Nintendo's last true arcade title. Not like, literally a game made for arcades, but in terms of design. It's no secret that I basically don't like anything Nintendo has put out in almost 20 years at this point. The easiest answer for why is that their new titles are very safe, chaste, inbred games with few new ideas. This isn't to say their new stuff is strictly bad, far from it. There's still a competency somewhere there. It's kind of like the best playing garbage ever though. What defines modern Nintendo games is mainly the lack of any sort of design that approximates 'something.' What I mean is that it's all self-referential to what 'games' collectively are, and what Nintendo games used to be, rather than just simply being fun games with an identity that isn't so tautological. I ponder over this because DKJB has a lot of those 'square-hole' style ideas that went on to plague more modern entries; Being a sort of precursor to Mario Galaxy, by staff and design motivations. Yet this is one of the only modern Nintendo games where the design isn't frustratingly patronizing.

Arcade game design had you fit very dense encounter variety back to back into your games. The nature necessitated it. Time was literally money, but it was also a good way of keeping a game fresh in the eyes of venue frequenters. There were all kinds of flashy games, which due to primitive tech, had to come up with unique ways of executing a usually simple idea. Back then, there weren't many standards in place, so a game more naturally became what it wanted to be. Putting it super succinctly so we aren't here all day: Back then arcade games were inherently more engaging because the concept had to be front and center, and that 'flashiness' was delivered through gameplay density. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is a sidescrolling score attack game with a lot of ideas. From callbacks to the original Donkey Kong game with the logo font; To the barrel graze jingle, this game's explicitly introspective on the nature of arcade games. I see that even in how it controls. Just 3 inputs, Left, Right, and the 'Clap', which can be triggered by tapping the side of the bongos too. The somatosensory element of the controls are complemented by the frantic nature of the game as well. It can be very difficult to keep most combos going, and when DK grabs hold of enemies he beats the ever living daylights out of them. I'm pretty sure it was so violent it forced the ESRB to make E10+ because they didn't want this game to be rated T.

There's even an arcade game it actually closely resembles, in spirit and operation. Mach Breakers: Numan Athletics 2. A game about a superhuman decathlon. Mach Breakers also only has 3 inputs, insane mashing that really makes you FEEL the action of your characters, and above all extremely arcadey. I draw this comparison because there's even more DKJB could be paying homage to, that I may not be fully aware of because it's not exclusionary in that way. It's not some reference that exists solely for it's own value. It's kind of a more natural one, that I'm sure began during development as a coincidence and then they leaned into it as a genuine inspiration. I haven't even gone into the scoring system yet, which I find very interesting and well designed. Everytime DK does a unique action, such as backflipping, wall jumping, swinging, sliding up onto a ledge, etc; It adds to a combo trick meter. The combo stays going as long as you're in the air, unless you get hit. The combo counter acts as a multiplier for each individual instance of a banana you collect. Which bunches being their own multiple of 3. Additionally, when you grab many stray bananas at the same time using the clap motion it adds an additional amount by 1 per banana you caught. There's a lot they do with this. With all the unique enemy and banana layouts, it adds a lot of strategy to routing particular areas, without turning it into a chore necessarily. Because there's a lot of freeform stuff you can just try and do in the moment.

Not a whole lot of the game is up to scripted events. Even though you'd think there'd be a reason to add many of them because of the game's limited controls, the game uses them sparingly. Even when you grab a melon that was thrown at you as a projectile, there's still a chance it can miss when hit back because of poor positioning. But like, also, it has physics that do matter when being juggled by the claps soundwave. The game plays out mostly setpiece to setpiece, and the 'breaks' are still fraught with heavy mashing. It's a very involved game, but I love it for that.