Donkey Kong Land III (Game Boy)
Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble! managed to earn itself a reputation as the more gimmicky entry in the original Donkey Kong Country trilogy, and while that did mean most of its platforming levels had some standout mechanic that can make for an overall varied experience, if the gimmick wasn’t the best it could lead to an unfocused level. When it came to make a Game Boy counterpart for the third entry like Rare had done with the previous two games though, they faced a different problem than they did with Donkey Kong Land and Donkey Kong Land 2. They didn’t seem interested in making a wholly new adventure, but they also couldn’t copy the SNES game too closely like they had with Donkey Kong Land 2. What this resulted in is Donkey Kong Land III taking inspiration from Donkey Kong Country 3 but not having the horsepower to manifest its many gimmicks, a greater focus on universal level design elements coming to the forefront. It could almost be seen as something like a more reserved take on this adventure, but when a game was first designed around a wide variety of ideas, removing them can leave you with little left to chew on.
Donkey Kong Land III does present a new plot compared to Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble!, the adventure possibly not even taking place in the Northern Kremisphere. Donkey Kong and Diddy have learned of a contest to find the Lost World and rushed out to find it without much thought, this Lost World seemingly a new one that the group of apes has not visited before. However, in their eagerness, the two heroic primates have left Dixie Kong alone again, the monkey once more saddled with the gorilla toddler Kiddy Kong. Not wanting to miss out on the contest herself, Dixie lugs the not-so-little ape along, and while this set-up sounds like it might be more a matter of exploring this new region rather than dealing with old foes, the crocodilian Kremlings are present too and just as happy to hinder this less serious adventure. There really isn’t too much to the adventuring and story from there, the player mostly selecting stages from the map with none of the greater involvement of navigation found in the SNES counterpart and fairly few familiar faces to talk to, mostly just the elderly Wrinkly Kong present to save your game. A good bit of the game lacks that familiar personality that makes Donkey Kong Country 3 special and you technically aren’t even told about the major villains until you’re suddenly fighting them, but at least even on the Game Boy the sometimes jaunty and jolly tunes come through even if some of the more atmospheric ones feel lacking when relying on beeps and boops.
In this platforming adventure, Dixie Kong’s rampant outclassing of her adventuring companions has perhaps reached its apex. Kiddy Kong’s only unique skill is the ability to take out one very specific enemy, the burly croc Krumple, by jumping on him, although Dixie will safely bounce off him if she tries. Kiddy does carry barrels in front of him instead of overhead, but Dixie’s carried barrels still can hit people in front of her so it doesn’t necessary give much of an edge in most situations either. Dixie, on the other hand, still has her helicopter spin, a twirl of her ponytail allowing her to slowly glide across gaps and there are even some areas you can only reach if she is who you’re playing as. Each Kong can only take one hit before you need to find a DK Barrel to bring them back so preserving Dixie is crucial if you want to explore every inch of a level, but without skills like the team throw and thankfully the odd water skipping he had over on the SNES, Kiddy’s role here seems to mostly be the spare life you have before you swap in Dixie for the challenging moments.
Not counting the boss fights, Donkey Kong Land III has 36 levels to explore, and whether you are crossing piers, scaling the insides of hollowed out trees, running through factories, or swimming through coral reefs, the main thing you’ll have to worry about are the enemies in your path. There is a good range of baddies in this adventure, from the explosive Klasps who hang from the same ropes you need to traverse to the underwater Lurchins who prove to be prickly hazards while swimming, but without levels strongly based around any one foe, you’re usually getting a somewhat scattershot sample platter of dangers to overcome as you navigate a stage. This can lead to some interesting combos, the Lemguins, penguins who burst out of a hole in a constant flow, can be placed in any old snow level as a sudden hazard instead of a level-defining danger, and the bomb throwing Kuchukas aren’t relegated to only a small late game showing like they were in the SNES adventure. Some levels do feel like they’re missing some standout element, you’ll head to a mill level and then a stage or two later go to another that might as well be doing the same thing, but there are still some gimmicks that managed to work on the Game Boy. You’ll get to hop into a toboggan and try to jump over things like the saw-bearing Buzz bees to survive as you race forward automatically, conveyor belt vines force you to leap off at the right time so they don’t pull you into trouble, and while unfortunately the Ghost Barrels are back and the challenge is still just to jump into them when they’re pointed the right way or die for being wrong, Donkey Kong Land III also has a few moments where levels try something completely new from what was brought over from DKC3. Vertigo Verge for example is a level where you start at the top of a mountain and need to carefully drop down, the level smartly designed so you’re always looking for the small clues on where it’s safe to fall… something that oddly enough isn’t carried into other mountainside levels where Donkey Kong Land III sometimes does ask you to do blind jumps where being a bit off can lead to injury.
Many levels have a simple flow of pushing forward and spotting an enemy and needing to immediately react, and this works well enough to make the basic platforming simple but somewhat entertaining. However, the levels are made richer by hiding a few secrets that need to be found, and while looking for the barrel cannons and coin-bearing Koin enemies adds a necessary layer to many stages to increase how interesting they are, the bonuses themselves are unfortunately, more often than not, uninspired. Koin has it pretty rough, the Kremling trying to guard himself with a shield you’re meant to circumvent with a barrel throw to get the collectable DK Coin he carries, but most levels barely require you to search for him or think about how you take him out, the underwater levels perhaps best off since the coin is just hidden instead of requiring the uninteresting Koin kill to earn. Bonus barrels take you to a small area to quickly complete a challenge, be it something like finding the Bonus Coin, defeating all the baddies, or collecting all the floating stars, but a surprising amount of these, even later in the adventure, are so easy you barely have to think or they may literally play themselves. There are some that are more involved and can provide a brief platforming challenge, although playing the star grabbing game can run into some graphical issues when set in a place like a snow level. Mostly, Donkey Kong Land III seems to sort of understand it shouldn’t make cluttered backgrounds only to break it in specific level archetypes and lead to those moments you can’t see small collectibles or even vital elements like crumbling rock platforms, but the game did get a Japanese-only Game Boy Color release called Donkey Kong GB: Dinky Kong and Dixie Kong (Dinky being Kiddy’s Japanese name) that would make such things easier to spot. The limited Game Boy screen size is likely behind the general play flow of moving forward and needing to be ready for whatever enemy you see rather than having more dynamic or involved challenges, and while it almost doesn’t bear mentioning, there is also a bear you can talk to at the Sheepy Shop in each world to play a quick and easy Memory game for some easy collectibles too.
Some stages do feature special sections where you will play as an animal buddy instead of Dixie or Kiddy, these other animals having some unique abilities to shake up the gameplay in a mostly appreciated way. Ellie the Elephant has water in her trunk at all times this go around, making her segments almost more about sniping otherwise pesky enemies like the Buzzes for easier traversal than you would have as the Kongs. Squawks the Parrot comes with flight and a projectile attack that can shake up how you traverse a space, and Enguarde the speedy Swordfish not only makes swimming smoother but gives you a way to attack aquatic foes who otherwise couldn’t be dealt with. Squitter the Spider though suffers a fair bit on the Game Boy, the player able to shoot spider silk to attack but you can also transform a web into a platform by pressing select. The reach for the button makes it hard to do naturally, and sometimes you need to make many platforms in a row even though the previous one you made will quickly disappear. With the console screen being small and these web platform climbs tedious and often above quite a fall, it pains me to say that I actually was relieved to end Squitter segments when he has otherwise been perhaps the best animal buddy in the past. The others thankfully just add some appreciated variety in a game that could have used more of it, there still spice enough to make sure you’re experiencing new things every few levels even if there isn’t always a strong focus or defining element to latch onto.
Even the bosses feel like they can’t quite reach their potential because of compromises and a lack of imagination. Bleak, the snowman you face in a snowball fight over in Donkey Kong Country 3, now just stands off to the left and fires snowballs from his hat until a barrel appears that you throw at him. However, at least there is usually a decent challenge still present in a boss’s concept even when it’s pretty plain, Arich the spider for example firing little poison balls that bounce around his arena that require proper anticipation and reaction to overcome. However, he also joins a few other bosses in the issue where you do need to jump at him at some point but there are points jumping on him will hurt you and it’s not visually clear when that is. You will learn quickly how it works with each boss but at the cost of damage and some foes like the final boss can head off screen to deny you vital visual info, but most of their issues can be accounted for without making the fight too hard or too easy once you know what’s going on.
In a bit of an interesting late game touch, there is a small Time Attack mode to unlock if you want to get full game completion. 12 levels from the main game are presented, one for each archetype, and you are asked to try and beat a specific time to earn your way towards the true ending. The Time Attack challenges do lean into the game’s smart decision to enhance a level through extra tasks, the new focus on speed encouraging you to learn a layout and how best to slip through it, and besides the Coral level leaning on a hidden barrel cannon for beating the time instead of honing your skills and figuring out natural routes, this is a nice condensed final challenge that allows for some levels to end up having a spark they might have lacked in the first run through. The game even almost had the subtitle “The Race Against Time”, and while trying to speed through every stage might have sanded down some of their more interesting elements, keeping it limited to just around 1/3 of the available levels instead gives a more unique challenge in a game in need of more diverse play.
THE VERDICT: Donkey Kong Land III can’t find its stride. It can usually lay out decent enough levels and sometimes get a little creative with how it mixes enemies or flirts with a gimmick here and there, but it also feels confined by the tight borders of the Game Boy screen. When a boss breaks the borders it makes for an annoying fight, when a level tries to get you moving too fast it can lead to blindsiding from off-screen dangers. Donkey Kong Land III usually keeps itself under control though, more levels at least having fun but simple platforming challenges enhanced by the collectibles that add some needed depth to them, but basic bonus games and moments lacking in direction also get in the way of a good time a bit too often to earn this game a good grade.
And so, I give Donkey Kong Land III for Game Boy…
An OKAY rating. You can have a good stretch of time in Donkey Kong Land III where you are hopping and bopping through levels, poking around for the collectibles and facing some interesting ideas, but you’ll be brought back down to earth by parts where the design team either didn’t try too hard to make something unique or didn’t want to compromise the iconic series look for the sake of a better play experience. Admittedly, seeing a boss like Arich who was a giant on the SNES reduced to something almost as tall as Dixie does show the price of compromise in favor of playability, but despite the game featuring brand new level designs, it still feels like it is shackled because it can’t be as ambitious or playful as Donkey Kong Country 3. This isn’t like Donkey Kong Land 2 where it hewed too close to its inspiration and floundered when it couldn’t, Donkey Kong Land III kind of knew it couldn’t be the same but sometimes struggled to fill the space it had. There are interesting levels that make good use of the ingredients DKC3 provided, but to bump up the level and bonus count we also got a lot of plain or dull designs. Koin really is a good example of the design not knowing what to do with the framework provided, and while the standard platforming can usually get by thanks to generally good enemy design, it feels difficult to praise this adventure for long without having to bring up an unfortunate downside.
If you do want to play Donkey Kong Land III, the Game Boy Color version might clear away a few issues but not some of the core ones. However, those core issues also don’t demand much work to get through, the player no doubt a bit bothered by the weaker levels but able to press on and see the moments where things are clicking together nicely. Donkey Kong Land III feels like it needed a bit more humility, a good sense of knowing where it couldn’t realize an idea, but it does at least show it has some sense for it more often than not. Those moments where it refused to adjust for reality will sting, but this platforming adventure can still avoid bad marks because the baseline quality is still fairly decent.