The monkey's got a new look! The monkey looks, and looks well. That Simian Stare is... really something.
Nintendo's new design for Donkey Kong, first appearing in the Super Mario Bros. Movie, has quickly become the new standard for everyone's favorite gaming gorilla (Sorry, Winston. Overwatch just isn't the game it used to be.)
And the design, overall, is quite nice! It's been received well by the community at large, and people are excited to see that goofy face in Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza once the Nintendo Switch 2 releases.
But one feature of the redesign always struck me as a bit odd. I'm really not sold on those peepers of his, but a recent IGN interview with Shigeru Miyamoto aims, in part, to settle this.
In the interview, Miyamoto explains his role in the design of Donkey Kong throughout history. The design we're most familiar with, the one from the Rare games like Jungle Beat, was done with the day's technology in mind.
They wanted to make something 3D, something expressive, and that same mindset is what fueled the gorilla's new look. Expressiveness is at the heart of everything.
It's A New Design For...
