Dondé esta el tiempo or where is the time that I played a Donkey Kong clone on the Atari 1040ST. I discovered it by accident actually as I was tired of playing Sokoban, Space Invaders or Taito's Arkanoid, I decided to search through Daddy's pile of diskettes to find a new interesting application. Most of them where plain midi files which he used to study the songs in a Qbase-like program. Quite useful to people who want to learn music as that tool allows you to only play the melody so you can accompany it or vice versa. Anyway, soon disks where running out but as I got to the last package, my luck was about to change because in one of those I discovered Donkey Kong.

On an old black and white monitor, that looked like shit. Literally because I could hardly tell the difference between Donkey Kong and a pile of that last mentioned substance. So now that the NES version was republished on the GBA, I could finally enjoy it in true colour and although the animations are a bit outdated, I can't help to find the whole charming and amusing.

The sound-effects which are essential for the game-experience never seized to entertain me. I just don't know how they succeeded in creating tunes that are so elevating with so few means. Don't you want to jump just to hear the sound-effect again?! The big advantage of this game is of course that they didn't touch the original code to make changes, at least none which you can see or feel.

That means that you can enjoy the original gameplay how you ought to. There are dozens of clones or new versions available by now but not one of them ever matched this version as it was almost perfect upon release. So, I think that a lot of the clones only make the original game look like a fool.

Clearly, I like the NES Classics series but I still feel it is a missed opportunity to join some of the better Donkey Kongs and spin-offs on one cartridge as then it would have been an even greater collector's item and that would have contributed to the general lifespan of this product too.

Fifteen years ago, I had to struggle just to get in the third level whereas now I can go around the game three times with my eyes shut or so to speak. I usually don't play longer than half an hour at a time but luckily I am eager to start again a day later. The low price is an advantage too of course with about twenty euros it is definitely one of the cheapest games you will find. Actually, you might want to buy this over an old Gameboy (Colour) cartridge as those will cost at least ten euros if you can find it and you have to worry how it suffered in the hands of those children. In addition, those are to long to fit perfectly into the GBA so it is hard to carry it along in the pocket of your pants. Therefore, I think that the price is just right.

On top of that, you only need one game to play the multiplayer too(that's right a multiplayer mode) and as cherry on the pie there is the possibility to save your high score.

The one thing that proves they thought of almost everything is the sleep mode which is of tremendous importance in this game. Imagine you are playing for like forty minutes and you just reached a monster score but still posses over enough lives to triple it when your mother calls for dinner. No problem, put it into sleep so it consumes almost no battery power and simply continue an hour later.

For the retro-gamers among us, this is surely one I recommend, even stronger it is a must-have but I sincerely doubt if a ten-year-old today will still have as much fun with it as one did fifteen years ago.