A remake of Donkey Kong Country
An expanded port of the original Donkey Kong Country for the SNES. Includes extra collectables, remixed/remastered music and sound design, and additional game modes and minigames.
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Bought a Japanese cart in Amsterdam. Played on Analogue Pocket.
This was a pretty good port of DKC 1 from the SNES. Of course graphics and sound are going to be crappier, but it was still super easy to get into. There were times I thought there was a secret room but just died from attempting to go in there. The voice samples for Donkey and Diddy were updated and they're pretty hilarious. One of the nice things about the GBA game is that you can save on the world at any time without Candy, and there are extra modes to play.
This was a pretty good port of DKC 1 from the SNES. Of course graphics and sound are going to be crappier, but it was still super easy to get into. There were times I thought there was a secret room but just died from attempting to go in there. The voice samples for Donkey and Diddy were updated and they're pretty hilarious. One of the nice things about the GBA game is that you can save on the world at any time without Candy, and there are extra modes to play.
Pros: I don't know if I'm glad this exists or not, while yes, it was cool to have Donkey Kong Country on the GBA, we had just gotten a nifty demake only a couple years prior on the GBC, which added a lot of new features like hidden green bananas, a photo album, and minigames like Funky's Fishing. This version also has a lot of those same features, same Funky Fishing minigame even, some new ones too, like Candy's Dance Studio (which is a thing that isn't terrible but isn't exactly good either) but this version of DKC is on a system that's more SNES capable, and this GBA version does play more like the SNES original... And that's good! But...
Cons: It looks like ass. The sprites look ripped from Spriter's-Resource, but resized, smudged and occasionally improperly cropped. The palette is the worst offender, in an attempt to be more visible on the non-backlit GBA, everything looks washed out and discolored, Kritters now appear bright purple for instance instead of green, and backgrounds are just... gross. Gone are the lighting effects of SNES, the sound chip for GBA, god bless it, is just not right for DKC, the music and sounds are worse in every way... They try to make up for it with added elements like a story intro cutscene, as well as an ending cutscene that totally ruins the moment (though Cranky showin up after every boss is pretty funny I admit) They also added tiny frogs and spiders or clownfish roamin' around the stages to give them more life, but ehh... They kinda feel unnatural all said and done. And yeah, I'll say it, it's worse than the GBC version, despite this GBA version playing more like the SNES game, the GBC version at least had the charm of being an 8-bit demake, and the extra features in there felt novel.
What it means to me: Look, Donkey Kong Country is pretty much my favorite game of all time, I'm not not going to be excited any time they give me another way to play it. And here, it was actually pretty remarkable given the fact that Rare had just been sold to Microsoft, and I thought we'd never get another Donkey Kong game from them again! So, the fact that they got to make this, I felt pretty lucky. Unfortunately, it was the portable team at Rare that made this, and their output is nowhere near as quality as the home console department... Eh, take what you can get I guess.
Cons: It looks like ass. The sprites look ripped from Spriter's-Resource, but resized, smudged and occasionally improperly cropped. The palette is the worst offender, in an attempt to be more visible on the non-backlit GBA, everything looks washed out and discolored, Kritters now appear bright purple for instance instead of green, and backgrounds are just... gross. Gone are the lighting effects of SNES, the sound chip for GBA, god bless it, is just not right for DKC, the music and sounds are worse in every way... They try to make up for it with added elements like a story intro cutscene, as well as an ending cutscene that totally ruins the moment (though Cranky showin up after every boss is pretty funny I admit) They also added tiny frogs and spiders or clownfish roamin' around the stages to give them more life, but ehh... They kinda feel unnatural all said and done. And yeah, I'll say it, it's worse than the GBC version, despite this GBA version playing more like the SNES game, the GBC version at least had the charm of being an 8-bit demake, and the extra features in there felt novel.
What it means to me: Look, Donkey Kong Country is pretty much my favorite game of all time, I'm not not going to be excited any time they give me another way to play it. And here, it was actually pretty remarkable given the fact that Rare had just been sold to Microsoft, and I thought we'd never get another Donkey Kong game from them again! So, the fact that they got to make this, I felt pretty lucky. Unfortunately, it was the portable team at Rare that made this, and their output is nowhere near as quality as the home console department... Eh, take what you can get I guess.
Even kid me had good taste. On that one underwater level with the swordfish, I would straight up leave my GBA on a surface, facing upwards and just have it play that blessed music. Although it was boofed through the speakers, that ambience was smacking.
Oh and I liked purposely loosing Diddy just to get him in a barrel later in the level. Idk why I was just challenging myself like that when I was younger, but who knows. Never was able to commit to getting all the letterings too.
Oh and I liked purposely loosing Diddy just to get him in a barrel later in the level. Idk why I was just challenging myself like that when I was younger, but who knows. Never was able to commit to getting all the letterings too.
Just play the original
This game was very fun, but later levels became very tedious. The GBA port of this game looks surprisingly good, and is a very nice art style. If you want to play, and aren't a platforming game lover it will take a little bit of patience, but it is worth it.
Donkey Kong but washed out and funny sounding