Sentences written about this title, gathered by type from the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles (as of 2026-8-30).
This game was the 2nd educational title for the Famicom, following Popeye no Eigo Asobi, and although the following titles below were also in development at the time of its release, they were cancelled, so this game is effectively the last in the series.
The software listed at the top of this flyer is Donkey Kong no Ongaku Asobi, and a screenshot was also included, so it appears to have been fairly close to completion, but it was never released.
Nintendo has not stated why it was cancelled. Sakurada Meijin, a former Hudson employee, played an in-house development sample of Ongaku Asobi while he was there, and has said on Twitter that "it was thin as a game". He also said that, according to people who were there at the time, "the direct cause of the cancellation was a rights problem with the Seiko Matsuda songs included in the game".
Naoto Yamamoto, a former editor-in-chief of Family Computer Magazine, has commented that the main reason for the cancellation was that the karaoke mode planned for the game never reached a shippable state, because of problems recognising the microphone on the second controller.
It reuses its engine, assets, and gameplay from Donkey Kong Jr. It was a part of the Educational Series on the NES, a series that was originally supposed to have three entries, including music game [ja], but was the only one released under that line.
It was the first spin-off title Nintendo made.
The game was first released in Japan on December 12, 1983, and was released shortly after together with Donkey Kong Jr. as a licensed multicart (released in a bundle together with Sharp's C1 Famicom TV).
Nintendo has not stated why it was cancelled. Sakurada Meijin, a former Hudson employee, played an in-house development sample of Ongaku Asobi while he was there, and has said on Twitter that "it was thin as a game". He also said that, according to people who were there at the time, "the direct cause of the cancellation was a rights problem with the Seiko Matsuda songs included in the game".
Damien McFarren of Nintendo Life criticized the game for "shoehorning" education into this game and for poor controls.
Naoto Yamamoto, a former editor-in-chief of Family Computer Magazine, has commented that the main reason for the cancellation was that the karaoke mode planned for the game never reached a shippable state, because of problems recognising the microphone on the second controller.
It reuses its engine, assets, and gameplay from Donkey Kong Jr. It was a part of the Educational Series on the NES, a series that was originally supposed to have three entries, including music game [ja], but was the only one released under that line.
Thomas finding its controls and execution poor, while Cam Shea regarded it as one of the worst Virtual Console games and criticized it for a lack of value.
Damien McFarren of Nintendo Life criticized the game for "shoehorning" education into this game and for poor controls.
It was later released outside Japan under the title Donkey Kong Jr. Math.
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