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Donkey Kong Country (Again) - Dark Jaguar - 27th February 2024
I'm just going to keep reviewing this game apparently.
In 2003, about a year after MS's acquisition of Rareware, the company ported Donkey Kong Country to the Gameboy Advance. By this point, many developers at Rare had departed for other companies, and worse still, the company had not kept the old source code. A few years earlier, Rare had ported the game to Gameboy Color and ran into the same issue. In that case, they had modified the Donkey Kong Land engine, but in this case they went through painstaking work to reverse engineer the physics by trial and error. This new version is, then, recoded from scratch with physics that don't match either the original SNES version or the GBC version. How close does it get to the mark then? Well, I should do things in the proper order, so let's start with the visuals.
The game's visuals are pulled directly from the SNES version this time, so right away it looks far better than the GBC port. The presentation adds a new title screen, new menu art, some new artwork for the Kong family member's homes, some new mini-games, and a new opening and ending scene. Further, there are changed effects. In the past, I thought the game was lesser based on how the first level no longer shifts from noon to dusk and stays at the same brightness. But, later levels keep these unique effects, so long as it doesn't affect level brightness. I suspect what's actually going on is an intentional choice to not make the level dimmer on the notoriously dark GBA screen. Further, all the colors are washed out in an attempt to brighten the game, as is often the case with SNES to GBA ports. There is one notable degrading of the graphics, and that's the reduced layers of parallax scrolling in level backgrounds. There are a few additional graphical flares, like little animals flying or crawling here and there that have been added, but overall yes, the SNES version ends up looking better. Oh yes, and it should be added the screen is cropped. This hurts this version of the game more than the GBC version because of just how little vertical there is on the screen's aspect ratio. Many secrets no longer have visible clues like a stray banana to guide you to them, and so I actually had to look up a few secret locations throughout the game even though I'd played through this game multiple times in other versions.
The sound effects are mostly the same, though many new sounds from DK64 have been added to the two main Kongs, as well as a few additional effects here and there to various enemies. The music was recomposed, as it had to be due to the lack of a dedicated sound chip. It mostly gets close, but the original still ends up sounding higher quality. Honestly I think I'd prefer hearing either the SNES or the "chiptune" GBC version over this, but it's not so bad it's unlistenable. Over the GBA speaker, it sounds fine. A few new songs were added for things like the new mini-games, menus, and new opening.
As mentioned, the presentation alters many things. The new artwork puts Cranky inside of his cabin instead of his porch and Funky inside his flights (and now fishing) lodge. After every boss, Cranky arrives to give some quip about how pathetic the boss was before "taking those bananas back for you". The new ending takes place on K. Rool's ship instead of back in DK's home. This is done so that the "aquatic baddie" reel can now take place underwater (scrolling under the ship), and to give K. Rool a few lines ordering the DK crew off his ship and swearing generic revenge. Unfortunately, this also means all the fun monkey shines between Donkey and Diddy, all unique frames of animation, have been cut completely. Further, DK and the gang are just too wordy, and DK commits the sin of actually talking as if this were the cartoon show (or the manual). While I do appreciate the scroll of underwater baddies actually showing them underwater, all in all I'd say the original ending is more entertaining to watch. The new opening and title also cut out the original "old man playing his Victrola" sequence entirely, though of course a new menu was needed to select the additional options. The new opening sequence on starting a new game is basically what's described in the game's manual, with Diddy doing guard duty before being stuffed in a barrel only for DK to swear he'll get back all his bananas and rescue Diddy a few moments later. Of course, that introduction was always pretty silly considering you find Diddy in a barrel ONE SCREEN away from the cave anyway. Lastly, it's notable that all the maps now scroll and are "zoomed in" heavily. In a few cases, the whole map was entirely replaced with a brand new one, which did throw off my sense of spatial awareness in a few cases.
On to the gameplay changes! Alright, the new level added to the Gameboy Color version is gone. It wasn't the best level, but it wasn't the worst either, but either way it's a shame for them to just forget about it. The added bonus levels put in Candy's save shack are also gone, now replaced with just what everyone always wanted, a rhythm dance mini-game. I'd consider this a straight downgrade and prefer the bonus level style mini-games from the GBC version. Fortunately though, you don't need to get a "perfect" more than once to complete the game, and getting a passing grade on every one isn't too difficult. Funky's flights is now built in as a menu option, allowing full backtracking after only reaching one of his locations. He'll still let you jump in a flying barrel, but there's not really a point, so now the fishing game is broken up into a bunch of unique challenges. It's less dull this way, and getting the "high score" outside of the main game is much more easily attainable, but it's still not much of a mini-game. The stickers from before are now gone, replaced with photos that consist of prerendered artwork made back when DKC first came out. They're also hidden in brand new locations, unlocked in creative ways like as a reward for ground slapping a Klump to death or getting a high score in one of the animal bonus levels.
The real star of the new gameplay options is "Hero Mode". The two difficulty options from the GBC version have now been combined, so there are no continue barrels, partner barrels, and in a unique additional challenge, you play as Diddy alone, in a yellow shirt. This one gets especially challenging in later worlds. Unlike the GBC version, this requires it's own save file so you'll need to find all bonus levels on top of that for full completion. Speaking of bonus levels, this version for the first time "saves" how many of those animal statues you've collected. What this basically means is you will now accidentally go into an animal buddy bonus level so often it becomes annoying, especially since they kick you back to the start of the whole level this time around. It's like a longer "death". All things considered, they should have reworked it so you spawn back in at designated spots at or nearby the third animal token you picked up. However, there's one major issue that's hard to overlook in this version. That's the mentioned physics reworking. Unfortunately, a lot of difficult jumps become even trickier now, or whole sections no longer work as they should. For example, there's a sequence where neckies come flying in bit by bit as you bounce from one to the next so you can bypass a jumping section, but now all of them basically spawn at once and rush at you. Donkey Kong no longer dips a little lower when he rolls off things, now behaving more or less just like Diddy. Bounce height doesn't work quite right, so certain bonus levels can only be reached with trickier jumps. This really becomes a major issue at the very last world, where so many perfectly timed jumps now have to be relearned and require even more perfect timing. The most frustrating section comes at the very last level, where before you could simply carry a barrel as you jumped to finish off the Krushas, now if you try that, you'll bounce off them at the same time you end them, killing yourself. The only way to handle this section is perfectly timed barrel throws, so that was a lot of trial and error.
All in all, this version of the game isn't the worst way to go, but the additions simply don't make up for the way the altered physics mess with the game's delicate platforming balance. Playable, but more frustrating than it should be. The difficulty feels outright unfair near the end of a "Hero" run.