Few character dynamics in video games are as iconic as a good old-fashioned rivalry. Fewer still are as old as the one between Mario and Donkey Kong. Join us on a journey through video game history and learn about one of gaming’s earliest rivalries.
The Complete History of Mario and Donkey Kong’s Rivalry
A lot of video games are defined and made iconic by the rivalries they hold. What would The Legend of Zelda be without Link’s eternal battle against Ganon (or Ganondorf, depending on the timeline)? Would Final Fantasy VII be half as memorable if Cloud and Sephiroth weren’t constantly testing their admittedly oversized weapons on each other? Pray tell, who would even play Devil May Cry if Dante and Vergil were good siblings?
All these video game rivalries make their games worth playing, but few have ever been as historical as one of gaming's very firsts. Not THE first, mind you, that would be Pac-man and his ghosts. I’m talking about Nintendo’s poster boy, Super Mario, and his simian rival Donkey Kong.
But wait, Mario’s rival is Bowser, right? Big, spiky, fire breath, kidnaps the princess — that guy. Isn’t Donkey Kong just a silly guy, a little jokester of an ape who occasionally fights his own crocodilian rival? Well, yes, but also no. That’s modern Super Mario lore. We gotta go all the way back to the classics of Nintendo’s catalog, where these two met…sort of.
Not What it Seems Among Barrels and Beams
Mario and Donkey Kong’s first meeting wasn’t even in a Mario game, heck, the jumping red plumber wasn’t even called Mario then. These two first butted heads in 1981’s Donkey Kong, an arcade platformer where you, Jumpman (a.k.a Mario), dodged barrels thrown by the titular ape while climbing up steel girders. This is all to save your love interest, which some of you might expect to be Princess Peach, but no. At the time, Mario’s lady friend was a character we now call Pauline, though she was simply known as "Lady" in this game.
If you wanna know why the great ape kidnapped Lady, I can’t tell you for sure. Some say that it mirrored King Kong’s penchant for abducting pretty ladies and scaling tall buildings, which would make perfect sense, considering that King Kong is DK’s design inspiration and namesake. Others purport that DK was Jumpman’s pet and that his kidnapping of Lady was either a bid for attention or an act of vengeance. The jury’s still out, but what do you think?
Before we move forward to the next era of this rivalry’s history, I’m gonna drop a truth Bob-omb that the Nintendo-lore savvy among you probably already knew. This DK isn’t the DK we know. While Jumpman is Mario, Donkey Kong from the original Donkey Kong is Donkey Kong Senior. The big lumbering ape we know and love is either DK Jr. or DK III, depending on who you ask.
Rivals in Full Swing
Moving swiftly along, let’s get into the meat of this rivalry, where both Mario and DK (whichever version of him) make deliberate attempts to swing at each other. In 1982’s Donkey Kong Jr., DK himself takes the role of damsel in distress, being held hostage by Mario. It’s up to his son, DK Jr., to take the fight to Mario and free his father. There’s also a Donkey Kong 3, but that didn’t involve Mario at all, so we can just ignore it. There’s also 1992’s Super Mario Kart, but that’ll be covered later.
1994 sees the return of DK and his troop of apes on Donkey Kong for the Game Boy. Sure enough, there’s damsel-kidnapping and barrel-throwing like in the first one. You’re picking up the pattern already, I’m sure.
Mario and DK meet up again for 1998’s Mario Party, but we’ll discuss that in the next section as part of the overlap between this era and the "Party Era," as I like to call it. Their next meeting as true rivals came more than a decade after the Game Boy’s version of Donkey Kong with 2004’s aptly-named platformer, Mario vs. Donkey Kong. There’s a lot less kidnapping in this one, at least of the human sort, as the main conflict of the game lies with DK’s theft of Mario’s merchandise.
This is when the rivalry really kicks into high gear, as a bunch of spinoffs for the Mario vs. Donkey Kong title start to line up for the years that came after the first. In order of their release, the following games followed the Mario vs. Donkey Kong title:
● Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis! (2006)
● Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again! (2009)
● Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem! (2010)
● Mario and Donkey Kong: Minis on the Move (2013)
● Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars (2015).
Lighthearted Fun in the Party Era
Moving on to the rivalry’s Party Era, it’s good to note that there’s a healthy overlap between this era and the previous one. I only chose to separate the two because Mario and DK don’t seem to be actual enemies for a majority of the games included in this era. At worst, they’re participants in the same game, series of mini-games, or sport. With that in mind, let’s talk about their first friendly competition that doesn’t include kidnapping, Super Mario Kart.
First released in 1992 for the NES, this game predated even the Game Boy version of Donkey Kong by a couple of years. There’s no trace of the rivalry between Mario and DK Jr. in this one, past or future, so I’m willing to write this off as lighthearted fun among fellow competitors. It’s good to note that DK is called DK Jr. for this version of Mario Kart, but is referred to as DK starting the N64 era of Mario Kart. This is where the confusion of the modern DK’s identity starts to unwind, but that’s neither here nor there, so we’ll leave it alone.
The two met again for 1998’s Mario Party for the N64, where, again, they seem to be more preoccupied with playing party games than actually fighting. Lighthearted fun, as I said earlier. DK was considered part of the Mario Party until the fifth installment onwards, where he’s relegated to either be a stage character, an unlockable character, or an easter egg. For some of the Mario Party games, he was omitted altogether in favor of new characters like Rosalina and Daisy.
Going back to games where these two consistently tried to beat the other’s face in, we have Super Smash Bros. (1999) for the N64. This historic franchise was a crossover fighting game for a lot of Nintendo’s IPs at the time which, of course, included Donkey Kong. I wouldn’t say this game was about their rivalry in particular, so I put it in the party era. DK served as the only "Heavy" character in this roster of 12, making him a heavy-hitter who’s hard to knock off platforms, but one that’d have a really hard time recovering from a fall.
DK joined Mario in all Smash Bros. games that followed, with even some of his friends (and enemies) from his own games like Diddy Kong and King K. Rool joining in later installments. His demeanor towards Mario in these games seems kind, helpful, even. They’ve fought together during some of these game’s story modes, though I’d chalk that up to the utter ridiculousness of the villains in the Smash Bros. Series. At this point, I’d be surprised if those two would still be at each other’s throats when a multidimensional creature’s tearing up the place.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong is Reignited
After a super jump across the eras of Mario vs. Donkey Kong, here we land in modern times. Donkey Kong is all but a side character in the Mario franchise after Nintendo decided that kidnapping princesses is more of a Bowser thing. His appearance in Mario Kart 8 (or lack thereof in Mario Party Superstars) pretty much made him…inconsequential. It’s easy to forget that he was Mario’s first rival before Bowser nowadays, but that will be changing soon.
The rivalry’s back and better than ever with the upcoming remake of the original 2004 game. If it’s anything like the original, I highly doubt that this game would be making Donkey Kong as villainous as he once was. One thing is for sure, though, Mario’s beef with the leader of the DK Crew is here to stay.
