Although Mario is considered the face of Nintendo, a certain barrel-throwing ape has also been there from the very beginning of the Big N’s gaming journey. Donkey Kong took arcades by storm in the early 80s, but the once-villainous ape soon turned things around and headed off on his own adventures with a little help from his family. Today marks the 29th anniversary since Donkey Kong Country was released in the UK, making it the perfect time to take a brief look at the latest LEGO® Super Mario sets inspired by the DK Crew. Way back in 1994, UK developer Rare was tasked with creating a new game for the SNES to take on SEGA’s various Disney games such as Aladdin. They ended up creating an impressive-looking side-scrolling adventure featuring Donkey Kong and his extended family. The rest is history, with DK’s new relatives still part of the Nintendo lexicon.
I have a fun history with DK, as the original developers Rare, are based in Leicestershire and visited the Twycross Zoo to help animate the animals in the games. Ahead of the release of Donkey Kong 64, I was at the ECTS event in London, where I was first treated to hearing the DK Rap. So I was quite excited to see Donkey Kong make the leap into the Super Mario LEGO sets. There are four sets inspired by Donkey Kong which take inspiration from both the Donkey Kong Country series and the Nintendo 64 game. You can build your own DK Crew across three different expansion sets, which also introduce locations from the games to the wider LEGO Super Mario theme.
The largest of the LEGO Super Mario Donkey Kong expansion sets is Diddy Kong’s Mine Cart Ride. During Donkey Kong Country, DK and Diddy would often hop on a mine cart and ride the rails through Kremling-infested caverns. The set features pieces of track and a couple of critters including Snaggles the Shark. But the highlight has to be the brick-built versions of Diddy Kong and excellently named Funky Kong. The set also features a number of Action Bricks, which expand the play functions of the Mario sets when combined with the LEGO Mario, LEGO Luigi or LEGO Peach interactive figures.
When DK isn’t fighting off King K Rool and tracking down his lost horde of bananas, he hangs out in his Jungle Tree House. The expansion set is similar to other Mario expansion sets as it is a single location. Plus it features DK and the original Donkey Kong, who now goes by the name of Cranky Kong. Despite the compact nature of the set, it has a number of great Action Brick features including the ability to pop an interactive figure on DK’s back which is accompanied by the iconic DKC theme. There’s even a nod to the classic bongo-based GameCube title, Donkey Kong Jungle Beats.
The smaller expansion set focuses on Dixie Kong, who was introduced during the second Donkey Kong Country game. Dixie is Diddy’s cousin and is also a brick-built character like the rest of her LEGO family. As a smaller set, it only features one Action Brick, which is a shame but it does add new gameplay functions.
The LEGO Super Mario Donkey Kong Expansion Sets are available now from LEGO.com, LEGO Stores and selected LEGO retailers.
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The LEGO Group provided some of these sets, upon request, for this feature. The thoughts within this review are those of BricksFanz.com and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group or Nintendo Co. Ltd. Providing a set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
