(This is the 113th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest came out pretty much exactly a year after the original set the SNES world on fire. Because of that, it's actually impressive how creatively designed the levels are, how beautifully composed the soundtrack is and how well the game flows at many times.
Even still, I caught myself not quite enjoying this as much as it felt like I should at every second. I truly found myself controlling Diddy Kong and wondering "Do I not like platformers that much?". I can't say I grew up with platformers, though I did play many hours playing Super Mario Bros. 3 and both World games as a child. So maybe there is some truth to that. But then again, replaying Super Mario World about a year ago was a lot of fun.
Then I thought about Mega Man. About Sonic. About Kirby. About Wario. I enjoyed their platformer games for what they were (besides Mega Man, me and that series just isn't going to work out unfortunately) but didn't fall in love with any of them despite the praise most of the games have gotten. And it's a similar story with Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2. I love their visual style and their soundtracks. I can appreciate the gameplay and level design for what they are. But the loop just isn't all that fun to me relative to how it probably should be.
So I'm leaving these thoughts here just to catalogue the game as part of the challenge I'm doing, and if you're someone like me who is on the fence about the platforming genre, maybe you just find someone who shares your gaming tastes.
If I had to guess what the issue is, it's probably the fact that platformers are based on quick reaction times and the patience to learn patterns and repeat them for success. As a 26 year old, I feel like that's not the kind of stuff I can let myself be lured into anymore. With that comes the lack of patience for failure that I perceive comes cheaply, which is kind of what I felt in this game, more so than in the original Donkey Kong Country, though only by a little bit. Your character is pretty large compared to the overall screen, and your field of view is small as a result. Which means a lot of the time, I'd get hit by a character just appearing at the edge of the screen, leaving me with a small window to react. Another example are the jumps, which you have to execute within a small window because your characters can't jump all that far, even while running, leading me to fall to my death all too often by an inch.
Overall, it's a game I probably would love, similar to early Super Mario platformers, if I had played it as a kid and learned a lot of the patterns and secrets over dozens of hours of dying easy deaths, but Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest did not have that same appeal to today's me unfortunately.
I'll leave the review with this. If you're looking for retro platformers, Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2 are undoubtedly among the best gaming had to offer at the time. The way I play games these days just doesn't seem to work with these platformers all that well.
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest came out pretty much exactly a year after the original set the SNES world on fire. Because of that, it's actually impressive how creatively designed the levels are, how beautifully composed the soundtrack is and how well the game flows at many times.
Even still, I caught myself not quite enjoying this as much as it felt like I should at every second. I truly found myself controlling Diddy Kong and wondering "Do I not like platformers that much?". I can't say I grew up with platformers, though I did play many hours playing Super Mario Bros. 3 and both World games as a child. So maybe there is some truth to that. But then again, replaying Super Mario World about a year ago was a lot of fun.
Then I thought about Mega Man. About Sonic. About Kirby. About Wario. I enjoyed their platformer games for what they were (besides Mega Man, me and that series just isn't going to work out unfortunately) but didn't fall in love with any of them despite the praise most of the games have gotten. And it's a similar story with Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2. I love their visual style and their soundtracks. I can appreciate the gameplay and level design for what they are. But the loop just isn't all that fun to me relative to how it probably should be.
So I'm leaving these thoughts here just to catalogue the game as part of the challenge I'm doing, and if you're someone like me who is on the fence about the platforming genre, maybe you just find someone who shares your gaming tastes.
If I had to guess what the issue is, it's probably the fact that platformers are based on quick reaction times and the patience to learn patterns and repeat them for success. As a 26 year old, I feel like that's not the kind of stuff I can let myself be lured into anymore. With that comes the lack of patience for failure that I perceive comes cheaply, which is kind of what I felt in this game, more so than in the original Donkey Kong Country, though only by a little bit. Your character is pretty large compared to the overall screen, and your field of view is small as a result. Which means a lot of the time, I'd get hit by a character just appearing at the edge of the screen, leaving me with a small window to react. Another example are the jumps, which you have to execute within a small window because your characters can't jump all that far, even while running, leading me to fall to my death all too often by an inch.
Overall, it's a game I probably would love, similar to early Super Mario platformers, if I had played it as a kid and learned a lot of the patterns and secrets over dozens of hours of dying easy deaths, but Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest did not have that same appeal to today's me unfortunately.
I'll leave the review with this. If you're looking for retro platformers, Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2 are undoubtedly among the best gaming had to offer at the time. The way I play games these days just doesn't seem to work with these platformers all that well.