Donkey Kong Country (GBA)

A frog can be useful in a lot of places

In its days of glory a lot of great games were released on Nintendo’s 16-bit SNES machine. A lot of them are categorised as classics even today and are great for a walk down memory lane. For those who don’t have a SNES at home, but are longing for those days gone by, there is a great alternative: the wonderful little Game Boy Advance.

One of these classics that were once so revolutionary is Donkey Kong Country, which baffled with its incredible graphics, such as had never been seen before on a home console. What made them so different was that instead of being hand-drawn all the graphics were rendered in 3D. They were then turned into traditional 2D sprites but the effect, at the time, was stunning.

Platform all the way

A traditional Donkey Kong hobby

DKC

In Donkey Kong Country (DKC) you can play as Donkey Kong, who has the strength to beat the living sprite out of his enemies, but lacks speed and agility. You can also play as the avid little Diddy Kong, who is fast but not very strong. It’s up to you to make the best of their abilities to get through the game.

Scattered around the levels are bananas to collect, crocodiles to defeat, mine carts to drive in the spirit of Indiana Jones, and of course there are giant bosses to defeat. In short, everything that makes a traditional platformer good.

Once in a while you can find some extra help by smashing crates containing different things like the useful rhinoceros that is very good at running down obstacles and enemies in equal measure.

Boring bonus features

An evil Kremlin on his way to becoming luggage.

DKC

DKC is now available on Nintendo’s handheld and the game looks almost exactly the same as before. It’s a little strange to play on a tiny screen like the GBA’s, instead of the TV, but as soon as you turn on your Advance and hear the well known melodies and wonderful sound effects, you’ll feel a wave of nostalgia hit you.

To bring a little extra to the game Nintendo has added some pretty uninspiring mini-games in the shape of dancing and fishing games. When you dance you have to hit the controls in the right rhythm, which will give you lots of points and praise - not much gameplay in that. The same can be said about the fishing game, where you have to pick up the correctly coloured fish to keep Donkey Kong from getting upset. Not exactly revolutionary stuff, but at least it gets a little more fun when you link up with a buddy.

Mainly for the nostalgic

There are many different worlds in Country

DKC

Donkey Kong Country has aged well. It is still as catchy and charming as ever and will almost certainly be the last Rare authored Donkey Kong game ever to appear on a Nintendo console. After Microsoft’s purchase of the company, it is in fact only games for the GBA that Rare are allowed to make for any other console than the Xbox. Shame on you Rare.

As already mentioned, the graphics still look as sharp and colourful as ever, even if they don’t quite seem to connect to the background quite as well as in more traditionally rendered games. The gameplay though has aged less well and since it was less than revolutionary at the time it seems particularly uninspired now. Not that it isn’t fun, especially if you’re a hardcore platform junkie, but there’s nothing here that hadn’t been done before and better in the Mario games. The insertion of additional checkpoints though does ensure that the high difficulty level of the original is lessened somewhat, although it can still be frustratingly difficult.

Donkey Kong Country is still nice and colourful

DKC

This is a good GBA game, but still nowhere near the quality of the Mario and Zelda titles. It’s mainly for the nostalgia hounds like me, who will get a kick out of reliving the past through it. New generations of gamers will probably find it a little boring and uninspiring. But that’s their problem. Now, if only Rare would come back to Nintendo and make a new sequel...


Translated by Jonas Rasmussen.