Haha, more platformers. Up front: I didn’t like this game. Rare for this blog, but this is one I couldn’t bear to spend money on, but when I saw a friend had it I was eager to borrow it. In the Donkey Kong fandom this game is quite maligned, and I had to find out for myself whether it was truly a stain on DKC’s legacy or a genuinely fun game that in hindsight had a misguided direction. Spoiler: stain.
Now, to be fair, the game as originally intended involved exclusive use of the bongos, a unique control scheme that could have made for a fun experience, I’ll grant. But aside from fundamental design issues, the NPC release hugely nerfed mechanics and changed things around, for the worse I feel. It’s the only NPC game that made significant changes to content, but the changes suck. The clap is much weaker, and directional, and its functionality has been split between two inputs. A new health system replaces the purely beat/point-driven scoring system, again splitting the focus and diluting the point. I guess the addition of barrel cannons is fine, because it’s purely cosmetic, replacing some weird plants or something. DK coins were added, or something that looks a bit like them, bringing with them an utterly unnecessary limited lives mechanic that is both irritating in modern games and tacked on in this case where it wasn’t before.
Using a more traditional platformer control scheme just makes you long for responsive gameplay to go with it, but the physics remain from the much less direct bongo control method. The combo system is innovative and interesting, but perhaps I just couldn’t master it because I just found it more frustrating than not, when I had a few actions built up but the game’s floatiness and unresponsiveness caused it to fall flat.
The most grating thing about Jungle Beat to DK fans is its very intentional disregard of past elements of the series. An infamous interview at the time described the other Kongs and characters as “not fresh”, stripping it back to simply the characters DK and “the banana”. At the time irrational internet Rare hate was at its height, so DK fans were extra defensive and critical of the perceived direction that NCL was taking with the series that had seen such classics. So not only were many mechanics thrown out the window, DK’s personality was brutalised, leaving him with seemingly only selfish motivations, and anything we liked about the series history was either thrown out or replaced with a thinly-veiled expy (the new animal buddies are shameless ripoffs of existing buddies).
Fortunately this hateful attitude, for whatever reason, was eventually overturned with Retro’s excellent Donkey Kong Country Returns and upcoming Tropical Freeze. So we can look back on Jungle Beat now without depression for the future. But when I did, I found a lackluster game. Perhaps the comparison was unfair on Jungle Beat, but I simply didn’t have fun playing it. The boss fights were either repetitive or unfair QTEs, DK’s presentation was unlikeable, and when I found I couldn’t play all the levels in the NPC version without getting perfect runs of all previous ones, which was a real kick in the nards.
Of course, I should calm down. There were actually good points. The environments were often interesting and varied. I feel like the mechanics could have been fun with more patience, practice, and in their original form. The narrative was nonexistent but piecing one together yourself can be interesting with the new enemies and characters. Oh the sound was pretty awful. Oops, good stuff: um, some good set pieces, and the beating stuff up thing was involving in a visceral way.
I also don’t care for score attack mechanics, especially not when the simple act of gameplay seems a chore to me. The game’s built around getting a multiplier (satisfying when you can build one up), and getting as many bananas and hits before you land on the ground. You do maneuvers and stuff to stay up or bouncing around. The most fun parts were when you could pull off a good string in a part of the level designed around it. But mess it up and you have to start the set of three levels again. The health/lives mechanic also undermines this score run structure.
Is it any wonder we were worried about DK’s future when we see his face in this game, showing off, grinning hideously as he violently crushes a bizarre series of wildlife? No context, no familiarity to latch onto… The implied narrative was too vague to tie together this series of unconnected environments, entered through a basic menu. DK smacks a few dudes and then beats his chest, and it’s over. And what do we have left? A number. Too small. Do it again. Well, no, I won’t.
I’m glad I played this though, so I can plausibly refute any claim that it was in any way a good idea. Afterwards I watched a speedrun, and that actually was kind of cool. Mastery of the mechanics and optimal paths makes it smoother to watch, but I’d never get there playing myself. The clean break in the franchise also leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Games such as Jungle Climber and even Returns later incorporated some basic minor elements from this game, such as sounds, poses, or Returns’ post-boss beatings. Incoporating other things such as the characters here into later games would also help rehabilitate its image to me, and I would welcome that, but the basic fact is I didn’t enjoy playing it. I can’t recommend the NPC version due to its changes, and shelling out for the original, with bongos, would at this point be a pricey proposition. In fact, my advice would be to watch the speedruns of user piepusher11 on Youtube, to get the experience of how the game is meant to be played (he does exploit one or two glitches to skip bits, though). It was an interesting experiment in game design, but offensive to DK fandom and to my perspective not much fun to play.
Also too many names were untranslated from the Japanese. I hate that.
So many 3D platformers. Ok, this one is infamous for being the very hieght of the collectathon genre. The sheer amount of goobers to pick up, that are colour-coded no less so you have to pick the right one of 5 characters to even collect them, is a big source of frustration for a lot of people. But on my recent playthrough, I didn’t find that so bad. I just treated it as a leisurely relaxing process, going back and forth, switching up, piling up little tasks to complete one after the other.
I was helped immeasurably by having an open strategy guide next to me for the second half of the run. It prevented frustration and fruitless wandering. Plenty of maps and checklists. Without it the game really is a confusing mess, especially levels that get you lost easily, like… all of them. These huge areas with hubs, a lot of places look similar, doorways that arbitrarily lead to areas that you mix up.
But enough about game design. I want to talk about the character of the game. In style and structure it’s quite similar to the Banjo series, but there are important differences. I read that it was made by a different team to those games, which means that Rare had three 3D platformers developing simultaneously. Wacky. One thing that stood out to me that set them apart was the humour and personality. Banjo has a few little amusing animations, but really shone in its writing. On the other hand, DK64 had very dull writing but has tons of characterful animations and physical humour. It’s a distinction that leads in to the next point.
This game has not aged very well. From the downright embarrassingly 90s DK Rap that opens the game to the game design to the visuals. They wanted to show off the dynamic lighting system but the game just ends up too dark a lot of the time. They wanted to push the hardware but there’s a lot of lag as a result. They wanted it to be funny but it’s a little lame.
Still, there’s an undeniable charm to it. Having this world and especially the characters fleshed out so much. Just watching the Kongs’ antics in the tag barrel says so much about their personalities. And while a lot of the tasks are mindless or pointless, there’s satisfaction in hunting them down and performing them. The music is a highlight, Grant Kirkhope at his best.
It’s invaluable as a Donkey Kong game because of what it brings to the series. Having said that, its wackiness doesn’t fit too well with the Country games that preceded it, it’s not quite as grounded. Well they got a little crazy at times too. But, as a game it’s clearly not as good as either Banjo game, just my opinion of course. Having so many 3D platformers in such a short time was pretty mad, but it’s just cool to have 5 playable Kongs in their wild world. And I’m so glad I was able to finally get 101% after all these years. Ok Cranky, take it to the fridge!
I don’t remember if I’ve written about this before (my blog’s been going for a while now! woo!) but I went back and cleared Jungle Climber to 100%, so I’m writing about it now. (To reiterate, a game is “finished” when the story is cleared, or I see the credits. “Completed” is 100%, most often according to the game’s metrics.)
This is one of those games that the DS seems to have a lot of; an IP revival of sorts that seems built around a new mechanic. Most of them were trying out features of the DS itself, but this one isn’t actually reliant on the hardware, except for tall stages that span both screens I guess. Anyway, the “difference” or you could say “gimmick” about this game was the peg-swinging central mechanic.
Based on the old NES game Clu Clu Land, the idea is of controlling a character’s arms independently to grab things and use your momentum to change direction based on spinning and swinging. This idea was used in 2004’s DK: King of Swing combined with gravity and physics to make a hybrid platformer-style game, of which this game is a sequel. Compared to KOS, JC fleshes out and expands on a lot of gameplay stuff, and brings the artstyle more in line with the Country games with its 3D pre-rendered sprites, compared to the bright, cartoony flat sprites of KOS (which are very appealing in their own way too).
These two games, developed by Paon, kept the light alive for the Donkey Kong series in its dark years. They were somewhat maligned at the time for their nontraditional gameplay, but at least they were faithful to the characters and spirit of the franchise. This is compared to what we got on the home console, with Jungle Beat throwing the series’ history under a bus and 3 bongo rhythm games with terrible licensed music. And on the handheld front, the Mario vs. Donkey Kong games were muddying the identity of the franchise and DK himself, not to mention the strange gameplay tack that series also took after its first installment. So seeing Paon treat the characters and setting with such respect is something I really appreciate about their games (the third of theirs was Barrel Blast/Jet Race on the Wii). They tried something new, but they made an honest attempt to make it fit in.
And that’s why I like Jungle Climber. The reason I stopped playing for a while, before getting to 100%, was the DS-breakingly frustrating difficulty of the extra challenge stages. Also I was trying to get good ranks on the minigames, which was also infuriating. But getting any rank was enough to score the completion percentage, so I have a C in some modes but I don’t mind! Finally beating those extra stages was satisfying, and I got a cool cutscene!
The peg-swinging mechanic is strange, yeah. And maybe it’s not a “true” platformer. But like any new control mechnism, like when I first started Metroid Prime or Katamari, once I got the hang of it it became very natural. And mastering a new skill is one of the fun things in life, even if it’s so minor as a variation in player control.
The plot of this game is silly (wouldn’t have it any other way), but it’s great how it takes you to so many different places. Each world (island) has its own identity, and the weird dimension stages are also unique—but they can be repetitive (too many mirror stages, not enough farm stages) and their reuse of some environments on islands that have interesting environments is an annoyance. JC handles the progression well though by having cutscenes at the end of each island, where the protagonist group catches up to K. Rool and they have a chat, with sufficient ham and cheese. The world map is really cool too, DK smoothly jumps around the island’s geography between stages, like an extension of the Country’s world maps.
That’s a point where we can compare this to Donkey Kong Country Returns. Returns was an awesome game with totally interesting levels and backgrounds, and smooth platforming gameplay that was quite similar to the Donkey Kong Country series, but pared back in some respects, was a bit lacking in characters and the world map was just tokens on paths (that’s totally a legitimate complaint!). Compared to this game, whose actual gameplay was quite unlike the Country games but did the characters and world very well. Ok I think I’m exaggerating here but there’s aspects of each that are great for a Donkey Kong Country fan.
Compared to the previous game, King of Swing, Jungle Climber is super-tightened up in mechanics and gameplay, it’s a bit less floaty which is good and I think the collectibles are better. Better music too. One factor it falls down on though is the boss battles. KoS by comparison had very interesting boss fights with cool, flavourful characters, whereas JC’s bosses were mostly transformed Kritters which I found disappointing. They also reused a few in JC like the giant robot. Another lesson to be learned: don’t imitate DKC1 on everything, its boss fights were dull and shallow. I just don’t get how they took a step back between the two games—of course, that’s only my opinion.
Well, anyway I had heaps of fun with this game. It has lots of other odd mechanics involving Diddy that are used only a bit, but I guess they don’t overstay their welcome you could say. I think it does a lot of fun things, and there’s plenty to replay levels for with the collectibles.The difficulty is quite steep at times, especially in the final boss battle, but stock up on stuff and turn on the “cheats” to make it a bit easier. The swinging and pegs can actually be frustrating when it doesn’t go your way, but it’s so unique. I’m really glad I could experience it, I think it was my first pick for DS game when my wife got her DS and I borrowed it from her. I don’t regret that decision at all. Actually cos I played JC so much she made me get my own! So yes, I bought a 3DS for Jungle Climber. Anyway, goodbye for now. Jump in my jet and jive, Clive! Ha, Funky Kong.
As you may remember, I picked up the Donkey Kong Country trilogy before it vanished from the Virtual Console. I played them back to back, which was a good way to compare their differences. I grew up with 2 and 3, and I still greatly prefer both to the first, especially now after my retrospective run through. Many people consider DKC1 the best, but as I’ve said I find it clunky and unpolished.
One of the biggest strengths of the series is atmosphere. All three do it very well, but each has a unique tone and character that is quite different from the other two. In the case of DKC3, the character designs are a little more wacky, but the environments are rich, beautiful and mysterious, although there are echoes of previous archetypes (not enough for it to seem stale or derivative though, everything is fresh). The impression is of traversing new territory (although all three achieve this). There is also a noticeable theme of nature vs. industrialisation, with the former represented by many level types and wildlife, and the latter by the Kremlings’ factories and pipes.
The music varies between lively, tranquil, and oppressive, similar to DKC2 in those variances but again with a completely different feel. Eveline Novakovic (nee Fischer) did the music, unlike the previous instalments which were scored by David Wise. This soundtrack proves the dominance of this series in great video game soundtracks (my opinion, of course).
An interesting side note to this, however: when the DKCs were being remade for GBA, at some point someone decided that instead of just inserting new, horrible mini games and new collectibles (DKC3 GBA has the former but not the latter, strangely), this one would get a more significant makeover. A whole new world with new levels was created, and the entire soundtrack removed and replaced by a brand new one composed by Wise. Thus DKC3 is one of the rare games (also Rare games) with two soundtracks. The new soundtrack radically alters the feel of many of the level archetypes (and includes remixes of DKC1’s Aquatic Ambience and Jungle Groove). On the whole I don’t like it as much, although to be fair it suffers from the GBA’s sound chip and speakers.
On that note, recently OverClocked Remix released the long-anticipated DKC3 remix album. It’s massive, and apparently very good, but I decided that before I listened to it I wasn’t familiar with the Advance soundtrack, so I should hear that first before I hear it remixed. I downloaded Cody’s rip from here, and while I played my SNES VC DKC3, I muted the TV and played the corresponding GBA level music through my phone. It was certainly a different experience, and I learned to appreciate a few tracks more than my initial impression. Some also got on my nerves, like the yodelling new Frosty Frolics.
So what about the game? Well, there’s a lot to say but I feel it’s been said better elsewhere. That elsewhere is probably lots of different threads on DKVine though, so I’ll summarise a few main points here.
More than the first two, the game uses gimmicks in new stages, which changes the gameplay feel from one that can be run through quickly with basic jumping or climbing mechanics to sometimes slower and more complex interactions. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it results in a different style that you need to know about. Series staple gimmicks of course return, such as swimming stages, dark levels, and mine carts (roller coasters in 2, toboggans in this one). The boss fights are also more interesting and strategic, with some quite unconventional methods needed. The animal buddies too are on the whole more complex, with tricky abilities rather than just making you stronger or better at jumping. So complexity is increasing through the series to here.
It’s also been said that in this game you can see the seeds of the 3D platformers that were becoming all the rage (and have since sadly quite died out). The more freely explorable open world map, the heavier emphasis on collectibles, the fetch quest items, the secret world and worlds that do not have to be completed in order, many NPCs like the Brothers Bear (also known as Mindless Idiots Who Ask For Your Help or MIWAFYHs). Of course, this game was being developed alongside Donkey Kong 64, as well as Banjo-Kazooie (and Super Mario 64, which Wrinkly Kong is playing on her own N64 at one point) so some design elements crept in. I think they enhance the game though, and make for a more compelling experience in a lot of ways. There are lessons they can teach each other.
The other consequence of this late development is that the game, when it came out, had to compete with the N64, much like Paper Mario as one of the last N64 games was competing with the Gamecube. This has contributed to its relative lack of popularity compared to DKC2 (awesome) and especially 1 (overrated). It has become a bit overlooked and is also criticised in the mainstream for “not having Donkey Kong”. I say, screw that guy! The new characters were heaps of fun and the gameplay was super solid, the atmosphere was absorbing, and there was loads more to do than in Donkey’s own game (DKC1). He isn’t needed, as far as I’m concerned, to make a game great.
Of course, the game is nowhere near as influential on the greater DK series. Kiddy never showed up again, although Ellie the elephant and the Banana Birds had cameos in the Donkey Konga games (Barnacle Bear is also apparently in the 3rd one, but I haven’t seen evidence of this apart from a promotional artwork). Barrel Blast, a haven for fan service if not particularly good apparently, featured toboggans, Kopter, and the purple parrot who is alternately known as Squeaks, Flapper or Quawks. The unreleased Diddy Kong Pilot also featured Buzzes alongside Zingers, which is cool. This also has the dubious honour of being the last Donkey Kong game in which Wrinkly Kong is alive. She dies soon after, despite being a fitness nut in this game, to become a ghost in DK64.
So, DKC3. Underappreciated, I see it as pretty much one of the last great 2D platformers before the “retro revival” stuff recently that gave us great stuff like DKCR and Rayman Origins. It also builds complexity on top of the very solid gameplay and physics of the DKC series up to that point. Besides this, the music, art, characters, etc are all top notch, typical of DKC, but with their own flavour that tells you this game was designed by a different team. (Sidenote: disappointing that almost all enemies are all-new, a discontinuity from 1 and 2 which shared enemies with new designs and roles). Another great game of my childhood that was lots of fun to revisit. I give it 5 bananas/Bear Coins/Bonus Coins/Banana Birds/DK Coins/extra life balloons.
My other latest project, a single chapter of Volume 12 of Super Mario-kun. I’ve posted before a series of 4koma strips from another volume, and now I’ve graduated to a proper story. This is a brief one-shot based on Donkey Kong Country, but not really retelling the game. Rather, it’s the story of Mario and Yoshi crashing their plane into Donkey Kong’s territory on New Year’s Eve. They then have to find the missing banana hoard (again), which is in the possession of a Rockkroc. It’s silly (to be expected of this manga) but a bit of fun, and a rare friendly interaction between the Kongs and Mario.
I started working on this when I realised the Zelda comic was going much quicker than my last. I was waiting for Caramelman to finish the translation but still had the comics itch, so I picked this up and translated it myself. I used Google translate mostly, and this site for the meanings of the various sound effects used. My sister-in-law, a Japanese linguistics student, helped a lot to refine the script after I’d done the first draft, also introducing me to Jim Breen’s online dictionary site. She then signed up to Twitter so I’d have something to put on the credits page. :)
I’m releasing this chapter alongside my previous 4koma translations, which come from Vol 14 of Super Mario-kun. If in future I scanlate any more SMk, I’ll update the archive and web gallery, to keep all of it in one place.
.cbz version (use Simple Comic on Mac, or CDisplay on Windows)
If you’re after more Super Mario-kun translations (not by me), there’s not a whole lot but I’ve found a few:
Chapters 1-7 of Volume 1 (Super Mario World) are hosted here, by various translators. A better version of some of these chapters is contained in this archive. A single short comic from Volume 19 (Yoshi’s Story) has been translated here, and a 4koma from Volume 35 here (Christmas-themed). Apparently another translator has done Chapter 9 and 12 of Volume 1 (12 in colour), links here and here, but the host is currently down so I can’t verify. Keep an eye on that one. Finally, a chapter from Volume 38 (Super Mario Galaxy) has been translated here.
Oh, and if you’re wondering where I got the raws from, well a while ago I stumbled upon a filesharing site folder full of very nicely scanned volumes, with no hint of who scanned or uploaded them. If you’re interested in the original Japanese or want to translate some yourself, have a look here.
If you know of any more around the Internet, let me know. And also, spread this DKC one around and enjoy!
So when Nintendo apparently decided to remove the DKC trilogy from the Wii Shop (WHYWHYWHY, they answered my emails with weaselly non-answers)(at least we got warning in this country, unlike USA), I bought them before they disappeared. Good decision. Especially for 2 and 3, the ones I actually owned on the SNES, my muscles practically remember the moves for every level. I have had very little trouble getting through anything so far. And it’s just so fun doing that, running through again like a boss.
Anyway I don’t know how much I can say about this game. It’s one of my favourites of all time, a common stance for many gamers. I can make lots of comparisons, how it’s so much better than DKC1 in lots of ways, how there is no comparison between it and the comparatively bland Super Mario World, how it and Yoshi’s Island took different branches that are both excellent.
I don’t need to say too much though. This game is so very special to me, and I mean ideally its quality will come through to anyone who picks it up, but my eyes are so heavily tinted towards it. I just don’t feel I can say much meaningful commentary, you know?
So as I played this game, it all came flooding back. I remembered where every secret was. I slightly misremembered the instant 75 Kremkoins cheat so had to look it up (I used it to open the Lost World so I didn’t have to get all the bonuses- hey I know I can do it!). The physics and mechanics just feel so right. My absolute familiarity with this game makes it feel like the epitome of videogames. Since I know it so well, it seems like the best because it feels right.
Some levels of course are still just hard. Bramble Blast, Screech’s Sprint and Animal Antics all spring to mind as ones I died many times on in this playthrough. When I did play this as a child, there were levels I’d avoid as they were hard or less fun (the two haunted forest levels also come to mind). On the other hand, Rattle Battle, Rickety Race, Castle Crush, these are all levels I loved to replay many times, so I know them the best. And yes, I got to Krocodile Kore both as a child and now.
In fact, I managed to beat the secret final boss on my first time, as Diddy, without getting hit! I am so proud of that. :D
So let’s talk about the non-mechanics things about this game that make it great. The atmosphere is utterly wonderful, each new environment is vibrant, iconic, and yet tense and moody. The music is, oh, so good. The character designs are full of personality and charm, and the mostly-consistent pirate theme of the Kremling Krew makes for a cohesive collective identity for your foes. Especially good are the returning enemies with updated costumes.
Also, the bosses are leaps and bounds ahead of the original (both designs and the battles themselves). Speaking of comparisons, I think Rare were brave to turn the tables and put Donkey Kong - THE Donkey Kong, mind you - as the kidnapped victim you need to rescue. This meant he was not playable, and not even seen until the end of the game. This apparently was the source of some controversy, at the time and later from idiots, especially at major gaming publications. I didn’t mind about that in the slightest (still don’t).
Diddy is just so much more relateable for a kid. Dixie too, although obviously she’s a girl and I’m a boy. But I loved both of them. For many years Diddy was my ultimate Video Game Hero (that’s the subplot of this game by the way, him proving himself).
Anyway it’s probably this game that started my love of the DKU, Nintendo, and even videogames in general. Pure platforming gold, with heart. I give it a flablillion bananas out of 10. Emulate it now! It’s less immoral than ever! Oh and the GBA remake is good too, although the overly bright colours, chirpified soundtrack and smaller screen make it a diminshed experience (and the new minigames are not good), but the extra collectibles added that extra element for me to make it worthwhile to play (the map screens are also new, but uglier)(oh and there’s one extra boss).
It’s finally done! I’ve been working on this comic for a long time now, on and off. You may recall I previously released some DKC2 gag manga pages, and single pages from Kirby and Star Fox comics. All those mini-projects were practice for this.
This comic has never been translated before, as far as I know. It appeared in a 1995 “Special Edition” of the German Club Nintendo magazine. Some of these were free giveaways, not sure about this one though. It contains humour, action, and some game tips and covers most of the adventure through each world, up to the top of K. Rool’s Keep. It was written by Marcus Menold, John D. Kraft, Thomas Görg, and Markus Pfitzner, and was illustrated by Work House Co. Ltd., Tokyo.
This comic is important to me as it was the last Donkey Kong-related western comic that wasn’t available in English. Although Donkey and Diddy do appear in other regular Club Nintendo comics, those are mostly cameo appearances in ensemble comics and not a retelling (as this is) or unique Kong adventure. Incidentally, many other Club Nintendo comics have been translated online. The other DK ones are on the DKVine forums, and Opentrain are about 1/3rd of the way through the regular print run comics. There’s also 3 on the Bomberman wiki.
But back to this release. This started when Caramelman from the DKVine forums offered to help me translate it, as he is German. Big thanks to him for translating the whole thing, each line, into English. He did a great job and even tried to adapt the idioms, etc. I have handled cleaning the scanned pages (mostly the speech bubbles), editing the script and typesetting. Thanks also to my wife Everbloom for helping out with the final editing stages and for painting the beautiful credits page art. Special thanks to my parents-in-law for some small German clarifications. Scans were sourced from nintendo-power.de, they’re not great scans in terms of fidelity but consistent and level. They have all of the special edition comics there in the original German.
I should also say that my editing philosophy was not strictly literal translations. If something was idiomatic or awkward in the German I changed it. Throughout I emphasised flow in English rather than 100% the same words as the original. I also added a few little lines for the sake of a joke that weren’t there originally. Hopefully I wasn’t too blatant about that. Having said that, several lines in the German rhymed like the characters were singing or chanting (for humour, I guess), I mostly tried to make the line rhyme in English too.
Ok, so that’s the comic. I recommend everyone take a look, if only because I spent so much effort on it. I’m very happy with how it turned out. It’s a fine reminder of a time when the world of games could be immersive but still fun and silly. It also has some admittedly very funny faces. I could say a lot about the value of these types of things in helping develop personalities for characters but I’d better just stop prattling and post the links.
I’d like to talk about these two games at once because my backlog is filling up, and I thought a comparison of these was apt. Why?
Well, two of my favourite games growing up were Donkey Kong Country 2 and Yoshi’s Island. Those probably stand out to me the most before we got our 64. These two games, then, are related to these, being the prequel and a sequel/spin-off respectively. Also, I never really played them at the time or at all until recently. The other way I can talk about them together is that they are both ground-breaking platformers that tried new things in the market at the time, but had differing levels of success.
There is a quote from Miyamoto at the time about DKC: “The success of this game proves that people will put up with mediocre gameplay if the graphics are good.” I’m paraphrasing, but the gist is that DKC was being hyped up a lot for its graphics (even though the gameplay and other aspects were great too), and I think old Miyamoto was bitter that it was outselling his project, Yoshi’s Island. I think both games have beautiful visual styles and great gameplay, although they are very different on both counts. Both were, in a way, responses to Super Mario World but they took the 2D platformer concept in very different directions.
I can tell this is going to be long. Bear with me, folks. DKC’s sequel refined further everything that made it great, and is superior in most ways. Yoshi’s Island on the other hand had a sequel the next generation which pushed even further away from the basic SMW style, off the wacky deep end. This is my opinion, of course.
So I guess the main thing I took away from these playthroughs is that sometimes you have to try new things, and sometimes they don’t work. DKC had a few mechanics that are dropped completely in the sequel, as they were awkward or not useful. That just may be my DKC2 familiarity talking, but I feel that the designers learned a lot from DKC to make the second one a much better game. Segue to YS, which introduces a buttload of things done differently to YI, and ends up even more awkward than DKC in comparison to my childhood favourites.
They are opposite ends. That’s not to say either is bad, they just frustrate me a lot more, especially when I can see what they’ve done wrong.
To give a bit more detail, there’s a lot to love in DKC. The atmosphere, the personality, the controls feel good. My main complaints are with the hit detection, the pointless bonuses, and the badly flow-breaking animal bonus levels. These are minor though, and the reason I tend to overlook it is I prefer the sequels, the new heights they reached, how they played with the formula, plus they have more internal consistency with each other than either has with DKC1. Each installment has its own different atmosphere that gives them unique feelings, which is a great thing and more than you can say for the Mario series (ok, no more cheap potshots). The music and backgrounds play a big part in this.
YS has less to recommend it on face value. It’s a little slow and wonky, the controls are a little weird and there are also a few hit detection issues here. Also, unlike its predecessor YI the music is less memorable and tends to reuse arrangements of the main theme for most areas (in this way it resembles YI’s true DS sequel). I find this boring, personally. The aesthetic is both overly cute but also a very interesting crafty style, with newspaper, cardboard, felt, etc backgrounds like Little Big Planet but low-res.
Unlike the more precise YI, the platforming and egg-throwing is more forgiving or loose, although if you miss a jump I found it very hard to recover. The game is quite short but it is built for multiple playthroughs, with each of the 6 worlds having 4 possible levels with one being played each go through. This gives it a lot of variety, and each run will be different. The structure is also unique, mostly left-to-right or down-to-up but some more complex structures with branching paths and the level ends when you eat 30 fruit, not reach a certain point or anything.
Speaking of structure, I guess I didn’t structure this review so well but I saw some commonality there. Basically I regard both these games as lesser installments in series that I adore, and therefore worth playing on the strength of their brethren alone. But I was pleased with each when I actually got to playing them, and with YS I appreciate its radically different style. I can look past DKC’s faults to see the germ of the great series it spawned, but its more abstract features that carry through are fantastic. I just think it’s popularly overrated. YS on the other hand is slightly underrated.
The Yoshi and DK series as wholes are way too big to include any of here, so maybe one day they’ll get the proper MiloScat treatment. I’m glad I’ve now experienced these as they’re so important and influential to the overall series, DKC in its design and music and YS in its contribution of sound effects to all subsequent Yoshi material, and the aesthetic that was adapted in many Mario sports games. But now I want to play the actual games I grew up with, so I’m gonna do that. Toodles.
I’ve posted a few times on here about the official Japanese manga “Super Mario-kun”. Well, for a while now I’ve been planning on scanlating a small bit of it, for practice and to see if I could do such a thing on a larger scale. I already have scans, so it’s more like translating and editing—I’ve never owned anything rare worth scanning. I chose to start with these because they’re very short, only a few panels on a few pages; they’re very simple, being a children’s manga they have simple language and plenty of furigana over the kanji; and the scans I had were very clean, well aligned, very high contrast, which made the typesetting and all easy.
What I’m presenting here is a series of 8 4komas (4-panel gag strips), and 2 picture puzzle activity pages, that went in between chapters in a volume of Super Mario-kun. This volume was a recreation of the story of Donkey Kong Country 2, except with Mario and Yoshi, because they’re the main characters of the manga. You’ll find they tend to visit a few places they’re not supposed to, like Wario’s Woods, and their past selves in the Yoshi’s Island volume. Only natural, with these 3 sub-series being part of the greater Mario Universe.
Don’t expect any heavy themes here, especially from the spot-the-difference page. The nature of this manga is visual jokes, occasional toilet humour (not in these, though), and over-the-top comic violence. But, and this is the reason I translated this at all, it is a contribution towards the overall Donkey Kong pseudo-canon. I’m not sure what to call it actually, the body of work of DK-related materials, not all of which are strictly in continuity but which are still important (at least to me). Anyway, I’m a fan so I was interested in a comic about silly monkeys.
Give them a read, and if you’re a true fan like me, save them to your computer and spread them around. Although I intend to post this on DKVine and DKC-Atlas myself, so I’m not sure where else you would go with this.
EDIT: By the way, credit to my sister-in-law for translation help. There’s only so far you can get with online dictionaries and apps. Also thanks to my wife for helping to make some lines more natural.
Many people probably know that in Donkey Kong Country 2, in Cranky’s Video Game Heroes room, you see Mario, Yoshi and Link’s only physical appearances in a DK series game (apart from the unavailable Diddy Kong Pilot alpha). Many of these people probably know that also in that room is a rubbish bin, with Sonic the Hedgehog’s shoes and Earthworm Jim’s raygun next to it (with the label No Hopers).
What perhaps not many of these people know is that this snipe at the competition may have in one case been a retaliation for a previous snipe. Specifically, in Earthworm Jim: Special Edition for the Sega CD, an enhanced rerelease of the original Earthworm Jim game, there are cheat codes to put amusing masks on Jim or change his head. One of these transforms his head into DK’s, complete with a comical arrow running through’t. A pretty ugly sprite if you ask me, which just adds to the insult I suppose. So maybe Rare knew about this and maybe put in their own game their own little friendly jab at a rival platforming series, maybe as a direct response.
Maybe.
NOTE: I made this picture myself, from a screenshot I took. Glowsquid then uploaded it to Super Mario Wiki at my request, as I didn’t have those privileges. Thanks to that guy.
I spent a long time today writing up a monster of a post, so I thought I’d chuck a link here with my other monster posts about gaming. It’s in a Donkey Kong fansite called the DKVine.
To understand the post though, you need a bit of context about the DKU. The central concept of DKVine is the DKU, a shared universe of game characters that is built on the foundation of the Donkey Kong Country trilogy. Thanks to Rare’s admirable devotion to building a shared universe around all their characters, the site has a broad range of covered games, not just DK ones. Many companies have cameos and the occasional crossover game, but Rare implicitly linked many of their series together which is part of the reason they had a devoted fandom that they have now all but abandoned. (Many Internet commenters would leave it at that, but I will add that the company still has the saving grace of Leigh Loveday, who wrote much of the in-game and extra-game plot, instruction manuals, etc. and now manages the company’s Twitter and irregular Q&As. He, at least, still cares for the company’s IPs and the DKU—the problem is Microsoft doesn’t.)
Anyway, the DKU really took off with Diddy Kong Racing, where among the characters introduced, Banjo the bear and Conker the Squirrel (capitalised cause that’s his name) went on to star in their own game series. Therefore, since the Donkey Kong series was important, these were also important. It gets a little trickier when you want to ask why Star Fox is in it, or Viva Pinata, but the answer is it’s mostly because of Rare. Some people wish the site covered the Rare Cartoon Animals Universe instead as that would be less complicated, but then it may have gone the way of other Rare fansites such as MundoRare which shut down with the decline of the company.
Ok, so the DKU as presented by the DKVine has a set of rules, rules that include many games we wish it didn’t (such as Mario Party 9 or Star Fox Command), include games we are thankful for (such as Mario Golf Advance Tour or It’s Mr. Pants!), games that are a little unexpected (such as Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition or Punch-Out!! Wii), and unfortunately excludes games we wish it didn’t (such as Sabre Wulf or Kameo: Elements of Power). It is this latter category my post addresses, for while at least some attention is given on the main site to the Mario & Sonic at the Olympics games of the world, there is nary a mention of what Sabreman did after making his first major appearance in almost 15 years in Banjo-Tooie or why Greenwood Village of Diddy Kong Racing is available in Jet Force Gemini’s multiplayer.
While my post doesn’t actually attempt to go in depth about these issues, it seeks to compile a comprehensive list of small DKU aspects of non-DKU games, or games that were almost DKU but then weren’t. Games we wish were DKU but aren’t. Games that most likely are somewhere in the shared universe of our favourite talking animals, maybe even on the next island over from the DK Isles or Willow Woods, but don’t quite fall within the formal DKU structure.
DKU Honourable Mentions. I love the DKU. I just want to get the ball rolling on expanding its boundaries a little. It’s always been a subjective matter, so a few grey areas will let us delve deeper into games we love, while everyone continues to ignore Fortune Street.
Well, if all this means very little to you, you may not get so much out of my post, but it is at least interesting as a study of the depths obsessive fans can go to. Every fan has to be a little bit obsessive though, it’s kind of the definition of a fan.
