Donkey Kong Country 2′s Animal Buddies, low-res pixel style!
The Animal Buddies, or Animal Friends, are one of the coolest part of the DKC games. And DKC2 is the best game ever made I reckon, so here’s a bunch of my favourite gaming companions (including the GBA remake, which added an ostrich racing minigame). This picture was drawn as an entry to the DKVine “DKC2 Relay” community event, which I am participating in by streaming DKC2′s Gloomy Gulch this coming Friday at 1pm AEDT.
Rambi the Rhino, Rattly the Rattlesnake, Squitter the Spider, Squawks the Parrot, Expresso II the Ostrich, Squeaks/Flapper the Parrot, Enguarde the Swordfish, Glimmer the Angler Fish, Clapper the Seal
Here’s another game that I played through on a stream. You can see that archived here. I talk a bit about my impressions in the video itself, so I’ll be brief here.
Sneaky Snakes was one of Rare’s early handheld companions to a console release, in this case Snake Rattle n Roll. It takes that game’s central mechanic of eating Nibbleys throughout a level in order to gain enough weight to unlock the exit, but translates it to a 2D sidescroller rather than an isometric 3D scape.
It seems very faithful to the formula of its parent game but with a few interesting additions and maybe a little more variety in its content. There are more different varieties of Nibbleys, for example, and things like an evil snake or a ball you have to push around then bounce off. New enemies such as sentient staplers and toilet lids show a sense of ridiculous fun that the game’s sometimes hellacious difficulty doesn’t quite manage to squash. The final boss too, a pot-bellied homunculus with a brass instrument for a face, has to be seen to be believed.
The environments become more and more strange as you continue, ending in some decidedly alien caverns. Perhaps it really is following up on the promise of “Snakes in Space” that the NES original teased in its ending. Incidentally, this video fits the maps from the first game together to show how clever its level design was to fit it into a greater context. Sneaky Snakes is not quite so impressive but it’s still fun and a refreshing change of pace from other platformers.
As a follow-up to my history of Rare pixels, here’s some characters who missed out on a starring role in a Rareware game. They had some good design work put into them, but their games were either reworked to remove them, or cancelled altogether.
Edson (from Project Dream which eventually became Banjo), Berri (supposed to be the deuteragonist of Twelve Tales: Conker 64), Velvet Dark (Joanna Dark’s sister, cameoed as a multiplayer character and was going to have her own spinoff that was cancelled), Krystal (another planned deuteragonist; when Dinosaur Planet was reworked into Starfox Adventures, Fox was given all her gameplay segments), Sabreman (in his design for the legendary Sabreman Stampede), Lilith (from the late Seavor game Urchin)
Sabre Wulf couldn’t be more Rare, yet it seems to get overlooked. Its lush environments are almost DKC-esque, the music by Robin Beanland reminds me of Starfox Adventures, and the lewd jokes and silly characters are right out of Tooie or Ghoulies. Thanks Leigh. Of course coming from the handheld team there’s a slight roughness about it (and the occasional use of Comic Sans), but it’s also got charm in spades, and deserves to be mentioned towards the end of the same breath as all these other games.
EDIT: It’s a costume, found in the office of the mayor of Blackwyche. You give it to Captain Fingers, a salty old sea dog, to wear to a fancy dress party. He can be seen wearing it in the game’s ending, and apparently gets into character, exclaiming “Moo!”.
Forgive me, but I can’t be expected to talk rationally about DKC2, one of my favourite games of all time. Everything about it is so perfect to me. Playing it on the Wii U is such a treat; it still looks and sounds amazing, the sheer artistry shining through and blending with the tight gameplay to give one of the best experiences on this or any console. Anyway I like it.
Land 2 is also good, insofar as it tries to emulate DKC2. Of course, the music is less rich, although Kirkhope’s chippy renditions of the Wise soundtrack have their own appeal (worse is missing tracks, leading to repetition of tracks like Lockjaw’s Locker). You don’t get colourful environments and backgrounds and the detailed sprites (I realised that the DKC sprites remind me of claymation… random aside). The level designs and even item placement are also a noticeable step down.
DKC is very straightforward, and DKC3 is very ambitious with many tacked-on systems. DKC2 is a nice middle ground with rewarding collectibles, challenging gameplay, interesting gimmicks, and variety in level design. I think one of the more important things in its design is how the aesthetics work with the gameplay; for example, there’s sticky honey in the bee hives and the levels base their platforming around that.
Much of this carries through to Land 2, but scaled back for the Game Boy. While Land 2 is regarded as a port, in truth almost everything is ported over, except for the levels themselves, the layouts of which are brand new. This means that playing it is playing a brand new game, just sharing the exact same characters and world. The interesting part is seeing new platforming situations and enemy placements being done with the same basic concept. It should be noted that Land 2′s engine is greatly improved from Land 1; while jumps are still fairly high, the control and momentum feel much closer to the SNES.
Playing DKC2 was a breeze; my muscle memory practically plays it for me, including finding most of the secrets. DKL2, on the other hand is unfamiliar and thus feels more challenging; although I think that some of the setups are inherently more difficult, it could just be that I haven’t done them so many times that they’re trivial. The secrets in Land 2 though either are actually trivial to find or occasionally unfairly located, in which case I recommend Mario Wiki’s pages on each level to find them.
I absolutely recommend both of these games. DKL2 is not just a downgraded port, it’s new levels using (downgraded) DKC2 assets. But it’s fair to say it’s “overlooked” while DKC2 more than earns the title of “classic”. Good times.
With Rare Replay being announced, it’s naturally a good time to get excited about historic Rareware/Ultimate. Like, say, drawing people from the character-driven series in it. Having said that, two characters here have four games each but none featured in said compilation. I guess it’s because they were mostly made by Rare “subsidiaries”/were not very good. I’ve also decided to cover the B-tier (and below) series, leaving out Banjo, Killer Instinct, etc. More detailed commentary below, but you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to.
Row 1: ZX Spectrum/Commodore 64
Jetman (Jetpac, Lunar Jetman, Solar Jetman). I used the look on the cover of the original game, as opposed to Crash magazine’s comics or the Refuelled reboot.
Sabreman (Sabre Wulf, Underwurlde, Knight Lore, Pentagram, Sabre Wulf GBA). You can sort of see art of him in some of the game’s maps, but this look is how he appears in Banjo-Tooie and Sabre Wulf GBA, with the mustache.
Sir Arthur Pendragon (The Staff of Karnath, Blackwyche, Entombed, Dragon Skulle). No art available, and he has two distinct visual looks that his sprite switches between from game to game. This one is the Karnath/Entombed look with the black cape from the other two games. Not in Rare Replay.
Row 2: NES
Kuros (Wizards & Warriors I/II/X/III). Based on the “generic knight in armour” sprite, as opposed to the Conan-inspired Fabio look from the game covers, which was also used in the Power Team show. Not in Rare Replay.
Rattle (Snake Rattle & Roll, Sneaky Snakes). The snakes in Sneaky Snakes are actually different snakes, but it’s a sequel. This sprite is based on the Mega Drive cover art, as opposed to the goofy-as-hell NES cover art, although the only difference at this resolution is having a differently coloured muzzle.
Rash (Battletoads, Battletoads GB, Battlemaniacs, Battletoads & Double Dragon, Super Battletoads). Opinions are annoyingly divided on who is the leader of the Toads, but Rash has the most consistent design (ie. his colour doesn’t change as much between games), and he seems to be slightly more the “face” of the series. Plus, cool red armbands and shades (not visible at this resolution).
Row 3: N64
Juno and Vela (Jet Force Gemini). The only game/series with two characters in this picture. You can’t really separate them though.
Joanna Dark (Perfect Dark, Perfect Dark GBC, Perfect Dark Zero). This is based on her N64 outfit, but with the longer hair from Zero.
Row 4: Xbox/360
Cooper (Grabbed by the Ghoulies). I wanted to put Amber in too, but it didn’t fit in the layout as it ended up.
Kameo (Kameo: Elements of Power). I do prefer this final look to the Gamecube one with the purple Ugg boots.
Horstachio (Viva Pinata, Trouble in Paradise, Pocket Paradise, Party Animals). One of the four main pinatas from the TV series, Horstachio is jointly the face of the series but also looks the best standing up, which I guess makes this Hudson from the show.
Here’s the results of my scanning and collecting of Donkey Kong Card Game assets from various sources. Please enjoy it. All you have to do is click this link and download it:
-Pictures of as many cards as I could find, with varying quality, separated by card type. If you want to read the text on the smaller ones more clearly, use the official website as a resource. These are gleaned from Man-Frog’s scans, my scans, pictures of the official guidebook from an eBay auction, pictures intended for demonstration in the starter set manual, and a few Internet sources.
-Some key art taken from the official website
-A summary flowchart to aid in playing the game, taken from the official website (in Japanese)
-A flyer advertising the card game
-A scan of the box for the 60-card starter set
-A scan of the manual included in the starter set which teaches you to play the game (in Japanese)
-Pictures of some other Donkey Kong-related cards that have been made
Links:
Web archive of the official Japanese website, with card lists for all sets (including expanded rules text), tutorial and reference document for playing the game, release information, and some card images.
DKC Atlas thread discussing this and other Donkey Kong card games, with links to other DKCG errata such as the IGN announcement article and a Japanese Donkey Kong Land III commercial that included bonus cards.
Tangentially related: scans of the two volumes of Corocoro’s manga series based on the animated series, which this card game is also based on. Some special cards have been included in certain issues of Corocoro magazine (PP001, SP001, SP002).
EDIT: I finally did what I had been intending, and converted my personal spreadsheet for tracking card image status to Google Docs. Here you can see all the cards that exist and whether or not an image of them has been archived.
EDIT2: Thanks to a tipoff from the anonymous N.A., I’ve found a few more sources and managed to fill out the image archive a lot more; now ALL but one are accounted for and present in the collection, and many low-quality images have been replaced with better ones. The scans and images may not be perfect in all cases but it’s now much more complete. The spreadsheet has also been updated to reflect this. In addition, I added more supplementary images to the “Misc” folder, such as images of packaging and promo material.
EDIT3: Mediafire is taking down the archive, so please refer to the new Mega link instead.
EDIT4: Calcium has notified me that I neglected to include a scan of the alternate yellow card back in the archive! All character cards have a yellow outline on the back. Until I do a proper update, I’ve just put it here for now.
