Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Donkey Kong and other legendary Nintendo characters and games such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Star Fox, shared why the character was redesigned in the upcoming Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza games as well as the The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
Speaking with IGN, Miyamoto was asked, “Donkey Kong 94, you were a producer on that. It was one of the first times he became more expressive. He's back with a new game, he's got a new design. What's it like seeing that character's new design now and seeing this character grow up with you?”
He responded, “So when it comes to character creation and working with characters, I still take an active role in that. And looking back to the first generation Donkey Kong Country, we worked with Rare to create Donkey Kong Country. When we were talking about trying to create new versions, evolving Donkey Kong, we created the game called Jungle Beat. We worked together with the team that made 3D Mario. With the technology that was available at the time, we were able to make Donkey Kong more expressive.”
“And going back to the design that Rare came up with, we reevaluated; what can we do with the design to make it more expressive? And then when it comes to the movie, we decided to move forward with this new generation Donkey Kong design,” he concluded.
What do you make of Miyamoto’s explanation for Donkey Kong’s redesign?
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I don't mind the design, but I personally would have just kept the Rareware style one since its been so long that its become the most iconic look for DK
More likely to fit with the awful movie redesign.