Fun fact: both the “How high can you try?” text and the 25m out of bounds bug are carryovers from the original JP set of Donkey Kong, which CK is based on
That’s hardly worth giving credit, considering Donkey Kong is objectively clearer and more evenly-pitched, and the musical arrangements are more elaborate. It doesn’t sound like someone left a speaker out in the rain and plucked a few notes on a music box.
This was a treat. And I agree with that bit about collectors. It's why I say private collectors are the biggest enemy of game preservationists. The one that still stings to me is Monster Party. Screw that person, or I guess even worse. That we haven't seen from the only Nintendo Playstation in existence since one of those greedy hoarding fools we call private collectors bought it
My local convenience store had Crazy Kong when I was a kid. It was the Falcon II with the cut-scene. This one did not have broken platforms on level 2. There must have been a few variations of this game going around. I spent many hours playing and watching older teens play the game. I even watched a guy reach the kill screen. We had no knowledge of the term "kill screen", we just said he broke it. I didn't see a real DK until a year or so later. I didn't like the real DK, it didn't play the same and I thought the pie stage was missing. I didn't know the pie stage only showed up after level 3.
Back in the day, I saw Crazy Kong Jr. around more than DKJR and even more Crazy Kong's than original DK's. and this was pre-1985 so they must have run out of the original cabinets very quick to have more boots than originals floating around. I never knew there were lawsuits surrounding it as I thought they were made by the arcade owners. Interesting to know the backstory. Great video!
9:48: That cinematic would've helped a bit in the story, since we have no idea where Cranky Kong came from as a prisoner of entertainment. Also "Give Up!" might be that he's saying "I Give Up!", because he's injured.
As a kid, I got to regularly play CK at a flea market in the snack bar area. To this day, I prefer it to the “authentic” DK precisely because it was unpredictable, and had altered graphics and sounds. I still enjoy it on a CoinOps-modded X-Box.
I grew up with crazy kong. On the 2nd level, get the hammer on the pie belt, when it goes left move quickly to the left of the screen and repeatedly push the jump button to leave an invisible hammer there to hit any pies as you move away and complete the level
I remember playing Crazy Kong at a tiny arcade in Chester Virginia. The location is still there but it has changed businesses over the decades. The last time I noticed it became a hearing aid retailer.
We never see Crazy Kong in the Country games because he was exiled from DK Island for his numerous counts of copyright infringement and contract breach
Nice video, I love game history and this is something I never knew about, so thanks for the new info. Also I 100% agree on game preservation, it one of the reasons why I collect, not just because of love for the media, but to help preservation
When I was a kid (cerca 1982 and 1983) Crazy Kong 2 was the version I played most. It was at the Thruway Market in Walden, NY. I did not know it was a bootleg. Later, when I played the original Donkey Kong, I missed this bootleg. It had the Japanese lever progression that I preferred. I always wanted to play it again and got a chance 10 years later. I was living in Iquitos Peru (the last port on the Amazon river) on the main street there was a small arcade made up of mostly bootleg machines ( everything from music to videos were bootleg there) this arcade had Crazy Kong and I played it every chance I got. Now, on my multicade cabinate and on Mame I still play it often with so much nostalgia. It made me a lifelong fan of Donkey Kong. Thanks for this video
7:10 Well actually, "How High Can You Try" IS the original. "How High Can You Get" was a retranslation for America. Its probably a leftover from the whole import process.
There is actually an earlier version of Crazy Kong from 1981 which runs on Galaxian and Moon Cresta Hardware which is the original version of Crazy Kong. You can play it in Mame but the music and sounds plays an octave higher than it did originally in the arcade version. This in my opinion was the best version of Crazy Kong and better than the other 2 versions you show in your video. It was the one most people in the UK remember, although I did see the 2 versions you have put in your video also in the UK but not as common as the original one running on Moon Cresta and Galaxian hardware. There is also another version which runs on Scramble hardware which plays Yankee doodle dandy music during game play.
Nicely done video! I saw Crazy Kong before Donkey Kong, at a local mini-golf course. The animation and graphics blew me away. I don’t think I ever came across another Crazy Kong cabinet, and its existence puzzled me for years after Donkey Kong cabinets began to appear. I always had an affection for those neon green girders.
Crazy Kong feels very much like a hacked late-stage prototype to me, even compared to JP Set 3. With the slightly glitchy barrels, it wouldn't surprise me if that was actually the case. Then again, it could also be just me.
I'm pretty sure the Japanese version of Donkey Kong had "How high can you try" The international release had "How high can you get" The jumping through the floor glitch is actually in the early japanese version of Donkey Kong and was patched out in later versions
I remember seeing Crazy Kong in Myrtle Beach around 1982 or 1983 while on family vacation. It was at a restaurant on the beach. I played it and it was almost the same as Donkey Kong.
Superbly done presentation!!! My son and I have played a ton of Crazy Kong and variants (e.g. Big Kong) and I even remember playing Crazy Kong Part II in the arcade as a child. Even so, i learned something new when you covered Crazy Jr. Would love to play it if a dump is ever made. One important call out that i don't see in this video or anywhere else: Crazy Kong barrels are deterministic, meaning they follow the same pattern for a given level each time, unlike the original Donkey Kong which truly is random. This makes Crazy Kong much easier, and ultimately not as enjoyable. Thanks so much for putting this together. What a story, and you've captured it for posterity!
I'm not on Twitter anymore, but I should've brought this up months ago. I actually was not aware you made this video before I did and considering how niche and specific the topic is, it definitely seems like I copied you. I apologize if it came across that way. I will say this is DEFINITELY better than my Crazy Kong video. Keep up the good work! Love hearing about more obscure games.
Crazy Kong was my introduction to Donkey Kong. I started playing CK in about 81 and never heard of DK until about 83. Crazy Kong was all over NZ in the ealy to mid 80s
Campground I went to as a kid in the late 90's and early 2000's still had one of these cabinets. I remember it being pretty true to the original but only having the 1st level.
Fun fact: there are also versions of Crazy Kong that run on Galaxian, Moon Cresta and Scramble hardware - as well as a Brazillian knockoff that's just called “Kong“
I actually played Crazy Kong on MAME on the mid 2000's,and i simply looked at the game as a potential bootleg of Donkey Kong,and that Falcon was just some made up name and not an actual company,you know,much like Happy Soft. Oh and,for when Crazy Kong 3? or Crazy Kong Country?
I was in junior high and high school during arcade's "golden age" (1979-1983). Donkey Kong was a favorite of mine. I came across a Crazy version once at a gas station and immediately recognized the Crazy Climber sound effects because those sounds were particularly what I disliked so much about the game. If they were bad on Crazy Climber, they were even worse on Kong. Mario running, for instance, is the climber suction cup steps (just much faster). I only played it that one time, and specifically avoided the title afterwards.
A friend of mine moved out of state and left me a cabaret/bar version of Crazy Kong from his neighborhood laundromat in the 80's. It was awful....no music, really, REALLY bad sound effects. No graphics on the case...just a generic wood paneled game cabinet. And player "A" side controller only went left and right. I sold it :)
There are so many different versions, that it is not even funny. There is one called "Big Kong" and another that when you rescue Pauline, you can see Mario and Pauline getting it on. Trust me, I have played every version of Crazy Kong that I have at my fingertips on MAME. Now, a ROM hacker has compiled all versions of Crazy Kong into one ROM and made the original even better. There is music being played when you have the hammer. You can even jump with the hammer..
I guarantee that even with how bad this sounds, it's nowhere near as bad as the ZX Spectrum version of Donkey Kong. You know, the one where the intro theme sounds like a demonic telephone!
I am actually ASTONISHED that between mid-1981 and early 1982 so naby things did happen with nintendo. Including converted and original cabinets did hit the arcades, bootlegs of donkeykong did appear in arcades and even a licensed bootleg of donkeykong called crazy kong did appear in the arcades. Heck even a sequel of crazy kong did appear. And even a lawsuit from nintendo against falcon for overproducing cabinets of crazy kong and distributing them through different subsidaries to other countries and states, etc… etc… It blows my mind that that all happened within such short time, am mean holy fucking shit. But what’s also blows my mind is that once supermariobros came out, everything what went before it seems to be all forgotten. Most people think about the nes with supermariobros if they think about nintendo (including me), not donkeykong. Believe me without the internet i wouldn’t have know about all that shit that came before it.
Here's what I don't understand about this. Okay, Nintendo originally needed help making enough of these DK games to satisfy demands so they brought Falcon in. But Falcon's code is different in many ways. Yes, the sounds and the colors are way off, but if you look carefully the graphics themselves are not the same as the original either. My question is this: If Nintendo needed help producing DK games, why didn't they "lend" the actual game code and hardware stats to Falcon so they would be making the exact same game as Nintendo's original? As everyone who has played Crazy Kong knows, CK is significantly easier to play than DK and is a good game to practice on.
Anybody think crazy kong is the reason Nintendo is so strict with copyright? Ever since Crazy kong, they weren’t gonna be copied or have their IP stolen again.
Did I hear correct in the crazy Kong isn't available in Mame? I've had all the clones (Crazy Kong,Monkey Donkey etc)for years. Didn't know they were that important m
10:33 okay I know this is silly, but at the beginning you're literally telling us to enjoy the video, not to mention you even said go grab some popcorn, meaning that this video should be for any age, but no you had to curse out of nowhere! I'm confused.
I've just been to Flippermuzeum in Budapest and I was surprised to see this one among many legit arcade games. I could only beat one loop before running out of lives on the second stage of second loop. Sure, it was Donkey Kong, but something about it was... off. Like, way off.
You say ‘Falcon had a ingenious idea to make an completely unofficial knock off of dk jr called crazy kong jr’ This will let Nintendo to to find a criminal complain against those falcon ceo members ‘It is astonishing to me how everybody out there tout it was a good idea’ Well you did mean it sarcastic and not ingenious at all (eventrough i found it normal piracy business) Then all i can say is hohoho hahaha how droll,,,,how very droll🤣
‘Falcon had a ingenious idea to make an completely unofficial knock off of dk jr called crazy kong jr’ This will let Nintendo to to find a criminal complain against those falcon ceo members ‘It is astonishing to me how everybody out there tout it was a good idea’ Well then what on earth are you talking about huh??? Were you sarcastic or what? Becides Nintendo should,ve been procecuted as well for breaking those rules with ikagami for producing more motherboards of donkeykong then what was allowed. Also nintendo should,ve be procecuted for using and moddiefying the source code of donkeykong to make donkeykong junior without permission from ikagami since they own the rights of the source code. Why didn’t you mentioned that huh👎
I went to someplace in somewhere (I think Texas or South Dakota) and there was a little store that had a bootleg 20-in-one arcade machine and it had both Donkey Kong and Crazy Kong.
My Dad had several Crazy Kong arcade machines. All were conversions and all had “1981” in place of the copyright. The Galaxian based ones had awful audio and have been captured elsewhere. However, he had some other ones, with far superior audio to both ‘Crazy Kong’ and Nintendo’s own ‘Donkey Kong’ and the graphics were fine. It wasn’t ‘Scramble’ based either, so I don’t know what the hardware was. If he was still with us, he’d know right off. 🦧
