DISCLAIMERS:
- the reviewer has not finished the game with 100% completion
- the game was played on the Game Boy Advance SP AGS-101 using the version of the game intended for United States audiences
After Rare’s first two attempts at recreating the original Donkey Kong Country for the SNES on a Game Boy system, they were finally able to create a version that holds up to the SNES original for the most part using the Game Boy Advance. Still, like many other SNES to GBA ports, not everything stayed the same. This review will judge the GBA version of Donkey Kong Country on its own merits.
Donkey Kong Country basically involves moving from left to right while using Donkey Kong (or Diddy Kong)’s roll to break obstacles, damage some enemies, or sprint when held down and jumping on or past platforms or some enemies. This is changed slightly by boss battles, where Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong are confined to a small space, or underwater where Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong lose their ability to roll and instead gain the ability to jump in “mid-air” and fall much more slowly. There are also mine carts that run on their own while Donkey Kong or Diddy Kong jumps to make them jump and ridable animals that instead of rolling do a ramming attack and are essentially invincible to most obstacles.
Arguably what makes Donkey Kong Country’s gameplay the most unique is Donkey Kong (and Diddy Kong)’s ability to roll off of a platform and retain their ability to jump while in mid-air. This is never exactly required in the game which means this is either not intended or the game developers never chose to develop this concept and left it to be used by more advanced players exclusively. Level design being somewhat lacking is unfortunately a recurring theme in Donkey Kong Country. This is even ignoring the problem of collision being difficult to judge due to it not quite matching up with the extremely detailed and impressive pre-rendered 3D graphics. There are essentially zero memorable platforming levels in the game, besides potentially some that players may have spent a long time attempting to beat due to their reliance on precisely timed button pressing where it is not clear when the button should be pressed and one case of where to go being poorly communicated. Still, it can be argued that the developers did an acceptable job considering the extremely simple mechanics they were given to work with.
The gameplay of Donkey Kong Country is arguably the aspect that held up the best in the transition from SNES to GBA. The GBA’s lone two front buttons are perfectly suited to the game, as essentially the entire game is played using only two buttons even on the SNES version. The GBA version is also different because the player can save at any point outside of levels, unlike the original where they had to visit saving areas to save, which were not reachable without passing multiple stages without a game over. This makes the game more convenient for short handheld play sessions, but it also significantly decreases the difficulty and promotes trial and error rather than the player better understanding the mechanics. Overall the GBA version of Donkey Kong Country is an almost perfect conversion of the original’s passable gameplay.
Probably the second most notable aspect of Donkey Kong Country is its sound. David Wise is deservedly famous for his work on this games soundtrack. Even the sound effects are somewhat impressive for what was originally a SNES game. While the GBA obviously can’t perfectly reproduce the sound of original SNES hardware, the recreated sounds do a more than passable job.
The obvious biggest selling point of Donkey Kong Country are the graphics. The pre-rendered 3D graphics still held up when the GBA was still relevant and arguably still do in 2019. There is also a surprisingly large amount of assets featured considering the amount of work that goes into creating one. The GBA is able to essentially perfectly recreate these pre-rendered 3D graphics, with some pixels cut off on the sides of the screen due to the lower resolution than the SNES original. This version of the game controversially increases the brightness of all the games assets to compensate for the lack of a lit screen on the original GBA, meaning that later GBA models with lit screens would look off compared to the SNES original. Still, this does not overly detract from the presentation of the game and is otherwise a largely perfect port.
There is not much to note about the game’s plot or world besides that the SNES version of the game introduced the redesigned Donkey Kong to the world. The GBA version adds a low-effort cutscene that the game would have done better without.
Overall the GBA version of Donkey Kong is a good port but not exactly worth paying full price for. There are many collectables that encourage replay value and forgettable minigames that slightly add to the game’s value, but there are still many other GBA platformers that provide much better designed and more platforming. Still, this port of the game is far from bad one for those interested in Donkey Kong Country’s other aspects.
Overall the reviewer would give this game a 7 out of 10.
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