Donkey Kong Country

Nintendo leaned heavily on the new system's sharp, colorful sprite artwork throughout the Super NES period, but the firm also experimented with different graphical styles and approaches. The first was an early effort at polygon-based 3D (more on that later), while the second was a novel technology used by Rare for Donkey Kong Country.

DKC, an upgraded version of one of Nintendo's first characters, made Donkey Kong the hero, defending his cherished banana stockpile from the nefarious King K. Rool. It was one of the first games to employ pre-rendered models that were converted into high-fidelity sprites, giving it a claymation style. It was also known for being a very difficult game, testing platforming aficionados more than the normal Mario game at the time.

Release date: 1994

Platforms: Game Boy Advance

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