Day 13: A Game I’ve Played More Than Five Times

Ah, back to the 30-day video game topics.  Despite the obvious implication that this is only supposed to span the course of roughly a month, these posts have been taking me years to get through.  Well, better get back to it.  Right now, we’re only on day 13.  The topic: a game I’ve played more than five times.  There are a lot of games I could name right now that I’ve played far more times than is sane, but the one I’ve chosen to discuss is Donkey Kong Country 2.  By now, many of you are probably more than familiar with the fact that I love this game.  Even more of you are probably just familiar with this game due to your own experiences with it and don’t need any explanation for why it’s such a great game.  So I’m not getting into that.  The game was released in 1995, for crying out loud!  That was 21 years ago!  Wow, has it really been that long…?

All right, so, instead of telling you guys what this game is all about, why don’t I tell you about five of my most memorable experiences with this amazing game?  The first time I really got into playing Super Nintendo games was when my parents had the SNES connected to a TV in the basement.  Being out of the way, it made it so much easier to play these games to my heart’s content, unlike the poor Nintendo 64, which was in the living room.  (You see, the coaxial cable part of the basement TV was okay, so the SNES worked just fine on it.  But the composite…thingies on that TV stopped working, so our N64 only got sound and no picture.  That’s why we got a new TV to connect the N64 to, along with all our other newer devices at the time, while the other TV, along with the SNES, got moved into the basement.)  We already had about 20 SNES games, and some of my best memories from my ducklinghood involved me spending hours in the basement trying out a whole bunch of games I had never played before.

The Top Songs from DKC2

One of my favorite series from the olden days was Donkey Kong Country on the SNES, a trilogy that spanned from 1994-1996 (remember back when games from a series were released yearly?).  My favorite game of the series, and of the SNES in general, was Donkey Kong Country 2.  It was super fun.  You got to play as Diddy and Dixie on the island home of the naughty Kremlings.  And there were pirates.  What could possibly be better than that?  Nothing.  And now I present you with my top ten songs from one of my favorite games of all time.

The Top Songs from DKC

Just recently, I noticed that I had a bunch of posts for top songs that had been sitting around on my computer, feeling quite neglected indeed, so I thought I’d better dust them off and get them posted.  One series that needed some musical love is the Donkey Kong Country series on the Super Nintendo.  This series sported some awesome gameplay, the best graphics the old SNES had to offer, and some pretty nifty, neato music.  That’s right, it was nifty and neato.  So behold, my favorite songs from the original Donkey Kong Country!

Top Songs from DKC: Tropical Freeze

I had trouble getting into the first Donkey Kong Country Returns on the Wii, but with the release of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, I decided to give the series one, final chance, and I take it all back.  Retro Studios has done a wonderful job bringing Donkey Kong back, and the music is just one of the many areas they have succeeded.  So below, I have listed my top five songs from the newest Donkey Kong Country on the Wii U.

The Duck Apologizes to Retro Studios

As you may very well be aware of, I have complained a good deal about the fairly recent Donkey Kong Country Returns on the Wii.  It’s way too hard, I feel silly shaking the controller around (though, I do with all Wii games, so that’s nothing new), and it lacks the feel and the charm of the original Super Nintendo games.  Due to all this unhappiness I felt towards the game, I had my doubts about getting the sequel on the Wii U, Tropical Freeze, but I had some money to spare and decided to give it a chance.  And I am now forced to eat my words.

Now, I don’t really need to get into tons of detail about this game.  It’s a simple concept, as it’s a platformer.  We know what those are.  And many of us have played Donkey Kong.  It’s a platformer involving lots of apes and a monkey (Diddy is the only monkey I know of).  And so I’d just like to focus this post on what this game does so right and why I finally believe Retro Studios has done a commendable job bringing back a series from 20 years ago that I used to adore.  I will always have a special place in my heart for the original games on the SNES and will always feel they are far better, but any gamer that has been playing for more than a few years knows how strong nostalgia can be.  And I accept that I can’t always compare games to those I loved many years ago.

The Return

I recently finished “Donkey Kong Country Returns”.  It took about a week, but I kind of rushed so I could get to some new Playstation 2 games I recently got.  So naughty.

            Anyway, I was very excited that they finally made a Donkey Kong Country game again.  Poor Donkey Kong hasn’t had many good games ever since Rareware stopped making them about 10 years ago or so.  What I believe to be the last decent Donkey Kong game before this one is “Donkey Kong 64”, but the very best are “DK Country 1” and “DKC2” (3 was not quite as great), made around 1994 and 1995, I believe.  But, as I said, after “DK64”, Rareware started working for Microsoft rather than Nintendo and could no longer make Donkey Kong games.  Oh, what a dark day that was.

            But, enough of that, even though this important information will no doubt end up in history textbooks someday.  You’re welcome for the lesson.  Finally, along came “DKC Returns”, made by Retro Studios, who used to make Metroid (I don’t know if they still do).  I wondered if they could make a game to rival the originals, and alas, they did!  Oh, happy day!  DK fans rejoice!

            So as you can tell, this game was a delight.  It is very fun, with lovely graphics.  The backgrounds are so detailed.  The game is side-scrolling like the originals, and Donkey can now do a ground pound to stun enemies, break things, etc. and blow on things like dandelion fluff and candles to get items and put out the fire on flaming enemies.  When you get Diddy, he rides on DK’s back and uses his jetpack to help you jump farther.  You can also collect puzzle pieces to unlock things like concept art, which is fun.  I unlocked very few so far.  And instead of one hit per Kong, it’s two hits each before you die.  Despite this, the game was still quite a challenge, but you can use Super Guide to get you through areas you simply can’t do.  (I only used it for small bits twice, never a whole level.)

            There are also some songs from the original games, which filled me with much glee.  My favorite song is the factory music from “DKC 1”.  There are still mine cart levels, too,TreeTopTown, a factory, the jungle.  Two of the animal friends returned, as well, Rambi the rhino and Squawks the parrot.  You can still ride Rambi and go on a destructive rampage, but Squawks just helps you find puzzle pieces now.  He used to carry you around, which didn’t make sense how a large parrot could tote around a gorilla and a chimp and shoot yellow things that looked like cheetohs but weren’t from his mouth, but still.

            The Kremlings, Donkey’s banana-stealing crocodile enemies throughout all of the original DKC games and DK64, plus a few newer ones, did not return, but were replaced by banana-stealing tikis.  I would’ve preferred the Kremlings, but the tikis are actually a fine replacement.  They can also apparently hypnotize people (well, animals), except not Donkey for some reason.  How convenient.

            Still no mini sheep.  What’s going on?!  The tikis are cute, though.  My favorite is the one that you see in the first cut scene in the game and is on the right side of the cover.

            Now I have some questions about Donkey Kong and his bananas.  He lives in a jungle where you would think banana trees must be quite abundant, so why do people keep stealing his bananas and not just pick their own?  And why does Donkey go on these dangerous quests just to get back his bananas when he, too, could just pick his own again and start a new hoard?  Why does he even need a banana hoard?  It’s more than he can eat.  Is he greedy?  Does he have a mental disorder?  Is he someday going to end up on that “Buried Alive” TV show about hoarders?  Does his disorder stress out DK’s friends and family like it does to people in real life?  Are they enablers or do they, too, think that hoarding bananas in a jungle is a normal thing to do?  Last of all, is it normal for me to attempt a deep psychological analysis of a fictional ape?  We may never know.

            By the way, my picture of Xigbar is done.  He’s on the Fan Art page, if you want to check it out….

            Edit: Forget to mention, Mr. Game makes a small appearance in this game.  I won’t tell you where, but watch out for him….

Donkey Duck