After developing Nintendo Entertainment System games in the 1980s, Rare, a British studio founded by Tim and Chris Stamper, purchased Silicon Graphics workstations to render 3D models.

Donkey Kong Country was inspired by the Super Mario series and was one of the first home console games to feature pre-rendered graphics, achieved through a compression technique that converted 3D models into SNES sprites with little loss of detail.

Following its announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show in June 1994, Donkey Kong Country was highly anticipated and backed by a major marketing campaign that cost $16 million in America alone.

[28] Rare spent 18 months developing Donkey Kong Country from an initial concept to a finished game,[28] and according to product manager Dan Owsen, 20 people worked on it in total.

[44] Diddy Kong originated from Rare's search for a game mechanic akin to Super Mario's power-up system in that he would serve as the player's health.

[45] Reviewing Donkey Kong Country for release, Nintendo directed Rare to reduce the difficulty to appeal to a broad audience, reasoning that the secrets would provide sufficient challenge for hardcore gamers.

[27] The pre-rendered graphics allowed for variety and detail uncommon at the time,[30] and Tim Stamper constantly pushed the team to go further and incorporate weather and lighting effects.

[42] A single SGI screen took up more memory than an entire SNES cartridge, and Gregg Mayles described transferring the backgrounds into the game by splitting them into tiles as "the bane of the project".

[57] Its soundtrack attempts to evoke the environments and includes music from levels set in Africa-inspired jungles, caverns, oceanic reefs, frozen landscapes, and industrial factories.

[55] He wanted to compose in the style of 1940s jazz, seeking to imitate the Glenn Miller Orchestra in the "DK Island Swing",[55] but was restricted by the SPC700's limitations; he "used a lot of small samples and made [the soundtrack] very synthesised" to work around them.

[54] According to Beanland, the track was intended for an internal progress video about another Rare game, Killer Instinct (1994), before Nintendo decided to use it in a Donkey Kong Country promotional trailer.

[61] Marketing materials emphasised the revolutionary graphics—often noting that Rare's SGI workstations had been used to create the Jurassic Park (1993) film's dinosaurs[62]—and positioned Donkey Kong Country as a direct competitor to Sega's Mega-CD and 32X platforms to remind players it was not for next-generation hardware.

[61] Nintendo anticipated that it would sell two million copies in a month, an expectation that Main acknowledged was unprecedented but was "based on the off-the-chart reactions we've received from game players and retailers".

said the music built atmosphere,[90] Top Secret wrote the "captivating" soundtrack asserted itself as a masterpiece in its own right,[84] and EGM and Entertainment Weekly said the audio quality was unprecedented for the SNES and on par with a CD's.

described Donkey Kong Country as addictive, accessible and exciting, with humour, imagination, puzzles and secrets, that proved there was still potential in the platform game genre.

[97] Next Generation felt the gameplay, though good, did not meet the standards of previous SNES games such as the Mario and Legend of Zelda series and prevented it from being a "typical Nintendo blockbuster".

Its changes include a time limit for the playable levels and a scoring system, which had been used in the Nintendo PowerFest '94 and Blockbuster World Video Game Championships II competitions.

The port was developed alongside the GBC version of Perfect Dark[115] and many assets, including graphics and audio, were re-used from the Donkey Kong Land games.

[122][123][124] It adds a new animated introductory cutscene,[125] redesigned user interfaces and world maps,[5] the ability to save progress anywhere, minigames, and a time trial mode.

[33] According to Official Nintendo Magazine, by bringing next-generation graphics to the SNES just 12 days before the PlayStation's Japanese launch, Donkey Kong Country persuaded consumers that an immediate upgrade was unnecessary.

[135] Whereas Nintendo continued to release AAA games such as Donkey Kong Country, Sega had alienated audiences with add-ons such as the Mega-CD and 32X,[74] and its subsequent console, the Saturn, failed.

[137][146] According to IGN, critics accused Donkey Kong Country of "sacrificing gameplay for the sake of a short-run attention grab and quick impulse sales",[7] which USGamer attributed to the "flimflammery of its visuals and the relative mundanity of its actual game design".

[j] USGamer wrote that the criticism was unfair because it "exudes craftsmanship ... Rare went to great pains to create a consistent, seamless world that managed to convey trompe-l'oeil immersion", something few developers could replicate.

[5] In the years following its release, rumours spread that Miyamoto disliked Donkey Kong Country and found it amateurish,[33] and had created the hand-drawn art style of Yoshi's Island in retaliation for its pre-rendered visuals.

[34] However, the author Steven L. Kent claimed Miyamoto said that "Donkey Kong Country proves gamers will put up with mediocre gameplay if the art is good" in a 1995 Electronic Games interview.

[152] Kent said that Nintendo's marketing department had rejected Yoshi's Island as it lacked Donkey Kong Country's pre-rendered graphics, and that this had possibly motivated Miyamoto's remark.

[62] Naughty Dog's founders Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin cited Donkey Kong Country as the primary influence on their break-out game Crash Bandicoot (1996).

[159] Crash's first functional levels drew upon techniques employed by Donkey Kong Country, such as steam vents, drop platforms, bouncy pads, heated pipes, and enemies that move back and forth.

[167] The Australian Broadcasting Corporation credited Donkey Kong Country for maintaining the popularity of 2D games and ensuring the development of new entries in the Mario, Kirby, and Yoshi series.

[146] It originated conventions characteristic of Rare's later output, including an emphasis on collecting items,[5] irreverent humour,[179] visual appeal, and tech demo-like design.