Talk:Donkey Kong VS Knuckles/@comment-1652808-20151214231218/@comment-26346315-20160201173418

As far as I'm concerned, the Mario encyclopedia pretty much enlists the Donkey Kong arcade game as part of the Mario series. Link to that, look under "References": http://www.mariowiki.com/Donkey_Kong_(game)

And when you consider the subtle hints to Mario that Cranky gives to you the more you visit him in DKC1, you could probably see why that category is there.