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TheSuper Smash Bros.roster has changed a lot from the first installment in the series, in both overall size and individual character improvements. Despite those changes, it was never enough for some characters; while there were a select few that were always considered great like Pikachu was, there were also some that never went beyond being borderline decent. One of those characters happens to be Donkey Kong.
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To Donkey Kong’s credit, he can be a fun character to play with, thanks to how easy he is to pick up. Playing against him is a similar story, but when in control by a skilled player, he can overcome even the worst matchups. Here are Donkey Kong’s notable strengths, weaknesses, and the ways you can best him in battle.
Donkey Kong’s Strengths
Donkey Kong’s greatest strengths are hisattack range and power. All of his Smash attacks, specials, tilts, and his Fair and DAir extend far thanks to his arms — even his relatively shorter-ranged moves, such as his dash attack, BAir, and Up-Air, have a very quick startup. Despite his normals not being disjointed, their range makes it a huge risk to approach him thoughtlessly. These moves are also devastatingly powerful, allowing him to get kills at early percentages. His amazing mobility, for a heavyweight at least, allows him to string quite a few hits together, making hisadvantage stateamazing.
Next up is what’s probably the most notable strength of Donkey Kong:his grab game. This is mostly thanks to his unique Forward Throw, referred to as Cargo, which allows him to hold opponents on his shoulder while he walks and jumps. This gives him aunique sense of stage control, allowing him to position himself and his opponents wherever he wants for follow-ups. The throws you can do out of Cargo have their uses as well, with the forward throw and back throw working as offstage kills (the back throw is also useful for killing at the top blastzone, thanks to its vertical launch distance). As for the up throw, it’s one of his best combo tools for damage at low percent and kill-confirms at high percent.
Finally, there’s hisendurance. Donkey Kong is a super-heavyweight character, tied with King Dedede for the third heaviest in the game. This makes his resistance to knockback some of the highest. Along with that is thesuper armoron his special moves, adding on to his survivability on top of making it even more difficult and risky to challenge his far-ranged attacks.
Donkey Kong’s Weaknesses
Donkey Kong’s biggest weakness is histerribly disadvantaged state. He lacks any solid defensive options to escape combos and juggle situations, which is made even harder to do by his large frame. His best option is his Up-B, but it leaves him very open, and the multi-hit property means they can possibly fall out and reset the situation all over again. Speaking of his Up-B,his recovery is very easy to exploit,thanks to the lack of vertical distance this move travels. While it does move better horizontally, this makes a move much easier to read and punish.
Donkey Kong also struggles withvery laggy attacks. A lot of his moves are fast on startup, but they suffer from large amounts of endlag. All of his special moves are prime examples of this, especially his grounded Up-B, which leaves him very vulnerable if it misses. However, some of his moves are laggy in both startup and endlag, like his FAir. This adds on to his poor defense since he hasno reliable out-of-shield options. Pressure is a huge struggle for Donkey Kong to handle.
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Strategy & Counterplay
At lower percents, Donkey Kong will often try to get combos off with his throw, using some of his poking tools to combo into it. The game to play here (and almost all the time against Donkey Kong) is tofocus on being in the air. While Donkey Kong’s mobility is high for a heavyweight, he still has trouble against opponents that are consistently on the move since it’s harder. Some characters will have an easier time avoiding grabs, but playing the aerial game is the best bet with the general cast; if you do happen to get grabbed,mash as much as you can. A weakness of his Cargo is that it can be mashed out of, so while it may seem hopeless if you get grabbed, you can possibly save yourself.
Donkey Kong has great range, making it hard to apply pressure in neutral, but his lack of disjoints and projectiles doesn’t make it hopeless. you’re able to effectively contest Donkey Kong’s attacks by using disjoints and projectiles yourself. The former will also be very useful for juggling Donkey Kong, which is the best way to rack up damage against him. If you can, it’d be helpful tojuggle him when he’s facing you, so you’ll be safe from his BAir. He can still use Down-B in this case, but he needs to use it high enough to get a lot out of it, and it’s easy to challenge it if you know it’s coming.
Donkey Kong doesn’t have many winning matchups. He does best against characters that lack reliable projectiles or disjoints that can keep him out. It’s even worse for them if their normals are more limited in range.Characters like Little Mac, Jigglypuff, Incineroar, Ganondorf, and Kirby fall into this category.
Any other type of character is a losing matchup for Donkey Kong. Characters with either a variety of projectiles or good disjoints are safe bets,like Toon Link, Mega Man, R.O.B., Olimar, and Byleth. Donkey Kong also does worse against characters that can combo him easily due to his size. Bonus points go to characters that are also hard to hit, in contrast.Pikachu, Joker, Inkling, Greninja, and Fox are great characters against him.
