When Nintendo released Rare's stunning Donkey Kong Country in 1994, it not only gave the SNES a new lease of life, but it also allowed the console to gain some much-needed technical dominance over Sega's Genesis / Mega Drive.
One of the first video games to utilise CGI visuals, Donkey Kong Country was so impressive that when it was first showcased, many assumed it was running on Nintendo's next-gen console, and not the ageing SNES.
Even today, the game (and its 16-bit sequels) are considered to be some of the most graphically impressive games of their era – but could Sega's console actually have hosted a similar experience?
That's the question the endlessly talented Gabriel Pyron has teased us with, as he has teamed up with fellow homebrew developer TiagoSC to create a tech demo that sees Dixie Kong come to Sega's 16-bit system.
"My friend TiagoSC came up with the idea to implement three active layers on the Mega Drive," explains Pyron. "To illustrate his idea, we make a small demo using Donkey Kong Country from SNES. The demo only focuses on the concept of layers, but we created the structure and assets in a way that allows two players on the screen at the same time, along with the enemies and the HUD. This enables the porting of the original game, with the necessary adaptations for the SEGA console."
However, before you get too excited, there are currently no plans to port any of the Donkey Kong Country titles to the Genesis / Mega Drive. "We're not going to make the game; this is just a concept test," explains Pyron.
Still, this groundwork does at least lay some foundations for a potential port in the future – even if it's not by Pyron and TiagoSC.