Donut Dodo is one of my favourite games from recent years. Having first played it on the Atari VCS and Evercade, I’ve ended up with copies on Switch, and PC as well, buut all of these were downloads.
I was excited when the opportunity came up to get one of the limited print copies on Nintendo Switch. A game like this needs to be owned physically, which is what made it so exciting when it was also announced for Nintendo 64.
In today’s review, I’ll be checking out Donut Dodo, Day One Edition. We’ll be reviewing the game, and everything that you get in this limited edition one of five hundred edition print run!
In Donut Dodo, you play as Billy Burns, and you are a little chef who has to go around five main stages and one bonus stage and collect all of the small donuts that have been stolen by the sinister Donut Dodo! Once they’ve all been collected, the big donut on each stage will become collectible and you have to grab this from the clutches of the Donut Dodo.
This is an old school arcade game which has been created in the modern era. It’s initially quite challenging, and the enemies in the game including winky the ghost and stinky the toilet will be a pain. In particular, the way Stinky chases you around the first level is a real pain, and I expect he’ll be the cause of you losing most lives in both the first and last levels of the game.
The first level does ring of Donkey Kong and is all about climbing ladders to collect the donuts. On each level you’ll have to keep your eyes peeled for when a food item, usually a PAC-Man style piece of fruit appears, and if you get this, you’ll get some extra points.
Getting a high score on the game is what it’s all about, other than just beating its five stages, and you’ll get bonus points for rushing through a stage and beating it quickly.
If you want the best score, being quick is something of a red herring in my experience because you’ll get the most points by collecting the donuts in a specifics order. You’ll notice that one donut will be shiny and once it’s collected another random donut on the stage will start to flash. Collect them in the order that they start to flash in, which is more often than not, not the logical next closest donut, and you’ll multiply your points over and over. This is the fastest way to get those extra lives.
The second level is the construction site, and instantly you’ll see that the game varies up some of the challenge in each stage. The construction site is all about navigating the level back and forth to either side, and there isn’t a direct way over the middle where the Donut Dodo hangs out. This also introduces Donkey Kong style flame monsters that you’ll often have to jump over at the same time as jumping over the mice. It’s weird that the mice don’t get burned but you will, but this is video game logic I suppose.
The third level isn’t quite as exciting as unless you’re on the harder difficulty, there won’t be any enemies and it’s just about timing your platforming to go across the stage on a ferris wheel. There are balloons for you to dodge and the Dodo will shoot fire balls at you, but this level is generally easy to access all the donuts. The only real challenge comes if you want to get them in shiny donut order.
The fourth stage is the Candy shop, and this is a level where the challenge ups as you have to climb ropes whilst avoiding fire balls from the Dodo, jump over mice on the platforms and avoid falling into a spike pit. There’s very little space in the level that feels like a safe zone, and even on hard mode you then get plagued in the safe areas by winky the PAC-Man style ghost.
The final main stage is Dodo’s Lair, and when you first play the game it can take a few attempts for you to fully get your head around all the dangers. Just like on Pac-Man, you can warp to the opposite side of the screen by exiting off the edge. But so can a big boulder and this may not always appear where you first expect it. There are then magic doors which means that both you and Stinky can get across the stage quickly and Stinky will be on your tail if you’re not quick.
After Dodo’s Lair you may think it’s all over, but you are faced with a bouncing pumpkin bonus stage. I’ve never been a huge fan of this stage, and it’s a one mistake and end of level scenario, but it also doesn’t really matter if you don’t get all the donuts on this stage.
Once the bonus stage is dealt with, you’ll then go all the way through the five levels again and once Dodo is defeated you’ve won the game. I didn’t know when I first played it if the game would just keep going in a loop forever but was pleased that it’s a game that can be properly beaten by going through eleven levels straight.
Each second round of a level is harder with faster and sometimes more enemies, and once easy is beaten you’ll unlock, medium and eventually hard, and also what is called sugar rush mode. In sugar rush mode you just go through the game once and are aiming for the quickest time.
I find the game stupidly addictive and have now got multiple copies of it on various systems.
The game has been around a while, and it’s a game I’ve covered before on the Geek Battle Gaming channel.
As I mentioned, I first played the game on the Atari VCS, and for me it’s arguably the best game on the system. Then I got it for the Evercade, first as a download in their Game of the Month programme, but then on the physical cart of Indie Heroes Collection 3. As with all Evercade games, it comes with a printed manual, but what makes this Nintendo Switch release stand out is that unlike on Evercade, it’s a solo release and doesn’t share the stage with other games. From a value perspective of course, this is around the same price or more expensive than on Evercade if you want a physical cart, and is just one game instead of several, but for Switch owners this is worth having. The game is cheap as a download, and if like me, you’re lucky enough to be one of the 500 to get the Day One Edition, you’ll also have a bunch of extras such as the stickers and sound track and keyring.
What would you rate this game?
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