Donkey Kong Country 2 Review

DKC2 is a diverse platform game that looks and sounds superb and has an impressive list of bonus features, but it's also extremely difficult.

The Good

  • Diverse run-and-jump design  
  • So fun to run wild with animal friends  
  • Takes a while to clear 52 levels  
  • Teeming with bonus games.

The Bad

  • Intense difficulty will discourage some players.

Donkey Kong Country 2 looks and sounds superb. The jungle-themed backgrounds are rich with dark greens and earthy brown colors. Parallax-scrolling layers add a sense of depth to the side-scrolling environments and extraneous rain and snow, and the blowing leaf effects really bring the backgrounds to life. Younger players will probably like the lighthearted art style of the computer-generated character graphics while jaded sticklers will likely appreciate how much animation has been put into every character's movements. Diddy, Dixie, and the various kremlings all have a fluid range of motion and a good variety of miscellaneous actions. Step in front of an enemy or pounce on one and it'll growl at you or grimace in pain. Stand idle for a few seconds and Diddy and Dixie will juggle bananas or wave at the screen. Most of these actions have corresponding sound effects, which are clear and lifelike. The music is the real highlight of the audio, however. The jungle-inspired music is packed with different instruments, and it creates a large, symphonic atmosphere to the arrangements.

Eight strange bosses, each with multiple attack patterns.

You may recall that Donkey Kong Country 2 was originally published for the Super NES in 1995. This GBA version of Donkey Kong Country 2, like Donkey Kong Country a year ago, is a conversion (or port) of the original Super NES game. Since the screen resolution of a GBA is less than that of a Super NES, some graphical adjustments were made to fit the original Super NES graphics into the GBA's screen dimensions. Mainly, the character and background graphics have been scaled down, resulting in a minor loss of detail, and the viewable screen area has been cropped slightly. Rare didn't remove nearly as many translucency or scrolling effects from this game as the company did with the previous one, and it only cranked the brightness up in certain backgrounds as opposed to the whole game. So Donkey Kong Country 2 actually more closely resembles its Super NES counterpart than the previous game did.

Another improvement to the GBA version of Donkey Kong Country 2 is the amount of new bonus content that has been added. Apart from the game's 52 main levels, there are dozens upon dozens of bonus games. Most are simple minigame tasks, accessed from within each level, which typically involve grabbing coins or pouncing on enemies. Others, such as Swanky Kong's trivia game, Expresso's racing, or Funky Kong's helicopter game, are more in-depth and can be played right from the world map. Expresso's racing and Funky Kong's helicopter game are both new to the GBA version. Each has seven individual stages. In Expresso's racing, you control an ostrich during a three-lap race against three other ostriches. You can earn trophies for top finishes and DK coins for taking first place. Funky's helicopter game, by contrast, is an action game set from the same mold as the classic Choplifter. In it, players control a helicopter and attempt to navigate tunnels, shoot enemies, and grapple items before a timer runs out.

Also new to the GBA game is a picture-gathering quest that's enabled by visiting Cranky Kong's wife, Mrs. Wrinkly Kong, at one of the Kong Kolleges scattered throughout each world. Once enabled, you'll be able to pounce on enemies and add their pictures to a photo album, which you can look at from the pause menu. For every page of the album you complete, you'll earn extra lives or hero coins.

Stay on the tracks and hop over hazards in the mine cart levels.

Throughout the game, there are hundreds of different hero coins, krem coins, DK coins, and golden feathers to collect, which let you access bonus games, unlock the game's final world, and reveal a few alternate ending sequences, among other things. The three bonus games described above are also accessible from the main menu, along with a time attack mode that lets you play through each of the game's 52 levels individually.

Donkey Kong Country 2 is a diverse platform game with excellent graphics and sound and an impressive list of bonus features. The game's most defining feature, though, is its sharp degree of difficulty, which may prove frustrating for some younger or less dedicated players. But if you don't mind an honest-to-goodness challenge, you'll want to pick this one up.

By Frank Provo, GameSpotPosted Dec 7, 2004 2:59 pm PT
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