An evil Baron has kidnapped a princess and taken her to the top of a castle.  It’s up to you as a lowly pauper to climb up and down the castle to save her, jumping and avoiding obstacles all the way.  If this sounds lot like Donkey Kong, well, it pretty much is!  Castle Kong is available on Switch and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

Your pauper character can move left and right, climb ladders, and jump.  Movement is very similar to Donkey Kong as well.  Instead of barrels, you’ll be jumping over blobs of boiling oil, avoiding archers’ arrows, among other things.  Even the levels are designed after the ones in Donkey Kong.  There’s even a “pie factory” level in the castle’s kitchen, and instead of removing rivets in the last level, you’re removing wires to send a chandelier crashing down on the Baron.  Since in many levels you start from the top and work your way to the bottom, instead of saying “How High Can You Get?” like in Donkey Kong, it says before every level “How Low Can You Go?”  Even the music is the same, save for a different note every now and then.  It’s a wonder Nintendo didn’t sue!

If you are connected to the internet while playing, you can also view high score leaderboards.  Speaking of which, the makers of this game are holding a cash prize contest for high scores.  If you want more info about that, just click on the link here.   You can also switch the view to be vertical, but you still must control the game the same way, which makes it hard to play in handheld mode on the Switch.  Also, even in vertical mode, nearly half the screen is just blue sky, so it kind of defeats the purpose.  Some obstacles are also hard to see in handheld mode, and the game is harder than Donkey Kong in general, too, but most of that has to do with level design that doesn’t leave as much space to avoid obstacles.  It also doesn’t help that the controls feel slightly gummy, too.  If you REALLY like Donkey Kong and want something different and more of a challenge, you might enjoy this, but otherwise I think I’d rather just play Donkey Kong instead.

Kid Factor:

Violence is fairly minimal in this game.  If you get hit, you just fall down.  And when the chandelier falls on the Baron, he just gets dizzy stars above his head.  Reading skill isn’t needed, but younger gamers may find it too difficult.  Castle Kong is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews