Donkey Kong Land

Release Date: 1995 06
Genre: Action
Style: Side-Scrolling Platform
Similar Games: Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo Entertainment System), Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega Game Gear), Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega Genesis), Donkey Kong Country (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), SegaSonic the Hedgehog (Arcade), Vs. Super Mario Bros. (Arcade), Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega Master System)

Game Description

Super NES's Donkey Kong Country franchise goes portable with Donkey Kong Land for the Game Boy. The second game in the series, Donkey Kong Land offers more than 30 brand new levels of monkey business and platform adventure. New areas to explore include such exotic locations as: Kremlantis, a complex of ancient ruined temples; and Chimpanzee Clouds, which is located at the peaks of some of the highest mountains.

Once again, King K. Rool and his gang of Kremling creeps have hidden and scattered Donkey Kong's bananas all over Donkey Kong Island. You must help Donkey Kong and his little buddy Diddy Kong find them. If you are controlling Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong will follow in your footsteps. Likewise, if you are in control of Diddy, Donkey will stay on your tail. If you have yet to crack open a Buddy Barrel, or if the character you are controlling gets nailed by an obstacle or enemy, only one of the apes will be onscreen.

As you run, swim, ride, climb, swing and jump through this game, collecting bananas and looking for hidden secrets, a variety of creatures and nasties will make your job difficult. New baddies to the series include Hogwash the Flying Pig, Fangfish, Nemo (a strange shellfish) and Hard Hat (a mole). Most of the enemies are vulnerable to Donkey and Diddy's rolling (Donkey rolls and Diddy does cartwheels) and jumping attacks. Our simian heroes can also pick up barrels, which appear frequently in the game, to use as weapons. Barrels with starbursts on them can be used to launch the Kongs into other parts of the level.

According to Cranky Kong, who is a wise, yet bitter patriarch of videogames, the key to playing Donkey Kong Land lies in gaining as many extra lives as you can. You do this by finding Kong Tokens that are hidden throughout the game and cashing them in to play bonus levels. You also get an extra life for every hundred bananas you collect.

In certain areas of the game, animal friends Expresso (an ostrich) and Rambi (a rhino) will be on hand to give you a ride. A small tornado called a Swirlwind can be used as a moving platform. Sparkling circles that act as continue points appear throughout, and the game cartridge contains battery-backed memory for use in saving your progress.

When played using the Super Game Boy (the adapter that lets you enjoy Game Boy titles on your Super NES), Donkey Kong Land has more colors, more detail in the graphics and a 256-color jungle border.

~ Brett Alan Weiss, All Game Guide

Roots & Influences

Donkey Kong's first appearance was in Donkey Kong (1981). He went on to star in numerous games, such as Donkey Kong Jr. and Donkey Kong 3. Donkey Kong Country, which was released in 1994 in time for Christmas season shopping, breathed new life into the aging Super NES. It spawned two 16-bit sequels: Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest and Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble. The DKC series owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to Super Mario Bros., a side scrolling platform game that broke new ground with its huge worlds, smooth gameplay and hidden levels and items.

~ Tamara Shani, All Game Guide

Review: Overall

The 1994 release of Rareware's Donkey Kong Country ushered in a new era of eye candy. Thanks to colorful sprites that were pre-rendered on Silicon Graphics workstations, the game looked utterly fantastic, bursting with amazing graphics and mind-blowing animations. More importantly, Donkey Kong Country played really well, and the return of Nintendo's superhero simian was a huge hit among gamers.

Of course, Nintendo wanted to extend this Donkey Kong property to the incredibly outdated Game Boy -- an 8-bit system with a Z80 chip and four shades of gray. And darn it, Rare has done a bang-up job converting the game to the handheld.

In terms of gameplay, Donkey Kong Land is near-identical to the SNES platformer. You play an irritated Donkey Kong, on a quest against reptilian "Kremlings" who stole your banana stock. This translates into lots of running and jumping across snowy mountains, hot-n-stinky jungles, and dark cave systems. Kremlings can be killed by hopping on their heads, or by chucking a barrel at them in true Donkey Kong style. Best of all, you can swap between two different characters -- Donkey and Diddy Kong. While Donkey is a burly monkey, Diddy is a bit more agile with an agile cartwheel roll. The control is dead-on crisp and responsive, and level design is especially tight throughout the game (though some 'floating platform' jumping puzzles can become grating in the third game world).

The CG graphics have been done right, look as good as they can on an LCD screen -- as opposed to Killer Instinct on the Game Boy, which uses the same technique yet looks hideous. Audio is well-done, with the same tunes from the SNES version bleeding over.

All in all, Donkey Kong Land is one of the best platformers for the Game Boy since the original Super Mario Land games, and should be bought by anyone ready for more monkey mayhem.