This game is a chunk of my childhood, and it's a worthy chunk at that.
Words cannot even describe how many days Donkey Kong Land 2 ate away at my life. I played it during school, I played it while I was in the car, I played it at restaurants, and I even played it at home instead of watching Casper the Friendly Ghost. My parents probably spent hundreds of dollars on batteries to keep my Game Boy running, and they have DKL2 to thank for that. This was 1995-96ish, so obviously I was extremely young then. I remember it like it was yesterday: I was sitting on my ass during snack break playing the first DKL when a good buddy of mine comes up to me and says "Hey, for your lunch money I'll give you this game." This was an offer I could not refuse. I mean seriously, who WOULD refuse this? Who needs food when you have video games? So I bought it off the kid and threw that sucker in my Game Boy, and, well, holy sh*t...this was awesome.
DKL2 literally fixed all of the problems that were present in the first game. The most important problem was the controls. The controls in DKL felt too stiff, and sometimes it was near impossible to make certain jumps because of this. DKL2 improved on that, and made you feel more in control. So this means cheap deaths because of a larger then life cliff was gone. Just like it's SNES counterpart, you play as the quick and agile Diddy Kong and Donkey is replaced with Dixie Kong, who, like Diddy, is also quick and agile. Not only that, but her super cool helicopter spin from DKC2 was brought over as well. Unfortunately, the team pick-ups were taken out, but that isn't too much of a problem.
The sound was great for a Game Boy game and so were the tunes. Some fans may have felt a little bit disappointing with the familiar songs from DKC2, especially considering how DKL had its own original soundtrack. One of the main problems about the soundtrack is that not only is it unoriginal, but there aren't even that many tunes in here. Often you will find yourself listening to the same songs over and over again, and after a while, it gets pretty annoying. DKL had a large soundtrack and, with the exception of a few songs, it was original. DKL2 just takes songs from its SNES superior. However, this is David Wise were talking about here, so of course the soundtrack is great, and being able to hear "Stickerbrush Sympathy" in 8-bit form felt pretty satisfying at the time. In the end, it's a pretty decent soundtrack for the Game Boy, though not quite as memorable as its predecessor.
Donkey Kong Land 2 was an amazing game for its time, and I would definitely take this game on the go with me any day. Sure I may get laughed at in my college, but I got laughed at back in elementary school for playing games too much anyways, so I see no difference. This game is a chunk of my childhood, and it's a worthy chunk at that.