Pros: I feel like they put more effort into this GBA port than they did the previous two. For one, the palette finally isn't all washed out, yeah, the sprites are still smudged to fit the smaller resolution, but the colors aren't bad! This game did come out late into the GBA's life, after the DS already released even, so by then we had plenty of backlit systems to play on, and they were finally able to design one of these with that in mind. For two, this game has an entirely new soundtrack that fits the GBA's soundcard, and you know what, a lot of the tunes are pretty damned good, with everything being composed by the legendary composer of DKC1 and 2, David Wise. And thirdly, we got an entirely brand new world in this version of the game, Pacifica. And in this world, we have some neat new stages, like a legit barrel cannon stage (something DKC3 SNES lacked), an underwater redwood tree, a tough as nails coral stage with strong currents pushin you around, a stormy deck stage, a new Brother Bear with Bachelor Bear, and even a new boss (the new boss sucks, but hey, a new boss!). I guess fourthly, we got a bunch of new minigames, as one would expect out of these GBA renditions by now. The Funky's Rentals minigames has you racing in boats, or doing other boat activities, and it's actually decent! The minigame is entirely based on Rare's old "Cobra Triangle" game from NES, so that's probably why it plays so well. But hey, finally a minigame in one of these things that feels good to play.

Cons: as much an improvement over the previous GBA DKC ports, it's still not better than the SNES counterparts. It's still a bit patched together in its presentation, doesn't' feel smooth, doesn't look smooth, heck, despite the great new compositions, the sound editing and direction is still unpolished. And in general, the gameplay of the SNES original simply feels better, but hey, at least the new additions and changes feel worth another go for once, despite just being a portable version.

What it means to me: DKC3 was always the blacksheep of the franchise, but I still loved it. So I was glad that they went the extra mile for this GBA port. And that soundtrack, my god, it's actually an OST that I would listen to separately from playing the game. This game showed that David Wise still had it, and it had me dreaming of him returning to the DK franchise once again one day...