Don Doko Don is an arcade game developed and distributed by Taito in 1989. It was only ever released in Japan – as were ports of the game that appeared on the Famicom and PC Engine – although the small amount of text in the game appears to be in English so is easy to understand.

The game is a cute and colourful platform game where one person can play on their own, or two people can play cooperatively – as lumberjacks called Bob and Jim – to clear each screen of enemies and to ultimately complete the game and rescue The King and Princess of “Marry Land”.

Both Bob and Jim carry hammers that they can use to hit and stun enemies. Stunned enemies must then be picked up and thrown to kill them off (and turn them into collectible fruit). Stunned enemies only stay down for approximately six seconds before getting back up again. Some enemies also shoot fireballs at you, or try to hit you, which you need to avoid. Touching a non-stunned enemy, or being hit by a projectile, will instantly lose you a life. If you’re carrying an enemy and it wakes up that will also lose you a life. So you have to be careful.

Later enemies include: rock monsters that must be hit repeatedly to break; boomerang-throwers whose projectiles go out then return back to them; flying enemies that drop forks down the screen; custard pie-throwers, and plenty of other annoyances. There are also environmental hazards, like plants that drop deadly spores; flames that set platforms on fire; conveyor belts; slippery surfaces, and boulders that roll down platforms and must be avoided. And – if all of that wasn’t enough – if you take too long to complete a level a flying devil with a pitchfork will appear to harass you, and of course if it touches you you’ll die.

Bonus items appear occasionally and collecting these will activate a number of different effects, such as invulnerability, throwing hammers, or an instant-kill hammer.

At the end of each stage there’s also a boss battle to contend with, and bosses are usually damaged by throwing stunned enemies at them.

Completing Don Doko Don the ‘normal’ way results in the ‘bad’ ending, where you only get to rescue The Princess. To rescue The King you have to find, unlock and complete a set of secret levels that are hidden somewhere in the game.

Don Doko Don is one of those games that appears cute and easy, but it’s actually much more difficult than it looks. It’s a very frustrating game to play at times and does seem designed to take your money as quickly as possible. It’s also reminiscent of Bubble Bobble and Parasol Stars, but is nowhere near as good as either of them. I can understand why it was never released in The West…

Don Doko Don is slightly more enjoyable with two players, but still seems like an overly-difficult, annoying, half-baked game to me. Graphically, it’s okay – nothing special. The music and sound effects are jolly but borderline annoying, and the intermission screens are somewhat baffling. Completing the first stage is difficult enough, but the second stage – with conveyor belt platforms – is a significant notch up in terms of difficulty. And there are five different stages in total, each with a multitude of levels, but the chances of anyone seeing them all are pretty slim.

A sequel, called Don Doko Don 2, was released in 1992 for the Famicom in Japan, developed by Natsume.

More: Don Doko Don on Wikipedia
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