Retro Gaming Australia

Back in the 1990s, Nintendo licensed Donkey Kong Country out for a CG animated TV show produced by France 2 and Nelvana. The result was not pretty, and most people have tried to forget about it.

However, those of you with a morbid curiosity may be excited to know that a new DVD featuring three episodes from the short-lived series will be released in North America in October. The DVD is called Donkey Kong Country: Raiders of the Lost Banana and will set you back $US10.

This may be the first release of the series on DVD in North America, but a couple of single episode DVDs and one collection have been released in Australia and can be found for cheap.

Via GoNintendo

The Mega Man love appears to be in full swing this week.

Discotek Media announced today via their Facebook page that they will be re-releasing Ruby Spears’ Mega Man animated series to DVD in 2014 in North America.

Previously, ADV Films held the license to the series. They put out a two disc set in 2002, which has long since been discontinued. ADV Films went bust a number of years ago.

Recently on our YouTube channel, we posted a video of the introduction to the 1995 Ruby Spears Mega Man cartoon. That series ran for two seasons, and tends to receive mixed feelings from fans whenever it’s brought up.

However, as the following video will show, the original plan for the show was way different.

The above video shows that the original plan for the cartoon was much more directly influenced by the Japanese interpretation of the character, showing off a version of the show that’s a lot more anime-like than the final product. Given that this promo video was boasting a 1994 date for the show, we can presume that it was all delayed for a year so that they could retool Mega Man to be what they thought would be more appealing to a North American audience.

There’s no retro news today, so enjoy this video of the opening sequence for Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.

One day we’ll get around to writing those in-depth features on video game cartoons.