DKC2 is one of the most difficult, yet beautiful and solid platforming games you can play.
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest is easily my favorite platformer. It's forever lodged in my mind as the most difficult, yet beautiful and solid game of my childhood. I've played and beaten all three of the Donkey Kong Country games on the SNES, but something really clicked with me and this game. Maybe it's the pirate setting, or the spiked difficulty. (What's not to like about that?) I'm not sure, but I love this game.
The story itself is a bit funnier than it is epic. If you can't appreciate King K. Rool kidnapping Donkey, especially after Donkey and Diddy kicked his ass in the last game, then you have no sense of humor. Diddy and his girlfriend Dixie are on a rescue quest to save Donkey from the clutches of K. Rool. Though this game is still very kid-friendly, it takes a somewhat dark turn towards the end of the game.
In terms of gameplay, I find nobody could do platformers quite like Rareware back in the 90's. It's really platforming at it's finest. Everything is responsive, from roll jumping to pouncing enemies, this game has very solid controls. Though this game is a straight-forward platformer, you may need to think a strategy for the tricky passages. This is, of course, in regards to the barrel-cannon platforming and the roller coaster sections.
Graphics and sound are what draw you in. This game was the cream of the crop back in the 90's, and the graphics are still nice to look at. The game has pre-rendered CG graphics. The characters, backgrounds, and platforms are all CG, which is really ahead of it's time. The music, (other than the solid controls) is my favorite thing about this game. Songs like Stickerbrush Symphony and Mining Melancholy are sure to blow your mind. There are plenty more fantastic songs in this game, but I'll leave it up to you to discover them. Though there is great music in the game, they kept the original Kong sound effects for sprinting, getting hit, and pouncing. Just great audio.
My review is now drawing to a close, so I'll point a few things out that I may have missed. This game IS on Wii Virtual Console! It's definantly worth 8$, I took advantage of that pretty quick. Also, (to change the subject) Isn't Rare dumb now? They are just... just terrible since they went to Microsoft. I'm sure if they were still with Nintendo, they'd be making amazing games. Since they were bought out or whatever by Microsoft, we've got things like Grabbed By the Ghoulies. *shivers*. Anywho, I can't stress this enough: Get this game!