[Review] Castle Kong - Nintendo Switch

Developed and Published By: Drowning Monkeys Games
Categories: Retro
Release Date: 02.25.21

Do you like original arcade Donkey Kong? I mean, really like it. If so, then you’re probably going to love Castle Kong, granted you can look past a few bugs.

From the developer’s own admission, Castle Kong is a shameless copy of Donkey Kong. The biggest form of flattery is imitation, and the team at Drowning Monkeys loves Donkey Kong. If you’re familiar with that, then this needs no explanation. For people who aren’t, you go up a tower with slanted platforms, ladders, and various obstacles which can be destroyed with hammer. All to save the pretty lady up top. Give all of this a medieval makeover and we have Castle Kong.

No continues, just three lives. Castle Kong is a hard game. I’ll be open and say I struggled to get very far at all in this game. The more I played, the more I saw and further I got, but I saw those first few stages a lot. That isn’t to say the game doesn’t help you on even have things that make the experience smoother than Donkey Kong. You can climb up ladders when holding your weapon now! This is something I always hated, if you had the hammer, you’re stuck in place more or less. No so any longer.

Castle Kong has a bit of an old school artstyle, it’s simple. However, it it’s colorful and the sprites for enemies and characters are nicely detailed. That said, I managed to run into a bug constantly where no graphics would load after I would start the game. I think it was related to going into sleep mode, but it often had me needing to restart my game. As someone who does play quite a bit in handheld, if only for convenience this was concerning.

Castle Kong really is an old school game, BS difficulty and all, with a modern flair. I wish it was a bit easier at times or at least let me try the stages, just without getting a score, if only to experience the later levels. If you’re more skill than I and do love Donkey Kong, you’re going to get great mileage out of this game though.