Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest (SNES)

Rare’s reinvention of the Donkey Kong series with Donkey Kong Country was quickly proven to be quite the profitable gamble, the new look and gameplay giving Nintendo a massive new hit that helped define the company in the late 1990s. When it came time for Donkey Kong Country 2, many were excited to see what kind of adventures the heroic gorilla would go on next only for Rare to hit us with yet another surprise: Donkey Kong was gone. Looking to get his revenge, the big croc King K. Rool reinvents himself as a pirate and kidnaps Donkey Kong to hold ransom, the second adventure in this platforming series seeing the sidekick from the original stepping up to play hero this time around in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest.

 

With his buddy spirited away to the homeland of the crocodilian Kremlings known as Crocodile Isle, the little monkey Diddy at least doesn’t have to face danger alone as his girlfriend Dixie Kong is also along for the ride. However, beyond the general rescue mission, this adventure is also a bit of a chance for Diddy to prove himself. The elderly gorilla Cranky is once more unwilling to admit anyone but him could be part of a good video game, but whereas he had previously just mocked the others from the sidelines or curiously made deals with K. Rool to test Donkey and Diddy, this time he is giving Diddy a chance to directly prove his worthiness by hiding Video Game Hero Coins throughout most of the regular stages. While it is more of a background task, Diddy and Dixie do certainly have a lot to prove, heading to the enemy homeland that is far more dangerous than their own island. Crossing an enemy infested pirate ship, rather quickly finding themselves in volcanic caverns, and even ending up in odder locales like a rundown theme park or the insides of giant bee hives, the couple have a much harder battle to not only save their friend but show they have what it takes to replace him as the headlining heroes.

 

Diddy and Dixie are quick and capable though, the two monkeys only able to take a single hit each but if you can find a DK Barrel and break it open you can bring back whichever one was knocked out. The two heroes-to-be do have a few differences in how they play, although you’ll very quickly come to realize that Dixie Kong is the far more useful of the two in this sometimes tricky and often challenging side-scrolling platformer. While Diddy is a fairly spry guy, his girlfriend makes incredible use of her long blonde ponytail, Dixie able to twirl it like a helicopter blade to slowly glide across gaps. This allows for greater precision when landing, makes vertical levels easier to explore as you can float down and search for secrets more easily, and she can even outright bypass small jumping challenges or more easily dodge boss attacks. It’s certainly not a bad thing to have her present and she doesn’t break open the game’s design because levels are smartly designed around her, but Diddy is a bit underwhelming by comparison. However, playing as him doesn’t feel like you’re getting a worse experience, control very smooth and level layouts often allowing you to plow ahead at speed if you are reactive enough to slip between baddies. When you have both, you can even do a team-up throw to get to places you couldn’t otherwise, a trick useful for secrets or just getting around a problem if you’re feeling clever.

Crocodile Isle is a hostile place, something represented well by its enemies being far more aggressive than what Diddy faced in the previous game. You do get a few foes like the Neeks who are just rats that walk around, but then you have foes like Klobber who hide in barrels you’d otherwise be able to pick up and throw, Kaboom in particular quite dangerous as he hides in TNT barrels and will charge at you to blow up. The spiky Zinger wasps fly about and often require good timing on your jumps or use of barrel cannons to get past without getting hurt, but underwater there new fiendish foes like Lockjaw who will lunge at you quickly after he spots you and Puftup the pufferfish who can explode and launch its spikes all about. The enemy design gives even a regular level some threats to overcome, but Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest also gets quite creative with the ways you’ll be tested. There are plenty of stages where it will test jumping skills and reactivity, but you also have levels where you ride in a roller coaster cart and have to hit time barrels to avoid the giant skeletal spirit Kackle from catching up and killing you. You’ll need to stick to honey coated surfaces to climb walls in the hornet nests, dodge danger as you ride wind up through a mineshaft, and even do some truly strange things like ride tiny hot air balloons across lava or leap across the constantly disappearing ghost ropes of Ghostly Grove. These gimmicks are almost always welcome and interesting complications that either introduce a new gameplay type or mix well with the regular action, and even when an idea doesn’t hit well like the slow barrel cannon maze of Bramble Blast, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest prefers to keep concepts unique to an area. Since the stages are already well-designed to test your ability to handle them, any future gimmick appearances often feel different thanks to new skills being tested than that idea’s last showing.

 

The animal buddies in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest are an interesting twist to the action as well, Diddy and Dixie not only able to hop aboard helpful animal friends at times but outright transform into them. While you see some returning faces like Enguarde the Swordfish who helps make underwater levels cleaner to navigate, the new and improved faces among the bunch feel like the real stars. Squawks the Parrot can fly and fire eggs, but he still is placed in levels that require precise movement so he’s freeing on one hand but still challenging to use because of where he appears. Rattly the Rattlesnake is given tall levels to spring around, but Squitter the Spider gives you the incredible ability to make your own platforms out of webbing, levels starring the goofy looking arachnid in sneakers often not reining in that power like they do Squawks’s but it’s rather exciting to be able to so easily move about in a game that usually won’t give you ways to slip so easily past a tough challenge.

 

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest isn’t just about reaching a level’s end though, as mentioned earlier there are Video Game Hero Coins to find as well as other collectables that keep you exploring stages at the same time you’re trying to survive whatever trials it throws at you. Every stage has 1 to 3 bonus stages to find by locating hidden barrels or breaking open entrances, and these are vastly improved from what was seen in the original Donkey Kong Country. The bonus games themselves are little challenges this time around, often involving overcoming a quick platforming test, collecting stars in a time limit, or beating all the baddies, the bonus games a nice little shift to a quicker action challenge after that time spent looking around. These bonuses are now crucial to find if you want to enter the Lost World, a place with the hardest levels in the game and the only means to see the game’s true ending. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest is remarkably good at guiding you or giving you hints in small unobtrusive ways, the floating bananas you usually collect to earn extra lives also able to indicate a possible secret nearby or even form letters to teach you the game controls if you didn’t read the manual. At the same time, there are characters you can visit that help out as well, the Banana Coins you collect in stages usable over with various Kong helpers. Swanky’s Bonus Bonanza is just a way to play quizzes and earn extra lives while Funky Kong lets you travel to previously beaten levels, but Cranky and his much kinder wife Wrinkly not only give you a way to save your game, but after you sit through some of Cranky’s humorous complaining about how games were much better in his days, you can buy tips. Wrinkly focuses more on understanding how the game works, but Cranky gives you riddles to help you uncover bonuses and Hero Coins, something that can help a bit as there are some admittedly bad hiding spaces on occasion. For example, the otherwise captivating concept of swimming through shipwrecks is let down a bit by the fact the secrets hidden in such stages often rely on you passing through the cargo to find them, there no indication which cargo can be passed through so you just rub against every surface in these stages and hope. Some later stages get very devious with the way they indicate something is nearby, but usually at least a single banana or suspicious enemy behavior can clue you in so that finding all the optional content is still a compelling quest despite the occasional whiff.

Already Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest is impressive in how much it was able to improve on the original, the quests for secrets more approachable while not losing its edge while the animal buddies and gimmicks managed to be more pronounced and effective in varying up the platforming. Perhaps the more shocking improvement though comes in the form of the soundtrack, the original Donkey Kong Country already a musical powerhouse in providing ambience and adventure and yet the follow-up manages to top it. The pirate theme the rechristened Kaptain K. Rool brings with him also leads to excellent tracks that capture the excitement for a swashbuckling adventure like Jib Jig or the foreboding danger of being on enemy territory like the music used for the game’s map screen. An interesting approach is taken though for some of the areas of the island you might think would be the most fearsome. While the danger of swimming in the dark comes through in something like Lockjaw’s Saga, when you find yourself in a bramble level where almost every surface is a deadly thorn, you are instead treated to the absolutely beautiful and serene Stickerbush Symphony. The dark haunted woods are underscored not by something to make you wary, but instead a dreamy echoing tune. Even songs like Hot-Head Hop and Bayou Boogie that will include sounds of volcanic bubbling or swamp insects as part of their ambient side still feel calming, the game seeming to balance out moments of intense danger with gentle music that help you avoid frustration as you die again and again. The gorgeous music will carry you to that final victory, and then when those tough trials are done, you can get more playful songs like the music made out of monkey sounds over at Cranky’s Monkey Museum to perk you up before the next challenge.

 

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest also surpasses the previous Donkey Kong adventures in terms of boss design as well, each one that caps off a world putting up a good fight. Focus is often put on weaving around incoming attacks until the boss gives you some means to fight back, usually something you can throw becoming available before you go back on the defensive. Whether you’re fighting a pirate vulture or a giant sword held by a lava hand, the boss fights tend to focus on quick and reactive platforming first and foremost, moving around to survive a natural transference from the way you play in regular levels even if some fights can end up being rather long if you miss your windows of opportunity. K. Rool himself can be particularly brutal in how much you have to gradually learn over his long fight, but DK barrels do mean its not all done just on two hits and one thing that allows Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest to remain an engaging and challenging adventure without dipping into frustration is there are usually enough checkpoints, DK barrels, or other little bits to help out so the danger never gets too oppressive. The most bothersome thing is probably just that you lose all your Banana Coins and extra lives save three when saving and quitting, something that can make tackling a truly difficult gauntlet like Animal Antics over in the Lost World a bit less manageable since all checkpoints are wiped out on a Game Over. Come in prepared for the truly tough stuff though and those final barriers to 102% completion can be incredibly satisfying to finally overcome.

THE VERDICT: Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest threads the needle again and again as it evolves that already excellent platforming of the original Donkey Kong Country. Levels bring in new elements that make for new but easily understood challenges that become even more robust as they mix with the ongoing quest to find hidden bonuses and Hero Coins. The animal buddies invigorate every level they’re added to, and the bosses ask you to be just as involved and reactive as you are during the regular stages. Exciting new locations with superb and sometimes shockingly beautiful music are peppered throughout while the game still has the good sense to put in little kindnesses like Dixie’s ponytail twirl to help alleviate some of the difficulty. The rare little miss in this package doesn’t mean Rare missed when conceiving of a varied yet remarkably smooth platformer.

 

And so, I give Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System…

A FANTASTIC rating. The soundtrack alone is an achievement, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest’s composer David Wise able to provide a brand new batch of beautiful background tracks as well as livelier and more upbeat tunes to set an interesting tone. Crocodile Isle isn’t just an enemy fortress, it’s a place where the Kremlings live, and while you see the dangers of that land and understand why they would want to invade somewhere nicer like in the previous game, you also see the areas of their homeland with beautiful natural sights or interesting creations like Krazy Kremland. You see the cost of their piratical lifestyle with the many sunken ships and rundown places, but you also aren’t made to loathe places like the swamp or volcanic caverns, the areas you explore keeping up Rare’s focus on trying to make level layouts feel almost natural or reasonably artificial. You leap over pits between rocky ledges rather than floating platforms, but riding roller coasters and climbing ship rigging also lead to a lot more level diversity in scope and what you need to do to traverse them as well. The level themes already bring a great deal to regular exploration before specific gimmicks shake things up, and even the weirder ideas fit in well. Most suggested improvements to the formula here would just be little bits of clean-up, the foundational mechanics so clean and simple yet flexible enough they can find fun new territory to briefly explore. There is definitely room for expansion and Diddy should probably get a little something so he doesn’t get outdone by his girlfriend in his self-titled game, but it’s not hard to see why people tend to label Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest as the best game out of all of the Donkey Kong series games.

 

Funnily enough though, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest was always in a bit of an odd spot for me. I had played the first Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong Country 3 a great deal when I was young and when I did end up owning the full trilogy on Game Boy Advance, they sort of blurred together into one full experience rather than three separate adventures. I was surprised how often I heard people proclaim it the best game of the bunch, but with a more critical eye now and some time sitting down with it separate from the others, it is a reputation I now easily understand. In fact, when I viewed the trilogy more as one whole, a lot of the ideas I enjoyed the most about them were first implemented or properly refined in this entry, and while you will certainly have a great time playing the whole Donkey Kong Country series, this entry is where Donkey Kong Country asserts itself as something with much more than superb platforming to keep you entertained.