Donkey Kong Jungle Beat Import Hands-On

Currently scheduled for release in North America in March of 2005, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is a 2D platformer that's played using the same Bongo controller that shipped with Donkey Konga earlier this year. We recently managed to get our hands on a finished Japanese version of the game and have spent a couple of hours mastering its innovative controls to bring you some impressions. Now, you're probably thinking that playing a platform game with a Bongo controller makes about as much sense as peeling a banana with a digital watch, and in theory, you'd be right. In practice, however, controlling Donkey Kong with the Bongo controller is surprisingly easy to do, and it's a lot of fun to boot.

The Bongo controller in question, for any of you who aren't familiar with it, comprises two drums, a start/pause button, and a microphone positioned between the two drums that picks up the sound of your clapping. The controls for Donkey Kong Jungle Beat really couldn't be any simpler. Basically, hitting the left or right drum will move DK in that direction, and the faster you hit, the faster he'll move. Meanwhile, hitting both drums simultaneously will make DK jump, and clapping is used to interact with all manner of environmental objects and enemies. It took us 15 minutes or so to get used to directing Donkey Kong with the controller, and right now we're happy to report that we're negotiating levels almost as easily as we could with the regular GameCube controller. There are other context-sensitive controls that come into play, such as using the left and right drums to throw punches at certain bosses, and we've found these every bit as intuitive as the regular ones.

While not as complex as those in many other conventional platformers, the levels in Donkey Kong Jungle Beat are surprisingly varied and are, in many respects, reminiscent of those found in the excellent Donkey Kong Country series of SNES games. In the few hours that we've spent with the game thus far, we've swung between vines, had groups of small monkeys toss us through the air, boxed against another ape, chased a giant snowball while riding a wild animal, knocked a bad guy from a tree by redirecting his projectile attacks back at him, and, of course, collected (literally) thousands of bananas.

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is divided into levels that are depicted on the menu screen by different fruits. Each of the levels we've completed featured at least one boss character (we've defeated an evil ape with glowing red eyes, a phoenix clutching a giant egg, and a rhinoceros with a white mohawk, to name but a few), at least two or three distinct gameplay types (riding animals, parachuting, using birds to fly, and suchlike), and a gigantic piece of fruit to collect. The main feature that each level has in common, though, is that your goal is to collect as many bananas as possible. At the end of each level you'll be awarded a bronze, silver, or gold medal based on your haul, and it's the medals in your possession that are used to unlock subsequent levels. If you completed the first four levels with only bronze medals, for example, you'd need to go back and replay at least one level to attain the six medals necessary to unlock the next one. Having to repeat levels might sound like a hassle, but it really isn't. Consequently, we had no trouble improving on previous scores when we returned to levels to take the time to defeat more enemies, as well as explore areas that we'd rushed through on our first run-through.

Interesting camera work, which appropriately zooms in on and out from the game's action, complements Donkey Kong Jungle Beat's unusual controls. When you're charging through a level at speed, for example, the camera will zoom out to afford you a view of as much of the level as possible. Conversely, when you jump onto the back of an enemy that requires significant pummeling to kill, the camera will get up close and personal so that you can really see DK's fists at work as you alternately beat on the left and right drums. The other thing you'll notice when the camera zooms in is that Donkey Kong Jungle Beat boasts some really excellent fur effects.

It would be easy to write off Donkey Kong Jungle Beat as little more than a novelty item aimed at anyone with a copy of Donkey Konga, but the truth is that it's actually a lot of fun to play and could well be good enough to warrant the purchase of the Bongo controller on its own merits. We look forward to bringing you more information on Donkey Kong Jungle Beat in the near future.