Reviews from

in the past


Congo Bongo was pretty neat to play. It's SEGA's take on Donkey Kong with it's own bit of flair to differentiate it, mainly with the isometric perspective and control.

Its not one of the best arcade games I've played, there's better games out there, but this was a neat little game to mess with for a bit. May go back to it to see how far I get.

The bad timeline Sega Donkey Kong

Well, it's all right. Certainly doesn't have Donkey Kong's staying power, though I'm sure transposing the Zaxxon isometric perspective into a platformer was pretty dang impressive for '83. You do run into a readability issue though - the perspective makes it tricky to judge jumps throughout and where coconuts will land in Primate Peak. You can eventually figure it out, but it's less intuitive than the side perspective.

Also, is this the first video game to feature wall jumping? It's clearly a bad idea here, but funny to think that such a technical move got its start in a game where pulling it off mostly means adding insult to injury with a lost life.

Those rhinos are pretty dang cute, though.

SEGA's take on Donkey Kong is certainly a looker, with expressive sprites and plenty of moving objects that outclass most other arcade games released in 1983. Unfortunately, it lacks the joyful simplicity of its inspiration, with an isometric viewpoint making the simple act of moving and dodging more ambiguous and challenging. It's an interesting game with a probably more interesting legacy due to the game's relationship with then-arcade board manufacturer ikegami tsushinki. The game, when judged on its own merits however, is just okay.

Isometric Donkey Kong with a slower pace. The art style and level design is really well done here, but it does feel like most of the effort went into figuring out how to make the isometric levels. The gameplay loop itself feels more of a stroll through each of the four pretty levels than any sort of a challenge.

Como Donkey Kong pero con vista isométrica. Entretenido sin mas.

An obscure sega arcade game that tries to capitalize off of Donkey Kongs success. Thankfully this game never went anywhere is its isometric perspective makes the game kinda hard to play and in reality, just isn't fun to play. There are literally hundreds of better arcade games at the time that would be more worth your while.