We’ve seemingly had our very first look at Mario Kart 9 during the Switch 2 reveal trailer, and one thing you might have noticed is the similar but slightly different-looking character designs.
Perhaps the highlight is Donkey Kong’s new look, which has been labelled a redesign. It’s been a bit of a talking point within the DK and Super Mario fandom, and now we’ve actually got a response from the artist who was behind DK’s modern (and arguably most iconic) look – former Rare and Donkey Kong Country veteran, Kevin Bayliss.
He says “everything changes” and “change is good” in response to a fan video by YouTube channel ‘LUIZ do Comercial’ suggesting Nintendo has taken Rare’s design out of the Kong and reverted to DK’s earlier looks.
Kevin Bayliss: “You can take the KONG out of the Country, but you can’t take the Country out of the Kong! (I love it – this is really funny! – Everything changes! – Change is good!)”
We ran a poll on Nintendo Life last week about DK’s redesign and almost half of the respondents were seemingly happy with his new look on the Switch 2. Apart from Kevin’s version, as the trailer above references, DK was originally crafted by Shigeru Miyamoto, with Shigehisa Nakaue also involved throughout the years.
DK’s redesign reveal actually follows the release of Donkey Kong Country Returns HD last week, which was a game originally released by the team behind the Metroid Prime series, Retro Studios.
We've seemingly had our very first look at Mario Kart 9 during the Switch 2 reveal trailer, and one thing you might have noticed is the similar but slightly different-looking character designs.
Perhaps the highlight is Donkey Kong's new look, which has been labelled a redesign. It's been a bit of a talking point within the DK and Super Mario fandom, and now we've actually got a response from the artist who was behind DK's modern (and arguably most iconic) look - former Rare and Donkey Kong Country veteran, Kevin Bayliss.
He says "everything changes" and "change is good" in response to a fan video by YouTube channel 'LUIZ do Comercial' suggesting Nintendo has taken Rare's design out of the Kong and reverted to DK's earlier looks.
Kevin Bayliss: "You can take the KONG out of the Country, but you can't take the Country out of the Kong! (I love it - this is really funny! - Everything changes! - Change is good!)"
We ran a poll on Nintendo Life last week about DK's redesign and almost half of the respondents were seemingly happy with his new look on the Switch 2. Apart from Kevin's version, as the trailer above references, DK was originally crafted by Shigeru Miyamoto, with Shigehisa Nakaue also involved throughout the years.
DK's redesign reveal actually follows the release of Donkey Kong Country Returns HD last week, which was a game originally released by the team behind the Metroid Prime series, Retro Studios.
