[New here? Get yourself up to speed by going back to Day 1 where I explain why I’m playing 101 levels of Donkey Kong in 101 days.]
There was a brief period of time–one week, maybe two–in high school when I was known as “The Hero.” “Hey everyone, here comes The Hero!” people would say. Or, “Make way for The Hero!” Or, “Ha, ha, The Hero is having spaghetti for lunch today!”
No kidding, people said these things to me. And when they weren’t saying these things to me, they were slapping me on the back, or delivering high-fives, or stopping me between classes so that I could recount the event–or rather, The Event–that had temporarily transformed me from a mortal into into a minor god.
I played sports in high school, not because I necessarily wanted to play sports, but because I was practically a full head taller than everyone else in my grade. Coaches would spot me in the hallways, my head floating above the other heads, and goad me into joining their teams. Football was my main sport. It was the sport that–as the coaches had drummed into my head–would take me away from the small town I was from. It was the sport that would provide me with an education, if only I played well enough to earn a college athletic scholarship.
Playing sports also created some common ground between me and my father. He’d watch boxing matches on Sunday afternoons on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. He’d get so caught up in the action that, during the matches, he’d throw his own phantom punches from the couch. Nothing captured his attention like boxing. Once the matches were over, both boxers usually bloodied beyond belief (something which must have frightened me when I was younger), he’d throw his phantom punches at me, his fists whistling past my ears. I would try to throw jabs and crosses back at him. “Bob and weave!” he’d say. “Come on! You punch like Strawberry Shortcake!”
My punches would always fall short. “Too slow, too slow, too slow,” he’d say. Then he’d return fire, his combinations–left, right, jab, cross–flashing all around my head.
Our high school obviously did not have a boxing program. The only approximation we had to boxing was wrestling. Like boxing, wrestling pitted two men against one another, out there in a kind of ring (a perfectly round circle drawn on a mat confining the combatants/wrestlers). “The great thing about boxing,” my father would always say, “is that it’s just one man, all alone. There are no teammates to bail you out like in football. If you screw up, you have no one to blame but yourself.”
The same thing–the same lonely, heroic, and extremely manly journey thing–happened in wrestling.
Which is how Strawberry Shortcake wound up on the wrestling team as the varsity heavyweight (225-pound weight limit).
And now, let’s get back to the virtual heroics of level 2-8. I begin the level with 14 Marios, which sounds like enough Marios to do pretty much anything. But in less than a minute, I’m down to seven, then six Marios. Either this level will forever be labeled as “a Mario wood-chipper” in my notes, or else I’m a little more distracted this morning than I usually am for some reason.
The level is another showdown with D.K. He’s been spending the bulk of the Forest levels hidden away inside his locked-door bunkers. But for this level, he stands tall at the top of the screen, Pauline by his side. There are no keys, no umbrellas, or any handbags to collect–nothing extraneous here. He’s throwing bouncing springs, which bounce once, twice, then plummet to oblivion below.
The level opens with me on the lefthand side of the screen standing next to a crude stone elevator and three horizontally-moving platforms. Below all of this: a long row of dangerous sharpangles. The crude elevator rises and falls of its own volition. If I stay on it for too long, as I quickly learn, it will carry me upwards until I am crushed against the ceiling of the level.
I board the elevator during its ascent, but leap over to the three horizontally-moving platforms before I can be crushed. I land on the middle of the three moving platforms, then ride it over to the right side of the level. There’s a small gap over here, on the far side of which is another platform. That gap is the exact spot where D.K.’s tossed springs pass through, so I need to time my jump during a moment when the gap is completely spring-free. From the safety of this platform, I can reach to upper-most horizontally moving platform.
From here, I can reach the Donkey Kong Junior vines, which will take me up to D.K.’s tier. There are four vines in total. The vines present a problem, namely because Mario climbs them so slowly, and he seems mysteriously magnetized to the vines at the very moment that you need him not to be magnetized to the vines. I wind up losing eight Marios in total in this level; six of those Marios were lost here on the vines.
I finally manage to untangle myself from the vines, then hustle to the spot where the bouncing spring bounces to its greatest height. I wait there, let the spring tossed by D.K. clear my hat, then hustle to the ladder. I wait for another spring to clear my hat here, then climb, say “hello” to Pauline. D.K. grabs her and climbs through the top of the screen. My time totals for this portion of Stage 2:
Level 2-5: 112 seconds
Level 2-6: 35 seconds
Level 2-7: 34 seconds
Level 2-8: 36 seconds
Total: 257 seconds.
Remember, these represent the amount of time remaining on the tick-down clock at the end of each of these levels.
A cutscene plays showing D.K. leaping off a mid-sized cliff, racing across the screen, and setting Pauline down. He spots Mario behind him, still standing on top of the cliff. He spins his feet underneath him, then sprints back towards Mario, running headlong into the cliff. He turns and faces the player, with actual stars circling his head, as he does an I’m-dizzy dance. Then he grabs Pauline, Mario gives chase, and the three of them exit stage left.
