The rebirth of Donkey Kong through Rare’s Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo completely changed how many viewed Nintendo’s lovable ape. While the game saw success on the home console, it made sense for a similar approach on Nintendo’s handheld. Donkey Kong Land leans heavily on what made the original Donkey Kong Country on the SNES great, but did Rare do enough to cement its legacy in handheld form? More importantly, is it worth playing today? We get into all of this in more in this retro review. Let’s get into it.
Note
For the record, for the purpose of this review, I played through Donkey Kong Land via the Game Boy app on the Nintendo Switch. While there are elements of the game that can be attributed to that particular version, this review is taking a look at the game overall.
Release
Donkey Kong Land originally released in June 1995 in North America and was followed by a July release in Japan and an August release in Europe and PAL territories. Five years later in 2000, the game was re-released on the Nintendo Power service in Japan. It was would be more than a decade before the game would pop up again, with it releasing on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console in 2014 in Japan, Europe and Australia and February 2015 in North America. The game hit the Nintendo Switch Online service November 2024 worldwide.
Oddly enough, the naming conventions between English speaking territories is quite different. Of course, most of us know it as Donkey Kong Land, but gamers in Japan know the game as Super Donkey Kong GB. While this might sound a bit strange, it’s actually a call back to the naming convention for the Japanese version of Donkey Kong Country, which is known as Super Donkey Kong. The GB in this Game Boy version refers to, you guessed it, Game Boy.
Gameplay
Gameplay is snappy and smooth in Donkey Kong Land. Of course, the lack of buttons when compared to the home console Donkey Kong games might be concern for some, but Rare did a good job at adapting the series to Nintendo’s handheld. Of course, you control either Donkey or Diddy with the D-pad, jump or swim with A, roll or pick up items with B and use select to change between the two characters or dismount animal friends. The game feels just as good as its home console brethren as both characters control almost exactly as they do on the big screen games.
Animal Buddies, Rambi the rhino and Expresso the ostrich, are also playable in the game. They still feel good to control and as an added bonus, Expresso can now be used to take out enemies, including Zingers (the bee enemies).
One of the biggest differences comes with the save system in the game. In Land, you are only able to save if you collect the K-O-N-G letters in a stage. Being a handheld game, I thought this was kind of a curious choice. Of course, if you’re playing on a modern platform like the Nintendo Switch Online service or by other means, this is a non-issue. According to an interview with Retro Gamer magazine, the developers said that this was intentional to make completing the game easier. I suppose that makes sense given that it’s fairly easy to collect the letters in most stages.
Stages & Overworld
Donkey Kong Land features four worlds that are unique to the game, but feel somewhat familiar. The stages on offer feature jungles, submerged ruins, a futuristic city, beat up old ships and more. Being a DK game, several secrets are scattered throughout the levels. Exclamation points indicate levels where all the secrets are found, so it’s pretty easy to keep track of which levels you may need to tackle again to get a perfect clear rating.
Boss fights are on offer at the end of each world. These aren’t overly hard, but I thought they were interesting and quite different from what was on offer in the original Donkey Kong Country. The addition of several new enemy types, such as the flying pig (god, I hate the level that they are featured in) and shellfish that chases you in underwater stages (Nemo) were interesting.
Visuals & Performance
Donkey Kong Land does its best to retain the look of the SNES counterpart. There are a lot of things that will look familiar, and I don’t see that as a bad thing. Donkey and Diddy both look great, sporting an amazing amount of detail. Their animations are also nice and it’s amazing to see how Rare essentially replicated their incredible work on less powerful hardware. As I mentioned previously, conceits were made to accomplish this, such as limiting the number of visible playable characters on the screen at once.
As with the original Donkey Kong Country, all hud elements only appear momentarily on the screen. Collected bananas and the KONG letters stay off screen for the majority of the time you’re playing, offering a clean appearance. The only thing you will see are the number of lives you have, which are presented as hearts on the bottom of the screen. While it’s certainly not a big deal, I thought this clashed with the overall clean look. At the same time, I got over that feeling pretty quickly.
Of course, if you play the game via a Super Game Boy or Game Boy Color, additional color options are available. For the purpose of this review, I was playing the game via Nintendo Switch Online, so I did not have access to the Super Game Boy options and mainly played with the Game Boy Color feature. This was a great way to play through the game as it offered a little bit more color to the game, making it easier to make out enemies and levels. The music here is also on point and captures the same kind of magic found in DKC, albeit in a slightly downgraded form.
Perhaps my only complaint with the game has to do with the field of vision. When traversing stages, things are mostly fine, however, when you need to make jumps, the screen shifts to account for the limited screen real estate. This is understandable, and once you get used to it, you’ll be fine. Still, that’s the only thing I can think of that makes this not as good as what you’ll find on home consoles.
Collector’s Corner
Of course, pricing on this will vary depending on when and where you get it, but I picked up a boxed, complete copy of Donkey Kong Land from an online reseller in November 2024 for ¥900, or a little under $6 USD at the time. My copy came with the box, manual and inserts in pretty nice condition. As with the release of the game around the globe, the Japanese version is also “banana yellow,” which is great. All in all, I’m happy to have this as part of my collection.
Conclusion
Donkey Kong Land is a great addition to the Game Boy library that really pushes the limits of the handheld. It benefits from being its own game rather than just a port of the SNES classic and differentiates itself enough with new levels and enemies to make the experience unique. While the game is quite short and the screen scrolling might annoy some, this is a must play for fans of the DKC style of games.
But, let’s turn things over to you. What do you think of Donkey Kong Land? Did you play it back in the day? Did you try it out on the Nintendo 3DS, or with the Nintendo Switch? Sound off in the comments down below. We’ve love to hear from you!
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