Cold and snowy places have served as novel locations for video game worlds and levels. They usually exist to serve as something out of the ordinary from the rest of the game, a location where the normal rules of movement don’t apply. They’re often made well enough and are often fun at the time, but are still usually just a distraction from the rest of the game.
There are levels that manage to transcend this though and become something more, with some even threatening to overshadow the rest of their host game. Donkey Kong Country’s “Snow Barrel Blast” stage is one of these. Even after nearly thirty years, it’s not only become the stand out moment of that game, but has also become a quintessential winter level that all others should still aspire to.
One might think that to hold up an old level from a practically ancient game is to have the ol’ nostalgia goggles clasped a little too tight, and indeed that may well be true. Donkey Kong Country is an old game now. It’s been improved on in just about every way by many games over the past couple of decades. A lot of it still holds up even now, however, thanks largely to one important quality: its sense of atmosphere. The atmosphere of many levels is still top-tier, and Snow Barrel Blast pulls it off the best out of the bunch.
This is of course thanks in no small part to David Wise’s excellent music. The way “Northern Hemispheres” slowly builds and builds as the snowfall becomes thicker and the way forward becomes ever more treacherous is nothing short of masterful. It’s the agent that binds together everything happening on screen: player, enemy, storm and platforming. Rather than simply sitting in the background as a nice piece of music, this theme actually seems to describe what’s happening as it plays out, and that alone does a lot to set Snow Barrel Blast apart.
The music is only one half of the formula here, though. Without the level design and enemy placement to follow, “Northern Hemispheres” would just be a nice piece of music. The key here is in how Snow Barrel Blast just keeps building and building right up until the very end. Every jump becomes riskier, every barrel cannon spins faster and the amount of scary-fast Zingers guarding the way forward seems to keep growing. Much like a snowstorm in real life, this level only gets more dangerous the longer it carries on. Through both the music and their own attempts to traverse it, the player is made to feel that sense of danger, and that perhaps makes all the difference when it comes to crafting a level memorable enough to last the decades.
These are but two of the ingredients needed to make a winter level titan though. The last, though not necessarily most important, addition is the environment players are asked to guide their Kongs through: the bleak mountain wilderness in the deepest depths of winter.
Again, the visuals of Donkey Kong Country are dated in this modern age of gaming, but they’re still good enough to put the finishing touches on the treacherous atmosphere created by the music, layout and gameplay. It’s a completely snow-covered environment, with utterly massive, snowy evergreen trees standing tall and imposing over Donkey and Diddy. Countless more trees stretch-off far into the distance too, firmly establishing that the Kongs are but tiny creatures in the midst of a vast forest.
It’s a sight to behold, but it’s also the kind of place no one would want to find themselves in. This is an image of winter at its most terrifyingly beautiful. To be lost out in the middle of a sub-arctic forest, with the wind screaming, snow piling all around and the dark trees standing tall with a kind of quiet, uncaring menace. It’s not the mild, sometimes even cozy winter that’s typically depicted in games and the like, but rather a harsh and wild one that thankfully most players will never have to experience firsthand.
There areplenty of other good winter levelsout there that capture different aspects of the season. There are probably even arguments to be made that they do a better job of it too. Still, few bring all their different components together as well as Snow Barrel Blast. Thanks to the synergy between the music, level design, gameplay and artwork, it’s not just any ol’ winter level. Rather, Snow Barrel Blast can (even after nearly thirty years) stand proudly at the apex of gaming’s frosty stages.
