First and foremost , I'd like to apologize in advance for bumping this topic , however I'd really like to add my opinion to this topic. Welll, both Donkey Kong's have their ups and downs let's look at Nintendo's Donkey Kong shall we?
Now then, Nintendo's Donkey Kong was a villian, but a missunderstood one at that. When he and Mario first met they hit it off pretty bad with Donkey kiddnaping his girlfriend Pauline and trying to kill the plucky plumber with barrels and living fire balls, it was no doubt that Donkey Kong was a villian. However, his son DKjr. was quiet the opposite. He rised leg and limb to save his papa from Maro and ulitmatley succeeded. After that we once again saw Donkey Kong as a villian in Donkey Kong three where he attacked Mario's (presumed) cousin Stanley for no apparent reason (once again showing the villianry of Donkey Kong). Last, but not least we have DK '94 where Donkey once again proved to be a villian by once again kiddnapping Pauline )and even forcing his poor innocent son to help him.). That ofcourse was the last we saw of Nintendo's DK for awhile.
Now then let's look at Rareware's potrayl of the big ape. Now Rareware in some aspects changed Donkey from a villian to a hero, however in other aspects they did not. If you believe that DKjr. is the current DK it would make sense for him to be more of a hero , heck same goes for if you believe in the current DK being DKjr's son due to the fact he might have been raised by his father to be a hero. But, symbolically it was a change from hero to villian, not to mention it confused many fans abiut the identity of Donkey Kong. But, despite this Rareware did so much good for the Donkey Kong seires. they trnasformed it from being a now dead series which consisted only of three arcade games into a glorious new game series that was full of well rounded characters, addictive gameplay, a new enemy for the big ape and glorious new enviorments.
Bottom line, despite some critisism I think that Rareware's Donkey Kong is far more supieror to Nintendo's (Once again my apologies for bumping).