Donkey Kong Country 3 Hands-On

Currently scheduled for release next month, Donkey Kong Country 3 for the Game Boy Advance is a classic 2D platform game from UK-based Rare. Originally released on the Super Nintendo in 1996 as Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble, the game has you assume the roles of both Dixie Kong and Kiddy Kong, who are searching for the missing Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. We've recently had an opportunity to spend some time with a near-finished version of the game, and are happy to report that it looks to have aged very well.

Donkey Kong Country 3 is set on and around DK Island, which you'll have the freedom to explore as you progress through the game and unlock new areas. At the start of the game, for example, you'll use a speedboat to navigate rivers and reach gameplay levels that would otherwise be inaccessible. A little later in the game, after defeating one of several large boss characters, you'll obtain a hovercraft that works in exactly the same way as the boat, but which can also be used to get past rocks that blocked your progress previously. On land, your progression will be linear for the most part, with every beaten level opening up a path to the next. There will be occasions when you have multiple paths open to you, but these alternate routes generally lead only to characters who have jobs for you to do or minigames for you to play.

Minigames in Donkey Kong Country 3 include everything from high-speed boat chases to sequences in which you'll find yourself sliding through tunnels attempting to collect stars while avoiding bombs. Other minigames use the same left-to-right platform game mechanics as the levels proper, although they're rarely as inventive or challenging. One of the best things about Donkey Kong Country 3 is that there's so much variety in its level design. One minute you might be guiding Dixie and Kiddy through a structure full of rats and bugs; the next, you could be playing as one of their five animal friends, which include a swordfish, an elephant, a spider, a "parallel bird," and a parrot.

There are a few things that just about every level of Donkey Kong Country has in common, of course, including K-O-N-G letters that award you an extra life when you collect them all, a halfway save point, and lots and lots of barrels. Every barrel that you see in the game is there for a reason, whether it's to shoot you up in the air toward a platform, to transport you a to a bonus game, to blow a hole in a wall (TNT barrel), to return your fallen partner to you, or simply to throw at an enemy. Other, more inventive uses for barrels in Donkey Kong Country include throwing them into water so that they can be used as platforms, and rolling them along the ground so that you can jump on top of them and move at the same high speed as them.

Like Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong Country 2 before it, Donkey Kong Country 3 is a classic 2D platformer that looks every bit at home on the GBA as it ever did on the SNES. Expect a full review of the game closer to its November 7 release.