Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest – More Fun Than a Barrel of Monkeys!

Monkeying around was the name of the game in the 1990s, when Rareware released the Donkey Kong Country series on the SNES. They were three games of platform galore, where one could run and jump to their heart’s content. It was a strange idea to take the antagonist of the original Donkey Kong from 1981 and make him the good guy, tie and all, but it works. Although all three games in the series are top notch, I’ve always been drawn back to the second one, which has the most streamlined balance of them all regarding gameplay, graphics, and overall feel.

After emerging victorious in the first game, the big ape has now been captured and it’s up to sidekick Diddy and girlfriend Dixie to save the day. The objective is to pace through six different worlds and defeat King K. Rool, the recurring villain of the series. The levels range from pirate galleons and lava pits to murky swamps and toxic castles, where the player is pitted against an entourage of animal enemies, including buzzing bees, frenzied fish, and carnivorous crocodiles. And that’s not mentioning the boss battles, where one must, for instance, duel against a giant flying pirate sword atop a boiling lava pit.

So, this is all fine and dandy, but what makes the game worth playing today? One reason are the fluid controls. Both main characters are nimble and fast, and while Diddy is generally the speedier one, Dixie more than makes up for it, being able to hover in the air with her hair, which is a great help in some of the more precarious leaps. This ties well into the impeccable level design. While most courses rely on the usual route of going from the left to the right, many advance vertically, and these are often combined providing an interesting playing experience. Out of all the worlds, the lava land must be my favourite, with its varied level design, bubbling music and the aforementioned exhilarating boss fight.

The difficulty level is one of the hardest things to get right in platformer games. It’s easy to make a game deviously hard, but likewise the result can be an unchallenging breeze. DKC 2 scales its difficulty very nicely, with the first world being a training ground for later endeavours. It was a revelation now to see how the game teaches every new mechanic with an easy obstacle, only to later ramp up the situations with fiendish enemy placement and hard jumps. It’s generally two hits and you’re out, so if you screw up, you can only blame yourself (although it hurts). For 100 % completion, one really needs to master all the mechanics.

The game can be criticized in some parts. The graphical style with the pre-rendered backgrounds and 3D-models may look a bit jarring for people accustomed to modern games, even if it has a certain character. I never was a fan of the life system, which involves unnecessary backtracking to gather enough lives to deal with the more challenging levels. Give me modern games with frequent save points any day! But these are only small ingredients in an otherwise tasty banana split.

Finally, I must mention David Wise’s excellent soundtrack. The music really livens up the game, being energetic and bouncy in the first levels, while finding some very soothing moody ambient sounds later, culminating in the melancholic autumnal feel of the masterpiece that is Stickerbush Symphony. It really is something more than just beeps and bleeps.

In retrospect, the Super Nintendo game library was a golden age for platformer games. You had the Mario galore of Super Mario World and Yoshi’s Island, the atmospheric exploration of Super Metroid, the bullet fests of Megaman X, and the gothic splendour of Super Castlevania IV. Out of these, DKC 2 might just be the crown jewel of them all.

 

Basic info:

Title: Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Rareware
Platforms: Super Nintendo, Game Boy Advance
Release Date: 1995
Genres: platformer

Photos: Screenshots from the game, taken by the author

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