Hey guys, just starting a new type of thread here. Those who have visited most of my threads will noticed that I mostly do stuff with sales data, well this is a little different rather than being a thread is more like an article; as the title says its about forgotten Nintendo games, but not the Earthbound or Eternal Darkness forgotten, I mean truly forgotten, I decided to start with a favorite of mine, Donkey Kong 3.
Earlier today we had a visit from my sister who brought her little kids, it was my job to keep them busy so we spent the day playing Donkey Kong Country Returns on Wii which got me thinking about the Donkey Kong series and how far its come, from its begginings in the arcade in 1981 to the newest incarnation on WiiU. Remember Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo? Rare and Nintendo succesfully took an old franchise and completely reworked it into a new one, however sometimes not all changes work out and a great example of this is Donkey Kong 3.
Donkey Kong 3 introduced some radical changes to the original series and even brought a new hero: Stanley the Bugman, but gamers turned away and the arcade game has long been forgotten. So what was Donkey Kong 3 all about and how did it fell into obscurity.
Let's start with the game that started it all, the 1981 classic Donkey Kong.
Everybody remembers the arcade hit Donkey Kong in some form or another, as said before it was released in 1981 by Nintendo as a last ditch effort to get a foothold on the american video game market, the game was a hit and made Nintendo a lot of money, with the success of the game Nintendo made a sequel: Donkey Kong Jr. this game followed a similar gameplay style as the original but this time you played as the eponymous character, it wasn't as succesfull as the original but its considered a classic as well.
Even though Nintendo was succesfull with their platform style arcade games, they decided to make a change, space shooters were still popular during this time, specially Galaga, this time Nintendo decided to combine the charm of their Donkey Kong series with the fast paced action of the space shooters, the result was Donkey Kong 3.
First off an interesting fact: Nintendo never relased a dedicated Donkey Kong 3 cabinet, instead they released the Donkey Kong 3 conversion kit, which would let convert their old arcade cabinets into Donkey Kong 3 cabinets. In Donkey Kong 3 you play as Stanley the Bugman, as already stated, a gardner who has to protect his precious plants from Donkey Kong, who crashed into his greenhouse. Donkey Kong releases waves of bugs to you while also throwing coccunuts, armed with his buspray can, Stanley must shoot his insect repelent up to Donkey Kong until he runs away or falls into the ground.
Now, you might be wondering, who the hell is Stanley the Bugman?
Believe or not, Stanley's origins can be tracked down to a 1982 Game & Watch game called Greenhouse where you had to protect your flowers from insects, however here his called The Fumigator, but with his appearence in Donkey Kong 3 he was renamed Stanley, now why Nintendo used Stanley instead of Mario is really anybodys guess, but here's my theory.
Donkey Kong Jr. sort of wraps up the Mario/Donkey Kong rivalry, so they decided to start a new story with a new protagonist (believe or not, the original Donkey Kong is one of the first arcade games with a storyline) also Mario is more about jumping rather than shooting.
So, now let's finally talk about the game, as said before you play as Stanley a guy trying to protect his plants from Donkey Kong and his minions of bugs. The gameplay is a mixture of shooter and platforms as you have to maneuver yourself through platforms while shooting bugs as well as Donkey Kong with your spraygun, a weapon that can be upgraded in certain levels. You complete each stage by hitting Donkey Kong enough times or by killing all the bugs, at the end of each level you get a nice bonus for each plant you save, loose all the plants or get hit and you lose a life, however you get to pick up right where you left off, similar to Galaga.
The music of the game was composed by Hirokazu Tanaka, this was his first composition for the game, if his name rings a bell well he was the composer of several classic Nintendo games such as Metroid, Super Mario Land and Earthbound, among others.
Personally its my favorite Donkey Kong arcade game, I really like the marriage between the two genres and I find it way more addicting that the other 2 arcade games but unfortunately for Nintendo it didn't sold very well. It is estimated that the original Donkey Kong sold 60000 cabinets while Donkey Kong Jr. sold around 30000, Donkey Kong 3 sold a dissapointing 5000 units, the game was also poorly recieved at the time, plenty of critics called it a Space Invaders clone and that it wasn't very innovative, being released during the 1983 crash didn't help either.
Donkey Kong 3 was such a failure for Nintendo that the series was enteriley forgotten for over 10 years, after Donkey Kong 3 on 1983 the first Donkey Kong game released was the Game Boy version of the original arcade game in 1994 (fun fact: this is the first game where Donkey Kong wears the red necktie). Stanley the Bugman however was never given a second chance, his only major appearance since Donkey Kong 3 is a trophy in Super Smash Bros. Melee, it is said that Mr. Gayman Watch uses his signature bugspray.
The inferior NES port is available on Virtual Console on Wii, WiiU and 3DS. Sure this game is way different than any other of the series, but who cares!? Its a blast to play and has that Nintendo charm, now even though this game has mostly been forgotten I know that I'll always remember Donkey Kong 3, and hopefully, after reading this you'll remember Donkey Kong 3 as well.
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