Donkey Kong (G&W)

There are games that are fun, and games that change an entire industry — and Donkey Kong in its Game & Watch version clearly belongs to the second group. This 1982 device was not just a clever pocket adaptation of the famous arcade game but the cradle of one of the most important inventions in the history of game controls altogether.

From a gameplay standpoint, it is a condensed version of the arcade Donkey Kong. As Mario you climb up the structure, dodge obstacles, and try to reach the kidnapped girl while the giant gorilla makes your path harder. The Game & Watch version cleverly recast the arcade experience into a limited LCD format and spread the action across the two screens of the fold-out device.

And this is exactly where two fundamental milestones come in. Donkey Kong was the first dual-screen Game & Watch of the "multi screen" type — a fold-out construction with two displays, which decades later directly inspired the Nintendo DS concept. Even more importantly, Gunpei Yokoi invented the D-pad here, the cross-shaped directional controller. This unassuming plate with four directions became the worldwide standard that you have since found on practically every game controller on the planet.

The cultural significance of this device is therefore hard to overstate. The D-pad fundamentally changed how players control games — it replaced clumsy joysticks and levers with an elegant, intuitive solution that caught on immediately and has survived to this day. The fact that it was born on a small pocket Game & Watch with Donkey Kong is one of the best pieces of trivia in all of gaming history.

Donkey Kong as a brand was, moreover, one of the pillars on which Nintendo built its popularity, and its portable version helped spread the fame of the gorilla and Mario into the palms of players' hands. The combination of an iconic character, technical innovation, and design genius makes it one of the most significant titles of the entire series.

Why play: Because you are holding in your hand the device on which the D-pad and the idea of two screens were born — a piece of gaming history in the form of a brisk pocket classic.