Time Travel Games 2 - "Donkey Kong Country" ~ Monkey Business Platformer

Most gamers that grew up in the '90's probably have fond memories of the Donkey Kong Country series of the SNES. It was a beautifully rendered series in which a pair of monkeys/apes platform through jungles and surrounding areas in order to eventually defeat the evil King K. Rool. In the first game, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong are the main characters, and in each successive game, the oldest character is dropped and replaced with a new one.

This charming character swap, along with the graphical improvements and slight gameplay improvements throughout the series hid the fact that this series is not the gem we remember it to be. This is especially apparent in the first adventure simply entitled "Donkey Kong Country".

Controls

The controls for DKC are really straight-forward. The d-pad allows DK or Diddy to move in whichever direction is pressed. B makes the character you're controlling jump and Y makes them attack. The A button is useful in certain situations because it allows you to tag between Diddy and DK if both are present.

Fun gimmicks

This platformer is full of interesting surprises for the first time player. Barrels can be held then thrown as weapons. DK barrels, however, hold your partner inside if you're either just DK or just Diddy. Certain barrels send you flying across the screen, and others are a fun game of timing your launch from the barrel to land safely into another barrel or on land.

A few secret areas are destructible and well hidden and either give access to a golden item (which gives a 1up or other nice rewards) or an animal companion. These animals are very fun to ride and give a huge advantage to the player usually. The Rhino and the swordfish are great attackers, while the frog and ostrich are useful for jumping over gaps.

You may be thinking, what's the deal? Why did I decide to warn you that this game may not be as great as you remember? Well...

Story: 5/10

If story is the reason you're playing this game, you'll be let down big time. This game provides nothing in terms of story. Without a game manual, you have to look up who the main villain of the game is and what he did. That, or if you go in the first secret entrance below your shack, you can make an interpretation of what happened.

The real story: King K. Rool stole DK's banana hoard. Now you must run through the jungle as DK and beat up King K. Rool's minions (Kremlins) and then defeat the main man, himself.

Even with knowledge of that story, it's not that great or original. DKC2 has a slightly better story in which DK is kidnapped, but DK is simply worried about his bananas in this game. It sounds like a watered down version of Mario's trials. Oh wait...

Graphics: 10/10

Wow. The pre-rendered 3D graphics add a world of depth to this game that all console games that preceded this one can't touch. The detail of DK, Diddy, and the Kremlins is simply astonishing. Most of the charm of this game lies in the beautiful world our monkey heroes run through.

Sound: 7/10

Every bit of music in each level leaves a unique impression that is very enjoyable at the time. However, except for the DKC title theme, no single piece of music is very memorable.

Most of the tracks repeat within 20 to 30 seconds. When a level could last anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes, that's a nightmarish 4 to 10 repeats of the same song while you're trying to concentrate through the level.

It really detracts from the game experience to have the classic Pokémon music syndrome.

Gameplay: 6/10

The only thing that keeps the game-play score this high is the innovation that can be found in this game through the animals, shooting-barrels, secret passageways, and mini-games.

Most of the controls work with no lag, but they're not very smooth. When Donkey Kong rolls or Diddy Kong cartwheels, they eventually just stop dead in their tracks instead of fluidly coming to a stop.

Sometimes you can kill an enemy and die at the same time (See my video - Diddy and the vulture both die ). In most video games, if there's a close situation like that, the character that kills the other first doesn't die.

Additionally, some parts of the game are just rote memorization, impossibly fast reflexes, or having little room for error. That kind of "skill" does not make a game fun.

P.S.: Did I mention save points are far apart? That isn't the definition of "challenge", either.

Re-playability: 4/10

It's possible to replay this game, yet I don't really recommend to do so very often. It'd get boring because the whole premise of this game is rote memorization. As long as you remember the level patterns, you'll be fine.

Only highly polished platform gamers could beat this using lightning reflexes on the first try (without dying).

The only other reason to replay this game would be to look at the pretty graphics/have some generic platforming fun.

Overall Score: 6.4/10

In my humble opinion, this game is alright. It's a fairly fun platformer with beautiful graphics and ideas.  It seems to lack any substantial story, which can be okay since most platformers don't have much. However, something a game should never lack is game-play. If I were to give weight to certain sections in these reviews, this game would have a much lower score on pure fun-factor.

It lacks some critical game-play and re-playability elements which can make it seem like a waste of a purchase. If you want to play through a quick, average adventure a handful of times, this is the game for you. If not, just borrow it from a friend for a couple of days, try out the Wii Virtual Console version, or just download the rom.

Note: I do not approve of illegal activities, but it is legal to use a ROM even without owning the cartridge if used for educational purposes/under 24 hours.

Well, here's the second entry. Some minor improvements include my own game-play video, relevant polls, and hopefully a better/more in-depth review.

I could really use the help of my readers with whether or not I should switch to a weighted score system. If I did, it'd mean that in certain genres (like RPGs), story would have a high weight, maybe even greater than game play. In Action, Platformers, Fighting, etc., game play would be the highest weighted category. Puzzle games would depend on re-playability, and so on.

What do you guys think? Vote in the polls and let me know. =)

P.S.: Was I too harsh on the "Story" element of my review? Let me know in the comments! Also, this has been plaguing me since I started here on HubPages; How is my spacing?  Do I need to break off sections more clearly?  Thanks.