Topic: Episode 939: Cranky's Forbidden Rant

[Crimm]

Even the embarrassing moderation policies of X, The Everything App, are being put to the test.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/72098/episode-939-crankys-forbidden-rant

Last time I wrote about Donkey Kong Bananza, I discovered that DK is an ape and Diddy isn't. The revelation that adjoins this information is that Diddy is dumber and closer to death than DK.

Truly, an evolutionary dead-end.

Speaking of evolutionary dead-ends, Rare's time with the Donkey Kong brand contributed the plurality of character and world details that we associate with "the big ape."

This sounds instantly more accusatory than I intend - I'm not speaking of Rare as the dead-end. I'm talking about many of the so-called "characters" they contributed to the brand.

Lets talk about Manky Kong.

WAIT! GET BACK HERE, I DIDN'T DISMISS YOU!

Manky Kong is an orangutang that Rare created as an enemy for Donkey Kong Country (1994). He went unused for the remainder of Rare's time with the series - presumably because he's undeniably terrible. However he did show up in a few manga and as a sticker in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

I suspect this fact will be unsurprising, but the name "Manky" was, once again, Rare gracing a title from UK slang to one of their creations:

Used to describe an object that is unpleasantly dirty, usually because it is old or has been used a lot
-Cambridge Dictionary

Rare's use of British slang has always felt like it was their way to get one over on whoever was, at that moment, their foreign master (see: Ghoulies, Grabbed by the). In this case however, the oblique naughty reference was not of their own creation.

Nintendo Power published the Player's Guide - the official strategy guide of Donkey Kong Country. They described Manky Kong as follows:

Manky Kong is really mad. Probably because he was never accepted as part of the Kong group. The word "manky" seems to be derived from the words "mangy" and "skanky." It's certainly befitting for such an unsightly ape...

In fact, an issues of Nintendo Power likewise describe Manky Kong as "skanky." Even when they were trying to behave, Rare will always be Rare.

As for the actual episode, it's the 100%er Club Spoilercast for Donkey Kong Bananza. James and Greg have all the collectables and have a lot to say. Below are the chapters and timestamps.

• (00:01:48) Spoiler disclaimer.
• (00:02:43) Character builds, in a DK game?
• (00:10:35) The Layers, and what makes them special.
• (00:37:04) Pauline: Style Icon.
• (00:46:07) Fixing Rare's mistakes, and making new bosses to reuse.
• (00:54:03) The final boss, endgame, and wrap-up.

[pokepal148]

Smash is what really sold me on K-rool. He's a incredibly absurd character design and I always thought he just looked fucking stupid. What Smash made me realize though is that that's kind of the point. There's a sort of just physical comedy to just having him on screen in a way that differentiates him from someone like Bowser and Sakurai's team was able to capture that in a way that Rare couldn't within the limitations of the SNES and N64. I think part of the reason Nintendo kept trying to replace K Rool is because he kind of doesn't mesh well with the Rare DK design and that's something that would have become more apparent as he appeared on more powerful hardware. Even in Smash Ultimate, that DK design looks like it came from a different game from K Rool.

The irony is that by getting rid of DK's rare design and replacing it with a more cartoonish DK, they created a version of DK that could match K Rool's manic energy. Bananza also shifted DK as a series into a more cartoonish direction and I suspect that K-Rool was brought in partially because he actually fits in Nintendo's current vision for Donkey Kong but also because Nintendo has made multiple attempts to introduce new villains to the series to replace him between Jungle Beat and the Returns games and they all fell flat so with a soft reboot that moves the series into a direction that K-Rool actually fits in, it makes sense to just reestablish him as the series's main villain and be done with it.

Hopefully he won't be the only villain though. It would be nice to let DK build up more of a rogues gallery of recurring villains.