Donkey Kong retrospective, Pt 1: Nintendo's 800-lb. gorilla | NES Works

The first entry in a two-part look back at the most important game of Nintendo's early days, Donkey Kong. This half of the retrospective focuses on the design of the game and why it stood out from its arcade peers to become such a phenomenon.
I realize there's an error in the script (re: Space War), but I was unable to go back and correct it because I currently have a nasty cold and thus no voice. I'm just glad I recorded the voiceover for this before I fell ill.

[@Ebeeto]

Jeremy Parish will go down in the history books as the westerner who uttered the words "Heiankyo Alien" the most times.

[@JeremyParish]

Doesn't really fit on a tombstone, to be honest.

[@THEmuteKi]

Here lies Parish, and countless 8-bit aliens

[@JuanMartinez-hz4jj]

Jeremy Parish how did the ghost not kill you in pacman?

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

Can we just build a statue of a traditional Japanese cop with a shovel above his grave, filling him in forever? Jeremy will be worth 750pts.

[@fireflocs]

I think people calling level 2 a 'pie factory' has less to do with missing the game's 'construction site' theme and more to do with relatively few people encountering wet cement at all, let alone in bins/basins like that. The only frame of reference most people have for that shape is, well, pies.

[@stedmangg]

I think it has less to do with "few people encountering wet cement at all" and more with how wet cement simply doesn't have the color of pie crust like it does in this game.

[@gabrieleriva651]

5:59 WAIT A SEC! How come Pacman passes thru those ghosts???

[@MathieuPronovost]

The guy who recorded the footage used cheats with mame.

[@Trainy2]

The entitled Millennial generation, sheesh

[@ZanderEzekial77]

Thank you for asking this, it was driving me crazy!

[@jgrocketpup]

Yes, this was actually super jarring - hopefully Jeremy will find some more accurate footage in a revision!

[@yuberus]

I've seen videos from that guy's channel when trying to find arcade footage, and it drives me crazy every time. It doesn't count as a good clip if they're cheating!

[@sugakunoneko]

"It was Pong that would become gaming's *breakout* hit" - Jeremy Parish. Nice one.

[@JeremyParish]

Yes... that was, um, deliberate. Yep. Because I'm clever.

[@drobnoxius9483]

@@JeremyParish did you cheat on pacman

[@colophongames]

I know as a 2-year-old in 1990, seeing Super Mario Bros. was a miracle. I will never forget that feeling, even being so young. I saw Donkey Kong later, and it is true; Despite its role as the basis for the Famicom design objectives it feels so dated, even if it is fun. What other instance do we have of a console redefining itself in terms of the kind of experience it can create, especially so early. Super Mario Bros. transformed the Famicom from a console that provided playable game boards to playable game worlds. It is beyond mere iteration. We always knew Super Mario Bros was important, but it is in exploring the catalog, Donkey Kong in particular here, that GoodNintentions helps us really understand why.

[@AverageDrafter]

Every time I hear the original DK theme, all I can hear in my head is the DK Country bassline creeping in at the end and visions of rubbery green trees and Cranky at the phonograph getting stomped by the young upstart in a flashy red tie, giant pulsing boom box, and the funkiest dance moves. What I'm saying is thanks...

[@mightygaming1365]

I never thought the cement piles looked like pies. However, I did always think the rivets were actually frothy mugs of beer. 🍺 When the rivet level was won and Kong was upside down with his legs flailing in the air, I would joke to my friends that Kong was Mario and Pauline's baby, and they were changing his diaper. I had quite the developed sense of humor at four years old...

[@Dilios_of_Sparta]

A real challenge for me is playing a couple of levels of Super Mario Bros., and then switching to Donkey Kong; in the former game, Mario can fall from any height (provided he lands on a platform below) and survive, but in Donkey Kong, too high of a fall means Mario is done for (as Jeremy said in the video). Stage 2 (the elevator level) is where I usually foul up--it always throws me off. I do, however, like the consistency that Nintendo kept in these early games: Mario can't jump while wielding the hammer in Donkey Kong, and likewise in Wrecking Crew.

[@mbe102]

I could watch this series for eons if I, Jeremy, and it could live that long.

[@erika_fuzzbottom]

I always thought that the reason the "pie factory" was omitted from the NES game was because of memory limitations, not because it was hard.

[@JeremyParish]

Right. They had to omit a stage, so which one did they omit? The difficult, messy one.

[@erika_fuzzbottom]

Too bad they didn't add it back in when Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. were bundled together in Donkey Kong Classics.

[@JeremyParish]

Yeah. Realistically, they could have added it in for the NES release, since ROM sizes had grown between 1983 and 1986. That's a point I address in the second part, in fact.

[@kobakusu]

I love playing ""Hac Man""

[@hezekiahramirez6965]

"Pie factory" is just a nickname. It's called that for obvious reasons. It's just an amusing joke, that's all.

[@DayAntilles]

My first encounter with Donkey Kong was the Game&watch version. I was quite suprised when I saw the arcade game and realised that it had 4 different levels.

[@dumpnchase]

All your videos are great. Keep up the good work.

[@LizardDude]

It *is* possible for Pac-Man to glitch through ghosts under certain circumstances (term of art: "booey") but I'm not sure that's what's happening in these clips.

[@JeremyParish]

Yeah, I don't have the means to record decent Pac-Man footage myself and what I can find online is either low-resolution or cheats. Hope it's not TOO distracting.

[@gumboe2007]

Glad I found this video. Entertaining and informative. Good presentation style

[@Saxcat20]

Outstanding as always.

[@THEmuteKi]

ｔｈｅｒｅ’ｓ　ｓｏｍｅｔｈｉｎｇ　ｕｐ　ｗｉｔｈ　ｔｈａｔ　ｐａｃ－ｍａｎ　ｆｏｏｔａｇｅ

[@marcusfridh8489]

i had the doublescreen Donkey kong 2 Game & Watch game when i was a kid.

[@fbeuks]

Great video. What's going on with Pac-Man's seeming invincibility in that clip?

[@RetroCabeza]

I recently learned that Nintendo actually didn't developed Donkey Kong themselves and blew my mind. That's why they have never published it, but the NES version instead. I hope you talk about that in Part 2. Great video!

[@michaelsegal3558]

There is a clone game of Rally-X called BB Car

[@2001mark]

A difficult challenge, I suck at DK.

[@rowtow13]

I like the footage of the arcade version of Donkey Kong being played by someone who is clearly a witch. What's the source of that footage? I'd be interested in watching that playthrough.

[@GoldenfoxxPrime]

Pac-Man was 1980? Are we sure about that? I could swear my first experience with the game (or any arcade cabinet) was in '79. Maybe I've just told myself that my whole life with no basis, but my memories about these kinds of things tend to be right far more than they tend to be wrong. But then, I *have* been wrong about these things before: I've thought for years that my first time playing Final Fantasy was when I rented it from Grayson Valley Video in 1987, only to recently learn that it never made it stateside until '89.

[@JeremyParish]

Feel free to dispute the Wikipedia page.

[@GoldenfoxxPrime]

Well, I'm seeing actual release dates on other sites (apparently, it hit Japan on May 22, 1980), so I guess I've just been wrong my whole life about it. No big deal, but it's kind of jarring when you've been fairly sure of something your whole life. Wonder where I initially got the idea in the first place now. Thanks for responding, btw!

[@JeremyParish]

Covering history is a constant process of learning everything you've ever believed was wrong, and also that you're steadily getting older and will die someday.

[@GoldenfoxxPrime]

LOL. There, we certainly agree. (Except that I've always envied those people who talk about feeling invincible when they're young...I've always been on the opposite extreme of that.)

[@dezm101]

mame with cheats? what, am I watching a 'world of longplays' video? lol jk

[@jamesmoss3424]

I played donkey Kong at the arcade and the nes it's still very very good. 😀👍🎮

[@dbpooper7512]

I like the contrast in skill between the masterful DK player and the worst guy at Pac-man ever.

[@jlc992]

Admit it you will still be calling it the Pie Factory every time you talk about Donkey Kong.

[@jennid8123]

And is this the first mention of Hienkyo Alien on this channel ?

[@2yoyoyo1Unplugged]

9:28 how is he passing through the ghosts?

[@JeremyParish]

Cheating

[@LarryLopez91]

How is Pac-Man going thru the ghosts?

[@KingCrimson82]

hat kind of pacman are you please playing!?

[@SeekerLancer]

Cheating in Pacman?! Unsubbed. ;)

[@LynseyMoon]

why you cheat pacman

[@georgehenson2412]

I think this gets a little far in the weeds regarding Donkey Kong's thematic qualities more than the technical details. I think you already summed up a lot of this idea on Good Nintentions so it got a bit lost when you started reiterating the Nintendo philosophy on the broader stage. Feels a bit to repetitive to be continually going backwards rather than looking at the context of the NES release. Also you called Computer Space "Spacewar" and called it an Atari product. Was Syzygy/Nutting Associates.

[@looe9195]

You're totally not cheating on Pac Man.

[@magicjames166]

5:48 Oh no, your Pac Man broke. :(