Donkey Kong (Game boy color)

Awesome, definately my favourite game on the game boy (it cames also in color on the gbc!).
Why i loved it?
Graphics
Animations are spectacular and fluid, enemies are weird but cute somehow, and the level appearance is simple yet enjoyable, pyramids in the desert background, vegetation in the jungle and such, but never interfering with the action in foreground. When Mario falls there are 3 different animations depending on how high he fell from; he can roll down, hit the face on the ground, and in the worst case, hit the head and die. If you fall holding an object, it will fall from your hands.
Sounds
Also sounds are awesome (of course keeping in mind that the source is a game boy), musics are catchy and not repetitive, i even find myself whistling them under the shower. Sounds effects are great and funny, i loved especially the sound of Mario walking and Mario falling from a high spot (sounds like a baby bird). In the airplane levels when you are outside the plane you can constantly hear the noise of the engines.

Gameplay
This is the best part of the game, the mechanics are just perfect, there are elevators, conveyor belts, water, ropes, springs, switches... this game has a lot of elements and it never gets repetitive. And it's not short, there are a lot of levels (100 if i'm not wrong!) all discarded around the world in various locations. This is another thing that drives me crazy: you are chasing donkey kong on planes, in the city, in the desert, ecc.
I like also the chasing sensation you have for all game, every 3 levels you can actually see the monkey and he always seems to be almost yours but he runs away. I think this also teach children to never surrender and to not fear monsters, but chase them instead. Mario has a lot of moves in this game, again impressive for a gameboy game, and all of them are easy, intuitive and funny to use. The puzzles start very easy to become harder further in the game, and here you will appreciate the fantasy of the level designers: they can twist the simple task to grab a key and open a door in a lot of ways. I also like how they could put perfect balance of elements in single screens: i mean, instead of the player traveling around huge levels like super Mario world, everything is small, cosy and cute in one single screen, with platforms and ladders, and the cute little Mario must travel around this little room and perform various actions before completing the level, and the player feels like having everything under control, like looking at a small complete toy box. I liked also the exploring of Super Mario World, but also this other extreme is very cute.
The boss fights are awesome, quite different between each other but with a predefined schema (reach the gorilla), and the final battle with Donkey Kong is simply awesome. For all the game you have a "retro" gaming impression, even if the game is retro itself, the best thing was to play it on snes with the gb adapter: wonderful colors and a dk cabinet on the background, simply awesome.
In general
I think this is the best game on gameboy, the cure for details is awesome and thinking that all of this is running on such primitive device is for me a huge added value. Developers showed us how great a game boy game can be, and that you don't need GigaBytes of ram to make a beautiful, funny, various game.



For (a lot of) more information on this game, go to Donkey Kong on Wikipedia