Diddy's Doubled Demands

When it came out, Donkey Kong Land was seen as something of a technical marvel. The SNES original, Donkey Kong Country, had been hailed for its computer generated graphics and slick looking production values, and it Game Boy side-quel was able to take all of those elements and cram them down into a little, monochrome game. Oh, sure, it wasn't perfect, and the graphics didn't look quite as nice on the Game Boy as they did over on the SNES (which was to be expected), but the fact that Rare was able to take the base game and shove it down into a little Game Boy cart and still make it feel like Donkey Kong Country was a wonder. That was impressive.

The Game Boy game sold well enough that once the first official sequel, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest came out, a Game Boy sequel was expected as well. But where Donkey Kong Land went off in its own direction, telling a slightly different story with all new levels and even new worlds to explore, its sequel, Donkey Kong Land 2 hewed far closer to the SNES version. It's the same game, basically, just pared down and shoved into a tiny cart, and that makes it far less interesting that the original Land of the series.

The best way to describe Donkey Kong Land 2 is as a port. Maybe it's fair to be grumpy about that, maybe it isn't, but most of the grousing about the game (when it was released and over the many years since) has been about the fact that this is basically just a port of the SNES game. Perhaps that wouldn't have seemed so bad at the time if the original Donkey Kong Land has been "just a port" of the first game in the series, but a precedent had been set by that Game Boy title, and for Rare to "cheap out" and just make the second Land into a straight port of DKC2 feels a little weird. Like they were, in fact, cheaping out.

Let's be clear, Donkey Kong Country 2 is a fine game. There is nothing wrong, in basic concept, in porting a title from one system to another, if it works, and letting more players have a version of the game to play. The downside comes from the fact that not only is this a port of the SNES title but it's a fairly no-frills port, at that. The levels are largely the same, the goals are largely the same, everything about this game is, in fact, the same, just with worse graphics, worse sound, and on (let's be honest) a worse platform. The only thing this title has going for it is that it was another Donkey KongCreated as the titular villainous ape for his first game, Donkey Kong, along with the whole Kong family, has gone on to have a ling and varied career in a variety of Nintendo games. adventure you could take on the go.

As far as selling points are concerned, that is decently compelling. Rare struck gold with the DKC formula, there is no doubt about that. It was a refinement of the platforming they'd proven to be good at (see: BattletoadsRare's mutants with attitude came out in a massive popular, and very difficult, first game, which also marked the high point for the series.) without the glaring, "Nintendo Hard" difficulty Rare had been known for over the years (see also: Battletoads). The game could be challenging at times, as was its sequel, but the formula worked and worked well. That's why many gamers of the era loved the first Donkey Kong Land as it was a new adventure with the solid platforming and characters we liked, all in a pint-sized package.

If, somehow, you hadn't played the SNES iteration, Donkey Kong Country 2, then this cart might have been a decent way for you to play that title. It did have many of the same issues as the first Donkey Kong Land: minimalistic graphics, sometimes muddy animation, and a view-port that was a little too tight around the characters meaning you couldn't as easily see where you were supposed to go or where enemies might be. Some layouts were tweaked, some enemies moved around, many objects were removed, to help alleviate that, but you were still playing a game slightly hobbled by the hardware.

Probably the worst part of the port was the music. Where the first Land had a mix of old and new tracks specifically made for the portable game, this sequel reused a few of the tracks from the SNES game, ported down and set to the Game Boy's inferior hardware. Most of the music sound tinny and plinky, and not in a good way. Often have of a music track drops out because the music is pumping over the same track as the sound effects, and the sound effects take priority. It makes the music, at times, unlistenable. I loved the music from the SNES game, and I largely wanted to turn it off entirely while playing the Game Boy edition.

The thing that really hurts the game, though, is its timing: it came out a year after the SNES edition, and you get the feeling that was because Rare and Nintendo didn't want the Game Boy port gobbling up sales from the SNES edition. Except it was released right around the same time (give or take a couple of months) as the third game in the main series, Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, and that meant it was competing with another game in the franchise regardless of what Rare and Nintendo wanted.

What's more, I'm sure a lot of gamers had to be thinking, "why would I bother grabbing this Game Boy game when a totally new SNES game is right over there, on the horizon?" I know I thought that. I was someone primed to want Donkey Kong Land 2 because I legitimately enjoyed the first Game Boy game. I liked that the did new things and gave me a new adventure to play through even as it reused some elements from the first SNES game. But for DKL2 the argument seemed to be that I could play a worse version of a game I'd already played through a few times over the last year or just wait for the next real sequel. The decision there was easy.

What could Rare have done to correct this? Make this portable sequel more of an original game. I get that we were reaching the end of the SNES's life (by 1996, when DKC3 came out, the Nintendo 64 was already around) but the Game Boy still had years of life left in it. Making the Game Boy edition just a port of the SNES version felt like a slap in the face. If they had given new levels, and new ideas, maybe blending in some elements from the third SNES game as a tease, that could have been interesting. But they didn't. They gave the fans a port of a game we'd already played. That felt really lame then, and it feels really lame now.

I did try this game recently to give it a fair shake. I always do, just because I hate coming at anything with a preconceived notion and failing to really evaluate anything properly. So I played through the game and what I found was, well, Donkey Kong Country 2. It's just, you know, worse. It's not original, nor endearing, it's just a less good version of the SNES counterpart on the Game Boy. If it had been anything more than that I likely could have gotten into it. But I'd already played this game, a lot, and I found nothing to hook be back in with this version. It just existed.

It really feels like Rare shot the Game Boy series in the foot by relegating it to ports. Donkey Kong Land was a marvel with its own fresh, interesting game to tell. Donkey Kong Land 2 is the exact opposite: lazy, bland, and just a retread. If you've played the SNES version you can skip this because there's nothing new to be found in it's little yellow cart.