Donkey Kong (NES, Famicom Disk System)

The NES Donkey Kong is a very solid port of the arcade original, albeit with 50m (the cement factory) missing as was commonly the case with other home ports of the game due to memory limitations.

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Notes

Unused Sprites#

Versions of the bonus items located within the sprite graphics bank. In the final game, the bonus items are background tiles instead, likely to get around sprite limitations. This unused set notably includes the hat from the arcade version, which was cut from this port (as there wasn't enough space in the tile graphics bank to include it), and a bouquet of flowers that doesn't appear in any other port of the game!

Sprites of Mario and Pauline sitting, possibly meant for a different ending. Note the color differences from the used sprites, with Pauline's hair and shoes being pink, Mario's buttons being blue and Mario's eye not being filled in with blue.

A unique left-facing sprite exists for the hammer, but the game simply flips the right-facing sprite instead, leaving this one unused.

Unused Score Reward#

A tile meant for a "300 points" graphic. You could get 300 points in the original arcade version by destroying a barrel with a hammer and jumping over two barrels in a single jump. In this version, however, the former now gives you 500 points instead while no special bonus is given for the latter.

The reward is actually defined in the game and is functional. Using Game Genie code PAYTXT with Revision 0 ROM or PATTUT with Revision 1 ROM will make hammer destruction award 300 score instead of 500 like in the arcade original.

Unused Barrel Pattern#

When Donkey Kong throws a barrel through platforms, it can have one of the two patterns - straight down and down with alternating between left and right movement. There is a third, unused pattern, which makes the barrel fly all the way down-right. Using Game Genie code ZEGSNZ (REV0) or ZEGSVZ (REV1) will replace the initial barrel throw when starting a level with this unused pattern.

Revisional Differences#

Revision 1#

To do: There are more code differences.

Title Screen#

Revision 0	Revision 1

In Revision 0, the logo on the title screen uses the same shade of blue as the girders in 100m. Revision 1 changed this to a brighter blue.

Controller Input#

In Revision 0 (the original release), Mario cannot move at all when the D-Pad is held diagonally. In the more common Revision 1 version, the controller reading code was improved so that the first direction pressed has priority: if the D-Pad is rolled from Up/Down to diagonal Mario will not start walking, but if the D-Pad is rolled from Left/Right to diagonal he will not stop walking.

Demo Mode#

In Revision 0, there's an oversight in the demo mode, where Mario is able to jump while equipped with the hammer. This is a rare occurrence due to the RNG nature of the game. Mario must only destroy one barrel maximum or otherwise the hammer will run out before getting to jump inputs. The hammer stays where it was before the jump and its timer resets, extending its use. Revision 1 corrects this issue.

Famicom Disk System#

The FDS port of the game has a handful of graphical differences compared to the NES version.

Famicom/NES	FDS

The score popup graphics are orange instead of white. They were white in the original arcade game, so why they did this is anyone's guess. The 3 is also slightly different.

Famicom/NES	FDS

The heart seen in the ending cutscene has a white outline and looks a bit more like the sprite from the arcade version.

Famicom / NES	FDS

The dust on Mario's landing sprite is absent. Just like the score popup change, this actually makes it less accurate to the arcade sprite.

Famicom / NES	FDS

The copyright mark has an extra pixel.

Famicom / NES	FDS

DK's falling sprite has some slight differences, mostly around his fists and ears.

Donkey Kong Classics#

In the combo cart "Donkey Kong Classics", which contains both Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr, the two distinct NES title screens were removed and replaced with a singular title screen for selecting modes (with up and down directions) and the specific game (with left and right directions). This menu times out into demos for the two games in an alternating pattern, and each time it returns to the title screen, it alternates between the title songs of the two original NES releases. Notably, even with the expanded ROM size, the developers didn't take the opportunity to restore the 50m level to the original Donkey Kong.

Animal Crossing#

The version present in Animal Crossing expands the PRG-ROM size from 16KiB to 32KiB (as seen in Clu Clu Land) in order to make the following changes (see notes page for details):

• The controls have been slightly modified so the player can press Up and Down to switch between options at the title screen.
• New delay code has been inserted before the idle loop. This may have been done to work around emulator timing issues.

Original Edition#

27 years after its original release, the game got a modified Virtual Console version which follows the arcade version more closely. In Europe, to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros., this new version was pre-installed in limited-edition red and black Wii bundles.

This new version also received an official release on the 3DS outside Europe:

• In Japan, it was available via a limited-time Club Nintendo promotion ran from July 28, 2012 to September 2, 2012, in which the user was required to purchase one of the downloadable versions of selected 3DS titles.
• In the United States, it was available via a similar limited-time Club Nintendo promotion ran from October 1, 2012 to January 6, 2013, but open exclusively to members of Club Nintendo who had, within the aforementioned time frame and linked their systems to their Club Nintendo accounts and purchased the downloadable version of one of five selected Nintendo 3DS titles.
• Two years after these promotions, the game finally available on the 3DS Nintendo eShop in Europe and Australia on September 18, 2014.

Shortly after the game's release, the ROM was extracted from its WAD container and distributed online, at which point it was discovered that Original Edition is nothing more than a hack of the original retail ROM...and a rather sloppy one at that.

Title Screen#

The copyright date adds "-2010", with "1981" changed to "1983" as that was when the Famicom version was released. The text "CO.,LTD." was removed, and "MADE IN JAPAN" was moved over one space.

Before being soft-patched, the 3DS version lacked the copyright symbol and showed a copyright year of 2008, suggesting that Original Edition was originally intended to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Famicom version.

Famicom / NES	3DS Original Edition pre-patch	Original Edition

50m#

Perhaps the most notable change is the addition of 50m, a level that (as mentioned earlier) was often left out of the game's home ports.

Climbing Donkey Kong#

Donkey Kong now carries Pauline up the ladders to the next level, much like in the arcade version.

References#