person was eventually replaced and Landon Dyer finished up the coding.

 

Tempest

[Goochman]

Makes sense since Landon did the excellent DOnkey Kong conversion

[Tempest]

Makes sense since Landon did the excellent DOnkey Kong conversion

 

I'm not sure how much coding he did. I think he may have only assisted in the end coding and tighting up the code. I'll have to look at the status sheet I got the information from again.

 

Tempest

[jpfalcon2003]

Well i got my 2nd 8-bit port and thought I'd review it for other people interested in 8-bit ports to the 5200.

 

The Game is Donkey Kong Jr. I'm sure you've heard of it.

 

The game starts with a nice menu and decent music. With a couple of options regarding difficulty and number of players, you start the game.

 

The graphics suprised me. They are better than I expected for 5200. And JR is almost comical looking, there's one expression he makes that makes me laugh every time i see it. The game is waaay beyond the 2600 version in terms of graphics and sound. The sound is very good as well.

 

The gameplay though sucks. But i believe it is a controller issue, no matter how hard i try, i manage to go to far right or to far left when on vines and trying to jump on the first level, there's not enough room for the controller. Even on the first diffuculty level, it is extremely hard to finish the first level because of the controller moving too quickly and making you fly off the ledges and dying. I'm getting better, but still takes me at least a dozen times to beat the first level, and i've never come close to beating the 2nd level.

 

Overall, i do enjoy it. The controls are frustrating, but the graphics and sound are so much more superior to the 2600 version, that i'm trying to adapt to the controls, but so far its not working out for me that good. It's definetly a step down from my previous port SpyHunter.

Is that the same version that is on my 128 in one multicart for the 5200? it also has Donkey Kong on it too. If it is, I agree the DK Jr. Version is hard, but i love the challenge. The Donkey Kong I really liked because it has the missing coveyer screen that is missing from every other system.

[Gregory DG]

Man, I love that version of DK Jr! Even more than the arcade!

 

Strange thing about it though: For the first few weeks of owning it, the screen order was not right. Then, all of the sudden, everything was correct. I never did any upgrades on my 800XL and I never figured out why it did that.

[JagFan422]

if you don't change the difficulty from 0 to 1, you will repeat the same screen over again. so start out at difficulty 1 from the begining and you will progress correctly.

[Dutchman2000]

Sorry folks, Landon Dyer didn't do any coding on Donkey Kong Jr. Jeff Milhorn took over the game from the original programmer and finished it with no help from others. Landon was supposed to be in a support role, but he told me he didn't do any work on it.

[Tempest]

Sorry folks, Landon Dyer didn't do any coding on Donkey Kong Jr. Jeff Milhorn took over the game from the original programmer and finished it with no help from others. Landon was supposed to be in a support role, but he told me he didn't do any work on it.

 

Ok maybe that's what I remember reading then (I know I saw Landon's name in there somewhere). So it was Jeff who finished it up then? Interesting.

 

Tempest

[Gregory DG]

if you don't change the difficulty from 0 to 1, you will repeat the same screen over again. so start out at difficulty 1 from the begining and you will progress correctly.

I always started on difficulty 1.

[chuckwalla]

Donkey Kong Jr. on the XL/XE was an excellent port with tight controls - it's just very challenging, like the arcade version. The 7800 version is also great to play when you want to breeze through the first few cycles and play all four screens.

[Cobra Kai]

I recently got this cartridge on 5200, and after watching gameplay vids of the 8-bit computer version, I'm convinced that the 5200 conversion is sped up. I'm finding DKJr for 5200 to be a complete bear to play because of the fast speed, it's way faster than the arcade version, and appears much faster than videos of the 8-bit game. It's like its overclocked. Anyone agree with this assessment?

[Shannon]

I liked this version so much that when MAME first added sample support for the arcade version of DK Jr. I recorded samples from the Atari 800 version and replaced the MAME sample set with them.

[+darryl1970]

The gameplay though sucks. But i believe it is a controller issue, no matter how hard i try, i manage to go to far right or to far left when on vines and trying to jump on the first level, there's not enough room for the controller. Even on the first diffuculty level, it is extremely hard to finish the first level because of the controller moving too quickly and making you fly off the ledges and dying. I'm getting better, but still takes me at least a dozen times to beat the first level, and i've never come close to beating the 2nd level.

 

TEP932 tweaked some platform collision parameters on the hack Playsoft and myself collaborated on.

 

It's still a little harder with the non-centering sticks, because Jr's steps match chunky movement of the software sprites. This leaves little room for error.

However, Junior doesn't fall off the platform quite as unforgivingly.

 

While, the tweaks didn't FIX the problem with the 5200, they did make it easier. The fixes make a big difference on the 8-bit, which was still overly touchy on the platform edges.

 

In addition to not falling off of platforms as easy, Junior can now properly hang at the very bottom of a vine and not be touched by the red snapjaws, just like the arcade!

 

Here's a link to the hacks.

[+darryl1970]

I recently got this cartridge on 5200, and after watching gameplay vids of the 8-bit computer version, I'm convinced that the 5200 conversion is sped up. I'm finding DKJr for 5200 to be a complete bear to play because of the fast speed, it's way faster than the arcade version, and appears much faster than videos of the 8-bit game. It's like its overclocked. Anyone agree with this assessment?

Most YouTube videos are recorded in PAL mode. It's kind of annoying,

because it sometimes leads reviews to state that an A8 version is sluggish.

I read that about Mr. Do, for example, which plays GREAT in NTSC.

 

I think the game already feels very touchy,

because all of the enemies are character based software sprites.

While DK Jr is a "Player"/sprite, they seem to have made every step a full character-sized block.

 

I had the 800XL and DK Jr NTSC growing up, and the 5200 version doesn't seem any faster to me,

but this version has always seemed a little fast and touchy.

 

Out of curiosity, I just tried the game on Altirra, running in PAL mode. It actually did feel a little better to me.

I can imagine this speed would be a little more forgiving and natural, especially on the 5200.

 

Makes me wonder if it the programmers had PAL test computers.

 

Now that I think about it, the original DK plays a lot faster on NTSC than the arcade.

The difference there is that the software sprites aren't tile based.