Donkey Kong Country - daytrum

Publisher: Nintendo

Ages: six and up.

Family Rating:

Parental Advisory:
Mild, arcade violence

While Nintendo continues to produce excellent new games such as Legend of Zelda and Metroid Prime for the GameCube, and WarioWare, Inc: Mega Micrograme$ for the Game Boy Advance (GBA), the company is also mining hit games from its earlier consoles and successfully resurrecting them on the GBA.

Its latest port, Donkey Kong Country, features Nintendo stars: Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong and was originally released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1994. In its day, the game was one of the best platform games around, and it's been thoroughly reproduced for the GBA. And despite being almost a decade old, the game is still fun to play.

Donkey Kong Country is an entertaining, side-scrolling platform game that has players running and jumping across levels, and rolling barrels and pouncing on top of enemies to take them out. A hallmark of Donkey Kong Country is its varied activities that include swinging from vines, swimming, riding in carts and more. The graphics were ground-breaking in their day, and surprisingly, the graphics still look quite good.

Donkey Kong Country is primarily a single-player game, but offers some new mini-games designed for two players (requires a GBA Link Cable). Funky's Fishing challenges players to hook as many fish as they can within a time limit, and Candy's Dance Studio tests a player's rhythm with dance games. Other additions include collectable character art (earned by finding hidden cameras in the game), a stat tracker and a welcome new ability to save a game anywhere - even mid-level. The extras are decent, but not extraordinary.

After nearly a decade, Donkey Kong Country has aged nicely. Those who played the original game may have fun discovering it again. And the title can definitely play to a new generation of young gamers.

Another Super Nintendo title resurrected on the GBA: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

8/12/03 www.daytrum.com Editorial Staff

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