DKC Atlas Forum

[Jomingo]

This is where we can discuss Donkey Kong's treatment in Mario Sport titles, and how far we want it to go.


If you've played Mario Super Sluggers, you are probably amazed at how great the DK section of the game is. I mean, there are 7 DK characters(8 if you include Baby DK), the first time we've seen multicolored Kritters in forever, and the first time K. Rool has changed costume since DK64! But as usual, I still have complaints:
1) K. Rool is portrayed poorly. No K. Rool I know would be that quick to join DK.
2) The Kritters are treated like drones now with the different colors, and DKBB seemed to treat him like a seperate character.
3) Cranky Kong should be in instead of Tiny, and Kiddy Kong should be in instead of Baby DK. Hell, if they wanted to they could make him look a little smaller and more baby-like(I don't care if nobody ages him, I just want to see Kiddy Kong!)
4) Cranky could've had his cane as a bat, Kiddy would've had a rattle, and I think Diddy should've had a large banana.
5) Petey should have been on DK's team.


So anyway, discuss how you want the DK side to continue in future Mario games and such.

[Swing King]

- I didn't mind K.Rool. He probably would see it as a good chance to learn Donkey's weakness.
- As much as I would love Cranky in, Tiny needs these appearances. Every game she's been in is a spin-off since DK64.
- I currently believe the DKBB Kritter is Krunch. There's no evidence against this theory.
- When Mario Tennis came out for the N64 I called DK jr. Kiddy to avoid that problem. Same with Baby DK.
- I couldn't agree with you more about Petey Pirhanna!

[Tiptup Jr.]

-K. Rool is portrayed fairly. He even says that he'll only join DK for baseball purposes, and nothing else.
-I like Baby DK.
-Cranky is old.
-Petey is awesome.
-John McCain is really old.

[Sean]

It's a bit late to complain about Diddy's bat, since everyone uses the same one they had in Mario Superstar Baseball. (Besides, Baby DK gets the banana.)

Kritters are and will always be drones. The one in Barrel Blast was no more individual than the one playable in King of Swing (unless you want to argue they're the same guy). Did you complain that Kritters were drones in Jungle Climber? A multiplayer game doesn't mean all that much.

Before I may have argued against having DK characters in Mario games due to rah rah rah the series is being absorbed into Mario, but you know what? Screw it. Having Diddy et al in more games is only a good thing.

[DK4Ever]

-K. Rool is portrayed fairly. He even says that he'll only join DK for baseball purposes, and nothing else.
-I like Baby DK.
-Cranky is old.
-Petey is awesome.
-John McCain is really old.

-Really? Is that part of the story? I have yet to play the game

-I would honestly prefer Kiddy, but that's me.

-Cranky IS Old.

-Petey IS Awesome.

-And yes, John McCain is hella old, and his VP choice ends up making me cry, just because of her ideals (Now, I will do all in my power to prevent his winning! Gogo super DK4Ever powers of persuasion!)

[Jomingo]

Alright, alright, save the GoBama rally for another thread.

In the spoiler tag below I will describe in detail the events that take place in DK Jungle during Challenge mode. If you haven't played the game it will show you what epicness this game contains, but it may spoil it for you(though I don't think it will spoil it, it will still be just as epic when you see it for yourself). Click at your own risk:

Spoiler!

OK, so first you break open a crate to reveal a barrel cannon, which takes you over a river. Then you help Dixie, and she joins your team, after revealing that Bowser Jr. broke the stone tablet into three pieces and hid them. After you get one DK joins your team. After some vine climbing you defeat some kritters, you reveal the location of a second piece of the tablet. There is also a waterfall that has something hidden behind it. Then after some more vine climbing you defeat another minion and save Funky Kong, who then joins your team. Also, the shop in this region is now open, and Funky runs it! Am I the only one that thinks that's awesome?
Then you find the third tablet piece, and install it where it's supposed to go. Then the bridge thing rises, and reveals that Bowser Jr. apenapped Tiny Kong. Then Diddy joins your team. After you defeat him Tiny joins your team. Then if you go under the bridge you fight another Kritter and then go through a warp pipe and fight yet another Kritter.

After all four kritters are defeated K. Rool will awaken from behind the waterfall, and after he is defeated he and all the kritters join your team.
This is what happens: K. Rool is defeated. He says, "Hey your pretty good, so I'm gonna join your team". Then all the Kritters say that they don't think it's such a good idea, and K. Rool says he knows how to admit when someone's better than him, but he makes it clear this is only for the baseball game.

Also, after you come back with Yoshi you can find Baby DK.

[Qyzbud]

I don't play the Mario Sports games much at all, but I do like seeing the DK crew getting involved. It sounds like this Sluggers game is giving them some of the best representation yet, so that's great. I'll have to rent the game sometime to check out the Kongitude.

Flashing back to some of Jomingo's initial gripes; Kritters are drones. If Barrel Blast told you otherwise, Barrel Blast lied. Cranky should have been in it, perhaps... and his cane would make a good bat. I'm not sure about your rattle/giant banana suggestions, though.

I know it's meant to have a broader scope, but it seems to me that so far this entire discussion belongs in the Sluggers topic.

[Jomingo]

It's meant to be about all the past and future Mario sport titles; how the DK treatment has increased and where it will go next.

Though nobody seems to be doing that.

[Swing King]

Oh, in that case, has anyone else played Mario Party 8. It feels more like the first one actually. DK is not playable but he has his own board! I really like it, its called DK's Treetop Temple and is sorta based of the DK Arcade. The DK spaces are good again, and in DK's board I saw a dinosuar. Eh, its not a stretch considering DKR had Dino Domain.

[Sean]

Obviously the most important DK-related addition to the Mario Party series is Diddy's appearance in MPDS, though obviously not playable and probably never will be unless DK gets in again (unlikely), he even got a new render out of the deal.

You're going to see the number of DK stuff appearing in Mario sports games (almost wanted to say "cameo games" there, hah) simply due to the fact that Paon went and actually made new models for all of them. That's pretty much the only reason Sluggers has such an incredible jump from the previous game (which itself gets notoriety for being Dixie's first Mario game). Obviously it's going to be varying depending on the size of the cast - seven characters is pushing it - and I don't like to say that even Diddy will be guaranteed from now on, since I did that once and then 2005 finished up and stomped all over that. But the odds of getting more than just DK and Diddy with guest star Dixie are higher now than they were pre-Barrel Blast/Jungle Climber. Me, I'm jonesing to get cape!K. Rool into another game, one where I can properly have him and Bowser go at it (since Smash 4 is so very very far away and a fool's errand as far as speculation goes).

[Jomingo]

Yeah, though this doesn't guarantee we will see that many Kongs soon(or ever again), it does improve the chances. I mean, in most Mario Sport titles(depending on the sport) DK and Diddy are pretty much guaranteed, and (again, depending on the sport) I would be surprised if we didn't see Dixie more often, and maybe Funky too(as he was in Mario Kart Wii in place of Dixie). In Super Sluggers we got lucky. Like Sean said, they had the new renders, and it was baseball(which calls for a large cast). I don't know what the next sport will be, but I think that it would be stupid to think Nintendo won't bring Golf and Tennis to the Wii. Both of those games do not require a large cast at all, and thus I highly doubt we'll be seeing half as many. Has Dixie ever even been in the Golf or Tennis series?
I would be extremely surprised if they don't bring back Baby DK, I mean, if they can get away with Baby friggin' Daisy, then it would be stupid to not include Baby DK(no matter how much I dislike him).

On an offtopic but related subject, I much would have preferred Baby Wario over creating Baby Daisy in Mario Kart Wii, for several reasons:
1) I'd rather they use pre-existing characters then create new ones.
2) It wasn't a partner game like double-dash, so Baby Peach doesn't need a clone yet.
3) I mean come on, Baby Daisy? Can you think of a more useless character?


Back on topic, though I like seeing so much DK treatment in the Mario Sports, I hope they never start spilling Mario into the DK series. That would suck....

[Tiptup Jr.]

I was 99% positive that Super Sluggers would wipe out all "The Kongs being in these games is a one-time thing" arguments, but I suppose I was wrong. Few games will ever boast a cast as large as Super Sluggers', I admit that. But I'm pretty sure that we haven't seen the last of Tiny, K. Rool, or Kritter in the sports games, simply because of what Sean said: Paon made stuff for them. They have models, and a full set of voice clips now. Donkey Kong is far from being done with Mario.

...For now, at least.

[Sean]

Voice clips don't matter, it's voice actors, which coincidentally every DK character now has thanks, again, to Barrel Blast. With admitted oddities, like how - at least from what I've watched - K. Rool and Kritter doesn't sound particularly anything like they do in last year's Paon games. If I wanted to set myself up for an epic fall, I'd say that pretty much every character in Barrel Blast (and I include Candy in that, she's gonna be playable in something sooner or later) is up for grabs in a Mario game, though I figure they'll settle on a stock three or four if they do indeed feel like going beyond just DK and Diddy (I'm thinking Dixie and Funky here, most likely, though I wouldn't be surprised if one of the two gets swapped out with someone else as the individual games demand. Funky got in Mario Kart because they needed a heavyweight, first and foremost.)

[Tiptup Jr.]

What I meant about the voice clips is now Nintendo has a full set to use in future games to avoid having to create new recordings. They would rather reuse voice clips than get the voice actors to record new ones, but Super Sluggers just happened to require a large number of fresh sounds, especially for some of the Kong characters. Several of Paon's recordings from past games are used in Super Sluggers (DK and Diddy in the intro, and some of K. Rool's) while most, if not all, of Dixie's are from Superstar Baseball.

And did you guys know that Bowser got a new voice actor? Like, in Galaxy. It's awesome.

[Swing King]

I agree. In Sunshine Bowser sounded like Scruff McGruff.

[Jomingo]

If I wanted to set myself up for an epic fall, I'd say that pretty much every character in Barrel Blast (and I include Candy in that, she's gonna be playable in something sooner or later) is up for grabs in a Mario game, though I figure they'll settle on a stock three or four if they do indeed feel like going beyond just DK and Diddy (I'm thinking Dixie and Funky here, most likely, though I wouldn't be surprised if one of the two gets swapped out with someone else as the individual games demand. Funky got in Mario Kart because they needed a heavyweight, first and foremost.)

If every DKBB character is possible in a DK game, then I'm rooting for Lanky to replace Tiny.
And also, the part about Funky getting in because they needed a heavy weight reminds me of how retarded they were with Mario Kart Wii. They were so desperate for a heavy weight that they have Rosalina and Waluigi as Heavy, and they included Funky and Dry Bowser. Seriously, I'd have rather taken K. Rool as a heavy than have Funky. And Petey should've been in instead of Dry Bones Bowser.

[Sean]

And there is where we differ, for I find that game's roster is be absolutely flawless, and one of the big reasons why I love that game so much.

[Jomingo]

Wait, are we talking about the same game? Because I was utterly dissapointed with MKWii, from the boring characters to the harsh difficulty(Not that I don't like a challenge, but when they make it really hard just for the sake of making it hard, it takes the fun out of it). Ah well, agree to disagree. I will say that this weekend I had the most fun I've ever had with the game, as I took it with me while babysitting my nieces, and tought them how to play. I guess it's only fun with multiple people. My youngest niece surprised me at how smart she was. She's four years old, and was bugging for us to let her play, so I put my Gamecube controller in her hand. I told her to hold the green button, and to move with the stick. She was doing really good, until she hit a wall and got stuck. She asked me how to get out, and I told her to press the red button, and I couldn't believe it: Every time she hit the wall I saw her look at her controller, hold B and back up, and then continue with the race! And she wouldn't play as any character but the monkey(Diddy Kong), I was so proud.

[CaptainEddie]

Geez, I wish my sister was half that smart. But hey, when I play games with her, we play the classics. Yes, the N64. She really likes to play MK64 but she sucks. Bad. And she's 10. However, she kicked both me and brother's but at Double Dash. Thing is, she likes Peach and Yoshi. Maybe because I always take Diddy and Luigi. DK is too much for her.

[Sean]

Just noticed this...

Back on topic, though I like seeing so much DK treatment in the Mario Sports, I hope they never start spilling Mario into the DK series. That would suck....

You speak of a logical impossibility. There is no way in hell that they would make a Donkey Kong "Country" game, of any genre, with Mario as a playable character, simply because they'd automatically give Mario top billing and the title role. You don't ever have to worry about the gate going both ways, as it were. If Mario and DK are both playable in the same game (and it's not Smash, obviously), it'll be called a Mario game, period. Knowing this is half the reason why I'm so nonchalant about the sports games now, and it's something I sure wish I had thought of back on DKU...

Edit, to make it less confusing: the logic isn't that such a game as you describe will never be made. The logic is that such a game will be never even be considered as a Donkey Kong game, and will be automatically labeled a Mario game in development and won't carry the DK name (or at least not top billing). So rest easy as there will never be a Donkey Kong game with playable Mario guest stars, because the Mario characters will never be presented as guest stars.

[Jomingo]

I see what you mean, but I actually didn't mean Mario being playable persay. I just meant any kind of crossing over in general, such as goombas as enemies, or warp pipes randomly inserted...

I just hope the DK series stays the DK series.

[Tiptup Jr.]

And there is where we differ, for I find that game's roster is be absolutely flawless, and one of the big reasons why I love that game so much.

B-b-but... Petey! DIE I SAY, DIE!!!

[Sean]

You people still think using multiple exclamation points makes you cool?

[Gnawzooka]

What are you talking about? Of course they do!

[Jomingo]

I've just been coming up with some statistics(because I'm bored), and this is what I found:
The console Mario Sport games(that includes console Kart games, but does not include Mario Mix, the Parties, or the Olympic games) all range from having 10% to 19% Donkey Kong characters to Mario Characters. Here are my statistics:
Mario Golf (64) has 1 DK character(DK) out of the 9 mario characters. That's 11.11%.
Mario Golf Toadstool Tour has 2 DK characters(DK and Diddy) out of 16 mario characters. That's 12.5%.
Mario Tennis(64) has 2 DK characters(DK and DKJr.) out of 16 Mario characters. That's 12/5%.
Mario Power Tennis has 2 DK Characters(DK and Diddy) out of 18 Mario characters. That's 11.11%.
Super Mario Kart has 1 DK Character(DKJr.) out of 8 Mario characters. That's 12.5%.
Mario Kart 64 has 1 DK Character(DK) out of 8 Mario characters. That's 12.5%.
Mario Kart Double Dash has 2 DK Characters(DK and Diddy) out of 20 Mario characters. That's 10%.
Mario Kart Wii has 3 DK characters(DK, Diddy, and Funky) out of 24 Mario characters. That's 12.5%.
Mario Superstar Baseball has 3 DK characters(DK, Diddy, DIxie) out of 29 Mario characters. That's 10.3%.
Mario Super Sluggers has 8 DK characters(DK, Diddy, Dixie, Funky, Tiny, Baby DK, K. Rool, Kritter) out of 42 Mario characters. That is 19%.
Super Mario Strikers has 2 DK characters(DK and Kritter) out of 13 Mario characters. That is 15.3%.
Mario Strikers Charged has 3 DK characters(DK, Diddy, Kritter) out of 21 Mario Characters. That is 14.3%.

That's an average of 12.81%, or a little over 1/8. I didn't include any characters that weren't Mario characters(ie. Miis, or all those random people in the tennis games).

This seems to imply that they have a 1 to 8 ratio for most of the games. That would mean that if you took the number of characters in the next Mario Sport game, and multiplied it by 1/8, that would be the number of DK characters in the game. Obviously, this isn't true for all games(Mario Super Sluggers, which has nearly a 1 to 5 ratio), and I think that it's possible that the overall percentage is increasing in the recent titles, which would imply that we should see more than a 1 to 8 ratio in future titles.