Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Pulling up some Donkey Kong Junior today on the ColecoVision, and this one flips the whole original story completely upside down.
Nintendo put this out in arcades in 1982, designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi, and this time Mario is actually the bad guy. After what went down in the first Donkey Kong, Mario locked DK up in a cage for revenge, so now you are playing as his son, climbing vines and chains through four stages while dodging Snapjaws, purple birds, and electric sparks just to free your dad. Dropping fruit on enemies as they fall gets you bonus points too, which is honestly one of my favorite little touches in this game.
Coleco actually held the exclusive home console rights to this one, same deal they had with the original Donkey Kong, and they released this ColecoVision version back in February 1983. It earned a genuinely positive review from Video Games Player magazine at the time, and honestly it lines up with Coleco's whole reputation in this era for putting out arcade ports that actually felt close to the real thing, which is exactly what that box art is bragging about.
Did any of you have this one on ColecoVision growing up, or did you end up with a different version like the Atari 2600 port instead? Let me know down below.
Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
#donkeykongjunior #colecovision #donkeykong #coleco #retrogaming #80sgaming #nintendohistory #classicgaming #vintagegaming #arcadeclassics #retroconsole #80snostalgia #shigerumiyamoto #platformgames #gameforestgf #youtubeshorts #gaming
Pulling up some Donkey Kong Junior today on the ColecoVision, and this one flips the whole original story completely upside down.
Nintendo put this out in arcades in 1982, designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi, and this time Mario is actually the bad guy. After what went down in the first Donkey Kong, Mario locked DK up in a cage for revenge, so now you are playing as his son, climbing vines and chains through four stages while dodging Snapjaws, purple birds, and electric sparks just to free your dad. Dropping fruit on enemies as they fall gets you bonus points too, which is honestly one of my favorite little touches in this game.
Coleco actually held the exclusive home console rights to this one, same deal they had with the original Donkey Kong, and they released this ColecoVision version back in February 1983. It earned a genuinely positive review from Video Games Player magazine at the time, and honestly it lines up with Coleco's whole reputation in this era for putting out arcade ports that actually felt close to the real thing, which is exactly what that box art is bragging about.
Did any of you have this one on ColecoVision growing up, or did you end up with a different version like the Atari 2600 port instead? Let me know down below.
Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
#donkeykongjunior #colecovision #donkeykong #coleco #retrogaming #80sgaming #nintendohistory #classicgaming #vintagegaming #arcadeclassics #retroconsole #80snostalgia #shigerumiyamoto #platformgames #gameforestgf #youtubeshorts #gaming










