Donkey Kong has been around as long as Mario himself, but this August will be the first time he’s officially appeared in Lego form — on August 1st, the Danish toymaker is adding four Lego Donkey Kong sets to the ever-widening Lego Super Mario lineup.
Here are the first Lego Donkey Kong sets
Here are the first Lego Donkey Kong sets
They aren’t filled with ladders, hammers, and fireballs like the original arcade game, mind; these sets are straight out of Donkey Kong Country, with the gorilla’s relatives along for the ride.
If you want Donkey Kong with the trademark red DK tie around his neck, that’ll set you back $60 for a tree house that comes with grandpa Cranky Kong as well, plus a hammock and some conga drums for Donkey to play.
The biggest set is the $110 Diddy Kong’s Mine Cart Ride Expansion, which gives you both Donkey’s cap-wearing nephew Diddy and the mechanic Funky Kong with his airplane shop, a Mole Miner enemy with a cache of hidden bananas, and six sections of treacherous-looking track for the cart ride.
For $27, Dixie Kong’s Jungle Jam puts Diddy’s girlfriend onstage with a pair of guitars and Squawks the Parrot on vocals:
And for $11, Rambi the Rhino is pretty much a standalone figure — though when you put a Lego Super Mario fig on his back, you can hear a sound effect when he walks or charges into other bricks, according to Lego. I loved crashing through levels with him in the games.
Donkey Kong Country nemesis crocodile King K. Rool doesn’t have a set yet — but I suppose he can always challenge Mario again.
The Donkey Kong figures join Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, a replica NES, a large question mark block, a huge Bowser set… and as of just last week, Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog, too. There’s plenty more to do with the Nintendo license: for a start, Lego has yet to reveal its rumored first-ever Legend of Zelda set, has yet to do Metroid in brick form, and has very ripe nostalgia territory yet to conquer in the original Game Boy.