Donkey Kong Country SNES

Donkey Kong Country is Rare’s 1994 platformer, developed using pre-rendered 3D models compressed down into 2D sprites — a technique that made it look dramatically more detailed than most of what the SNES had shown up to that point, at a time when the console was already three years into its commercial life.

You control Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong, swappable at will, through jungle, mine, and factory stages built around animal-buddy vehicles and barrel-cannon shortcuts. Its visual presentation was a major factor in the SNES holding commercial ground against the Genesis late into the console war, and it became one of the best-selling SNES games of all time.