Donkey Kong

Donkey Kong is the 1982 Nintendo arcade classic that launched Mario (then called Jumpman) into gaming history, and its NES port faithfully delivers the iconic four-stage experience. Climb ladders, dodge rolling barrels and bouncing fireballs, jump over gaps, and use hammers to smash obstacles as you ascend steel girder construction sites to rescue Pauline from the clutches of the barrel-throwing ape. Each of the four stages — Construction, Cement Factory, Elevator, and Rivets — requires a different movement strategy.

Donkey Kong's design established the platformer genre's core vocabulary: obstacles with predictable patterns that players must time carefully, power items that temporarily change the rules (the hammer), and a goal at the top of the screen that provides visual motivation for the climb. The game loops endlessly with increasing difficulty, and high-score competition — once a defining gaming activity of the early 1980s — was born in no small part from Donkey Kong's score multipliers and bonus items.

Donkey Kong was Shigeru Miyamoto's directorial debut and the game that established Nintendo as a creative force in the worldwide gaming industry. The character of Jumpman evolved into Mario, appeared in countless sequels, and became the most recognizable character in gaming history. Donkey Kong himself was rehabilitated from villain to hero across his own franchise. The NES port is missing the Cement Factory stage compared to the arcade, a famous omission, but the remaining three stages capture the essential experience of one of gaming's most important creations.