The 10 Best Donkey Kong Games

Despite being Nintendo’s original mascot and being one of legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto’s most iconic character creations, Donkey Kong has had a bit of a weird history of getting his own video games compared to that mustachioed plumber he’s frequently feuding with. Sometimes he’s the hero. Sometimes he’s the villain. Sometimes he’s a bongo drummer. But with Donkey Kong Bananza out now – DK’s first new starring role in over a decade and first new 3D platformer in over 25 years – it’s time to ride a rickety minecart down memory lane and look back at the big ape’s greatest games. Here are the ten best Donkey Kong games of all time.

10.

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Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble

Like Diddy’s Kong Quest, Tropical Freeze once again took all of the solid foundation laid down in the game before it and built an even bigger and better sequel, making it the best 2D Donkey Kong game ever made. Donkey Kong’s once peaceful world has been taken over by snow themed bad guys, and as the title suggests, that means a beautiful mix of palm trees and ice everywhere, leading to some truly genius (and very tough) platforming sequences.

But if you find things a bit too tough, just try out Funky Mode, an optional difficulty decrease that allows players to play as everyone’s favorite monkey that owns an airport. Speaking of which, Tropical Freeze features more playable Kongs than any Donkey Kong game before it including Donkey, Diddy, Dixie, and at long last, Cranky Kong who just couldn’t stay retired. Tropical Freeze is the culmination of all of the best things from the best Donkey Kong Country games mixed up in one perfect frozen cocktail. Once Retro gets Metroid Prime 4 in the rear view it would be amazing to see them return to this series one more time. But luckily for us, there’s another Donkey Kong game to hold us over.

1. Donkey Kong Bananza

As it turns out, the latest Donkey Kong game is his greatest. Developed by the team behind the incredible Super Mario Odyssey, Donkey Kong Bananza gives DK a whole new bag of toys to play with and a whole new world to destroy. De-emphasizing the tight platforming that the Country series was known for, Bananza opts instead to celebrate Donkey Kong’s brute force and heavy fists, allowing him to punch holes in the earth in search of collectibles, rip out huge rocks to ride around and throw, and so much more. It also reunites him with Pauline, this time as friends and collaborators.

Bananza is also Donkey Kong’s biggest game yet. It’s absolutely packed with secret areas, unlockable costumes, and optional challenge rooms and it can easily take players dozens of hours to find it all. It’s a loving celebration of this iconic and legendary Nintendo character, hopefully paving the way for more Donkey Kong games like it for years to come. For a character that has been reinvented a ton of times since 1981, it’s amazing to see Donkey Kong return for his first 3D game since 1999 and to do so with a game that feels both totally fresh and quintessentially Nintendo.

And there you have it, the ten best Donkey Kong games of all time. Did any of the games on this list kongfuse you? Were there any other DK games we should have kongsidered? Well, go bananas and let me know in the kongments below.