Goddamn I have never felt like an absolute APE banging on drums like a bloody raged gorilla. This brought out an inner PRIMEPAE dormant within my soul. One of the best stress relieving games I have played.

DKJB is definitely one of those games you NEED the bongo peripheral is was made for. The option to play with a controller is there, but you'd be absolutely robbing yourself of one of the most amazing experiences on the gamecube. Or at least, try to find way to play the wii motion control version, even if you are playing on an emulator, please hook up some sort of motion control gimmick to make this game what it's worth.

It is a platfomer that is controlled by banging the bongos. Bang the left bongo, go left. Bang the right bongo, go right. Bang both at the same time and you do a jump. Clap to grab and punch things. Simple and it works because it's so satisfying when translated to gameplay.

There are 32 very fun levels that have you running, sliding, bouncing and swinging all around while keeping combos up. The name of the game is to collect as many bananas as you can till you get to the end of the level. The more combos you keep up by not touching the ground, the more bananas collected will multiply. The more bananas you have collected, the more health you will have when facing the boss at the end of the level. A really good system that rewards you with medals depending on the amount of bananas you have, thus creating a great replayable game.

One of my favorite things about this game is fighting all the enemies, especially the big one. Every enemy you defeat feels so goddamn satisfying as you grab, throw or pound the fuck out of them. ESPECIALLY the bosses as when you stun them, you get to go all in 1000 punches first of the north star style, and the faster you bang those bongos, the faster DK will beat the shit out of the fuck. And it feels SOOOO goddamn good.

This is truly one of the most unique games I have played, and offers a great experience you can't get anywhere else. This deserves some kind of port on the switch so people can play with the joycons with that HD rumble doing it justice.

Trivia Time!

Contrary to what you may have heard, this is actually the best Donkey Kong game we've ever released. Why didn't you buy it? Koizumi-san was so SAD.

It should have been a hit! You all should have played it! We could have been 8 games deep in the Jungle Beat series by now! DK Bongos should have been littering tens of millions of basements across the globe just like sticky Wii Remotes and busted Joy-Con®! WE COULD HAVE ACHIEVED TRUE GREATNESS, BUT YOU LET KOIZUMI DOWN

Stay tuned for more Trivia Time segments in the near future!

This game by itself takes the bongos from a gimmick peripheral to something worth trying, which is very impressive. I remember trying it for about 5 minutes at a friend's house as a kid, thought it was hard to control, and passed it off as a gimmick. I bought some DK Bongos recently to play this, mostly thinking it would just be a funny bit and I could stream it for friends, but I was surprised to find that this is actually a really fun game.

It genuinely makes good use of the peripheral, and the controls are fine once you get used to them, maybe with the exception of claps being a little inconsistent (tapping the side of the bongos instead helped a lot). The levels mostly flow well, though the bird sections and swimming sections feel a bit worse. There's a good variety of environments, and the boss fights are shockingly fun and creative, for a while at least. My biggest complaint with the game is that they introduce all of these awesome and varied bosses early on, and then end up reusing variants of them too much throughout the game. Still really cool though and more than I expected out of this.

The scoring requirements are a little strict, though I do like that they show you videos of how to better keep up your combo after completing a level. I just got the normal ending for this playthrough but could definitely see myself going back for the post-game content in the future, as sadly there's not much else to play on the bongos. Very happy I got to try this, I'm a big fan of the Donkey Kong series and didn't even know what I was missing out on with this one.

Tl;dr Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is still one of my favorite Donkey Kong games of all time. I still hold it dearly to my heart and I'm really glad I was able to play it again properly with a pair of DK Bongos I bought again (which were the same ones I sold off to a local store ages ago). Only main critique I have of the game is the short length but that's really it.

Jungle Beat is one of those games my dad's side of the family owned when I was a kid and would play when I would go over to their house. When I was a kid I was completely out of the loop regarding the Rare buyout, I just saw this as another cool DK game, and it was definitely a pivotal game from my childhood that made me fall in love with Donkey Kong with DKC2 and DK64 being my main entry points.

And I'm very happy to say that Jungle Beat is still a really fucking fun ass game for me, probably even more fun for me now after mastering the DK Bongos as an adult. The game feels so satisfying to control, play, and my god its so rewarding to string long combos and finally land on the ground netting a ton of beats. DK's a mad powerhouse in this game and it really shows in the levels and boss fights too. Levels are so tightly designed around it's limitations that it feels exquisite to master movement and find the most optimal routes to keep your combo gauge going.

I love this game so much man; Jungle Beat, Jungle Climber, and Tropical Freeze are definitely my favorite 3 Post-Rare DK titles.

I highly recommend it to people especially since DK Bongos aren't in any demand right now, it's better time than now to get them before they fetch higher prices.

underrated DK platfomer, the gameplay here is really solid and unique since this is the only plaformer I know where you can use an set of bongos for control and feel good at the same time, chaining wall jumps, swings, grabs and ground pounds to create combo chains never gets old and mastering each level is satisfying.

the presentation is also pretty good, this game has the good old Nintendo polish in terms of UI and audio design everything just looks and sounds good, the music is also pretty catchy.

level-design is genuinely great, every level is fun to play and each own with their unique gimmicks to spice them up.

boss battles are very fun although they start to get repetitive later on.

overall Jungle Beat is great, it is weirder than the Country games since this was made by Nintendo themselves after Rareware's buyout but it's still an good time and every Donkey Kong fan should try it.

probably the only example of a developer looking at their rhythm peripheral (for an ersatz taiko no tatsujin no less) and deciding that they needed to make an "actual" game to justify its existence. varied environments, a legitimate combo-based scoring system, and reams of new baddies for DK to fight: this has basically everything you'd want from what was effectively a stop-gap release for the core mario team between sunshine and galaxy. it's also nintendo's only true 2D platformer on the gamecube at a time where the genre was relegated to handhelds. for what it wrings out of the limited controls available via the bongos, this is honestly a blast.

the main issue is that those damn bongos are so annoying to use in practicality that it makes the game never really extend beyond "cool and interesting" territory. at the same time this game with generic controls would likely be trivially easy even when going for high scores... so I don't really know. this is in many ways smartly built around the limitations of the controls, and the control contextuality is consistently smart and responsive, but when the bongos consistently miss claps the experience begins leaning into drudgery and frustration. I do suggest that those using the bongos try tapping the sides of the bongos as an alternative to clapping; I found this much more reliable. the pads themselves are still tuned to full-on slaps and can feel weaker when taps or clicks are used, which feels like a necessity unless you plan on only playing for 15 minutes. then again, this might have been the goal from the beginning given the bite-sized levels.

the nintendo coat of paint really sells the experience though, with a lot of smart touches that I would only expect from them. as levels get more complex and the potential combo opportunities expand, each kingdom will postpend the ranking screen with a quick peek at a potential combo opportunity you may have missed, which is especially useful if it's particularly hidden or not necessarily intuitive. if you're willing to master the bongos, there's obviously the pieces in place to reach large double-digit platforming combos in some of these sections (your combo multiplier builds every time you interact with a platforming object or jump off a wall before touching the ground), and being able to grab bananas in a chain remotely becomes addicting when you master killing enemies and perfectly grabbing each of their bananas before they hit the ground. it also just rocks that nintendo decided to make a game where the conceit is that donkey kong wants to beat up every other strong creature in the world. no plot or consistency required, just total mayhem.

It's weird realizing how important this game ended up being in Nintendo's history. The first game developed by Nintendo EAD Tokyo, the team that would go on to develop Super Mario Galaxy and every following 3D Mario until Odyssey (and even then Odyssey's team features most of if not all of the most prominent Tokyo EAD members). It features many mechanics that would end up in Galaxy, like the dandelions you spin off of, the clap in this game having a lot of the functionality of the spin jump, the look and feel of the 2D sections in Galaxy, and a lot of other little things that ended up in Galaxy, even some sound effects.

This game is also significant in terms of Donkey Kong's characterization in future games. With Rare no longer working on DK, this really feels like Nintendo going "Alright let's make him an angry fucking gorilla again". Donkey Kong is out for fucking blood now, no sight of any of the other DKC characters, just him rampaging through different kingdoms to overthrow their leaders and eventually conquer the entire jungle world. Diddy isn't here to be his conscience, he's going to kill until there's nothing left. Definitely a weird move, but honestly very entertaining, and while his more bloodthirsty side has been toned down since, this game did basically create DK's personality, mannerisms, and the general look of the enemies and characters of the world for future DK games. Not only that, but there are a lot of similarities between the enemy and character designs in this game and what would show up in Galaxy as well. Again, just really surreal to realize this game is kind of the beginning of an era for Nintendo.

As for the game itself, this is easily the best use of the DK Bongos. The bongos are kind of lousy as rhythm game peripherals, but as big ass buttons to slap the shit out of in order to beat up a boss, they honestly work really well. At first I was kind of unsure how platforming would feel with these, but this game really encourages a flow in your movement, doing your best to keep yourself off the ground, clapping to interact with objects that'll help you do that, wall jumping and bouncing off enemies and doing your best to keep a combo up. Running and jumping with the bongos ends up feeling completely intuitive, to the point where after playing this game for an extended period of time I was watching someone stream Sonic Generations and when they moved to the right I was like "oh, they hit the right drum on their bongo", like this game is so much better at putting you in a rhythm trance than the actual fucking rhythm game that uses the same peripheral.

Bosses are also good here, they require good reflexes and movement but never demand too much out of the limited options. The Kong bosses end up not being great though because the timing on dodging is really weird and delayed, but it's still cool that they have a sort of Punch-Out type feel to them.

My biggest gripe though is that, well, the bongos never really prove themselves to be an ideal way to play any game, for a couple reasons. First of all, this game gets tiring very easily, and getting tired leads to weaker claps, which the game definitely has trouble picking up. It's funny, Donkey Konga had the exact opposite problem, where the mic basically picked up any sound of any volume made near it as a clap, but here I found myself repeatedly clapping in order to make sure I hit something on time, and as I got more tired that problem got a lot more frustrating. Water levels are really annoying to navigate with the movement options given, and there are a bit too many moments of trying to figure out how to pull off a certain move or jump that aren't really fun, especially in a game that's all about keeping up a combo in order to get the best score needed to progress further in the game. Anytime the game wanted me to do a slam I struggled to do it in one try, for some reason the input for it is really picky, even though it's the same input for jumping but just in midair.

After 12 levels, the game plays credits and then tells you there are four more levels, but in order to unlock all of them you need to go back and get gold medals on every previous level. This involves keeping the best combos possible and having the least amount of errors when it comes to boss fights, and while I could see myself having fun perfecting these levels, I am not a child in the year 2005, I am an adult in the year 2021 and I don't feel like devoting the time that Donkey Kong is demanding of me. But this is definitely the game to get the DK Bongos for, no contest, and it's a really fun thing that I'm glad I got to finally play.

The only game that lets you beat up animals by actually hitting something IRL

DK Jungle Beat is my favorite use of a weird controller. It hearkens back to the simplicity of the two-button NES controller while simultaneously feeling ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like an NES controller.

You tap one Bongo to run in that direction, tap both to jump, and clap to attack. Once you've latched onto any enemy by clapping, you start pounding away like your 5th grade teacher just asked for a "drum roll" on your desks.

Simple. Visceral. Percussive.

The boss fights are awfully similar to classic samurai battles. The principle of these showdowns is to wait for the right opportunity to strike, and to not jump the gun. The boss battles have a real dramatic weight and tension to them, and they're a highlight.

Like Ōdama, this is weird Gamecube-era Nintendo at its finest.

Nintendo's last true arcade title. Not like, literally a game made for arcades, but in terms of design. It's no secret that I basically don't like anything Nintendo has put out in almost 20 years at this point. The easiest answer for why is that their new titles are very safe, chaste, inbred games with few new ideas. This isn't to say their new stuff is strictly bad, far from it. There's still a competency somewhere there. It's kind of like the best playing garbage ever though. What defines modern Nintendo games is mainly the lack of any sort of design that approximates 'something.' What I mean is that it's all self-referential to what 'games' collectively are, and what Nintendo games used to be, rather than just simply being fun games with an identity that isn't so tautological. I ponder over this because DKJB has a lot of those 'square-hole' style ideas that went on to plague more modern entries; Being a sort of precursor to Mario Galaxy, by staff and design motivations. Yet this is one of the only modern Nintendo games where the design isn't frustratingly patronizing.

Arcade game design had you fit very dense encounter variety back to back into your games. The nature necessitated it. Time was literally money, but it was also a good way of keeping a game fresh in the eyes of venue frequenters. There were all kinds of flashy games, which due to primitive tech, had to come up with unique ways of executing a usually simple idea. Back then, there weren't many standards in place, so a game more naturally became what it wanted to be. Putting it super succinctly so we aren't here all day: Back then arcade games were inherently more engaging because the concept had to be front and center, and that 'flashiness' was delivered through gameplay density. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is a sidescrolling score attack game with a lot of ideas. From callbacks to the original Donkey Kong game with the logo font; To the barrel graze jingle, this game's explicitly introspective on the nature of arcade games. I see that even in how it controls. Just 3 inputs, Left, Right, and the 'Clap', which can be triggered by tapping the side of the bongos too. The somatosensory element of the controls are complemented by the frantic nature of the game as well. It can be very difficult to keep most combos going, and when DK grabs hold of enemies he beats the ever living daylights out of them. I'm pretty sure it was so violent it forced the ESRB to make E10+ because they didn't want this game to be rated T.

There's even an arcade game it actually closely resembles, in spirit and operation. Mach Breakers: Numan Athletics 2. A game about a superhuman decathlon. Mach Breakers also only has 3 inputs, insane mashing that really makes you FEEL the action of your characters, and above all extremely arcadey. I draw this comparison because there's even more DKJB could be paying homage to, that I may not be fully aware of because it's not exclusionary in that way. It's not some reference that exists solely for it's own value. It's kind of a more natural one, that I'm sure began during development as a coincidence and then they leaned into it as a genuine inspiration. I haven't even gone into the scoring system yet, which I find very interesting and well designed. Everytime DK does a unique action, such as backflipping, wall jumping, swinging, sliding up onto a ledge, etc; It adds to a combo trick meter. The combo stays going as long as you're in the air, unless you get hit. The combo counter acts as a multiplier for each individual instance of a banana you collect. Which bunches being their own multiple of 3. Additionally, when you grab many stray bananas at the same time using the clap motion it adds an additional amount by 1 per banana you caught. There's a lot they do with this. With all the unique enemy and banana layouts, it adds a lot of strategy to routing particular areas, without turning it into a chore necessarily. Because there's a lot of freeform stuff you can just try and do in the moment.

Not a whole lot of the game is up to scripted events. Even though you'd think there'd be a reason to add many of them because of the game's limited controls, the game uses them sparingly. Even when you grab a melon that was thrown at you as a projectile, there's still a chance it can miss when hit back because of poor positioning. But like, also, it has physics that do matter when being juggled by the claps soundwave. The game plays out mostly setpiece to setpiece, and the 'breaks' are still fraught with heavy mashing. It's a very involved game, but I love it for that.

When I was younger, the Wii was my main game console, and aside from the hacked hard drive of 200 games that we had and the occasional trips to the store for new releases, one of my sources for Wii games was bulk-buying pirated game discs. Most of these didn't actually work (or they only worked for a little while), but one of the few that did was Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, and so when my family found its disk within a stack of shovel ware and movie tie-in games yesterday, I immediately remembered playing through the first level and getting scared of how intimidating the first boss was when I must've been around eight or nine years old. After finding the disc and seeing that it still worked after all these years I spent the past two days playing it, and I was surprised with just how much of a blast I had with this game, and I'd honestly consider Donkey Kong Jungle Beat to be one of the best games in the franchise.

When it first came out on the GameCube, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat was designed to be played with the DK Bongos, and as much as I wish that I had that controller for the sake of both novelty and to see how the game worked around Nintendo's answer to the Dance Dance Revolution mat, I still thought that this game felt great on the Wii. Although the level design is much less tough than that of the original Donkey Kong Country trilogy, Donkey Kong is given a ton of new moves to make the levels feel more dynamic, with the shockwave move in particular making attacks feel satisfying and powerful. Along with avoiding obstacles and getting to the end of the stage, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat also puts an emphasis on chaining moves in order to collect as many bananas as possible (which are eventually used as both your health for the kingdom's boss fight and the game's method of ranking your score), and combining that with Donkey Kong's new side jumps, ground pounds, and wall jumps gives the game a unique sense of flow and rhythm that feels immensely rewarding when pulled off correctly, especially thanks to the game's immensely over-the-top presentation. Despite how much this game deviates from the rest of the series, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat still managed to feature a good amount of animal sections which served as good shifts from the core gameplay, and the same can be said for the genuinely fun water levels.

As I was playing Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, it didn't take long for me to start making connections between this game and Super Mario Galaxy, so I wasn't surprised to find out that they were both made by the same division of Nintendo. On top of using a few of the same sound effects, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat also shares some ideas that were expanded upon three years later, such as the giant flowers that fling you after spinning on them and water sections in the sky, and it was interesting to see these concepts in their infancy. My only gripes have to do with the boss fights, because while they were fun, there wasn't much variety to them, as there were only four kinds of bosses that got repeated each time (aside from the final boss). Wall jumping was also a bit finicky when it came to dodging attacks from bosses, but that's more of a nitpick than anything major. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat was an amazing and inventive platformer, and while I didn't get to experience the game with the original DK Bongos, I still had a ton of fun with it.