Is the adventure in Donkey Kong Country worth it for the titular ape, aside from fame and glory – purely from a financial perspective?
Donkey Kong is probably one of the most important characters in Nintendo's history, right alongside Mario – after all, the tie-wearing ape had his name and a game of his own even before the turtle-stomping plumber came along.
And he holds a special place in my heart as well, since Donkey Kong Country for the SNES was one of my very first gaming experiences (and its eerie Game Over screen one of my first childhood traumas).
Monkey Mayhem
Even today, I love grabbing the controller every now and then to have Donkey and Diddy jump over crocodiles and armadillos while chasing down King K. Rool, who stole their greatest treasure – their banana hoard. Yet another childhood trauma: that disappointed ape face when you accidentally rolled into the Banana Hoard cave in the first level, only to find the storage empty, devoid of those crooked yellow fruits.
Only after six worlds, 33 tricky levels, and six pretty nasty bosses did the Kritter King stand as the final obstacle between the wacky ape duo and their beloved banana stash.
As a kid, I was just relieved to make it across Kong Island and reclaim the bananas – without seeing that disturbing Game Over screen too often. But nowadays, I wonder: was the journey even worth it for Donkey Kong? Not in terms of fame and glory, but purely from a financial perspective.
How much are the bananas Donkey Kong collected on his adventure actually worth?
Hard-Earned Banana Bread
To figure this out, we first need to determine how many bananas the virtual primate can actually collect on his journey.
If Donkey Kong grabs every single banana scattered throughout the jungle in the very first level – where his empty banana hoard is also located – that’s already around 112 bananas making their way back into storage.
In the second level, he can find another 142 – provided he discovers the hidden barrel at the bottom of the screen that blasts him into a secret cave.
Level three follows a similar pattern: in the cavernous depths of the cave, Donkey Kong can collect a total of 143 bananas – some in plain sight, others cleverly hidden. The next level, however, is the first underwater stage in DKC, and with a mere 101 bananas, it’s a bit of a fruity drought.
To make up for that, the fifth and final level of the first world, Barrel Cannon Canyon, offers plenty of shortcuts via barrels that blast Donkey over enemies and straight into banana-filled rewards. Here, he can rack up a whopping 222 bananas! Excluding the giant banana that our tie-wearing ape wrestles away from the oversized hamster boss Very Gnawty at the end of the Kongo Jungle world, this brings the total to approximately 720 bananas.
In the following worlds, we can expect to find between 500 and 700 bananas per world, with most levels containing around 120 individual fruits. However, there are some extreme outliers in both directions: For example, in World 4, Level 1 – Snow Barrel Blast, Donkey Kong can collect a massive 240 bananas. Meanwhile, World 4, Level 5 – Torchlight Trouble, a pitch-black cavern, offers a measly 23 bananas.
All in all, we – and by "we," I mainly mean DK and myself, still trying to process that haunting Game Over screen – end up collecting around 3,600 bananas throughout the entire game. Sure, a few might have been missed, and Donkey Kong needs some snacks along the way, so let’s stick with this rough estimate.
But we’re not quite done yet. Fruit is nice and all, but what about the financial side of things?
Multimillionaire Or Just Multivitamin?
When DKC was released in 1994, the price of a single banana in the U.S. was between $0.19 and $0.25 – though prices fluctuated based on location, market conditions, and fruit size.
In the U.K., home of DKC developer Rare, a banana went for around 12 to 15 pence, whereas in Nintendo’s homeland, Japan, the price was between 20 and 30 yen.
So, if Donkey Kong had set out in Donkey Kong Country’s release year to gather all the bananas scattered across the island and sell them, he would have ended up making around $792 in the U.S., £504 in the U.K., or 90,000 yen in Japan.
Looking at today’s banana prices – roughly €0.25, $0.25, and £0.25 per banana in the EU, the U.S., and the U.K. and 175 yen in Japan – his haul would now be worth around €900, $900, and £900, or 630,000 yen.
Considering that Donkey Kong Country became the third-best-selling SNES game of all time, with over 9.3 million units sold, it really raises the question: was his adventure even all that successful? With nearly $600 million in global sales, you’d think Donkey could have avoided all that trouble. Investing in a few banana trees of his own would have been a much more relaxing way to go about it...
Have you ever tried to count all of the bananas and coins you found in Nintendo games? If so: let's have group therapy.