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Post by Discoalucard on Jan 5, 2014 23:39:11 GMT -5
www.hardcoregaming101.net/donkeykongcountry/donkeykongcountry.htmA full review of all of the Donkey Kong Country-related games - which is to say, all of the platformers - including the SNES trilogy, the Game Boy trilogy, Donkey Kong 64, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, and Donkey Kong Country Returns. Since I was a Sega kid I really didn't have much exposure to these until years after their releases, when the graphics appeared really dated. They're far more solid than the typical European platformer, even if they're a little straightforward. And Donkey Kong Country 2 easily has one of the best video game soundtracks in existence.
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Post by TheGunheart on Jan 6, 2014 2:01:56 GMT -5
And Donkey Kong Country 2 easily has one of the best video game soundtracks in existence. I think one of favorites was the Gangplank Galleon theme. I just love how it started with the first part of DKC's final boss theme before picking up the tempo and adding an additional melody. Gotta admit though...even though the graphics haven't aged that well, screenshots really do them no favors, as I recall the animation actually being pretty good.
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Post by The Great Klaid on Jan 6, 2014 7:43:16 GMT -5
Am I the only who still thinks they look good?
I've mentioned on here before that I came late to the party and as a result I still don't see the big deal. With the first game at least. I should get around to try out the other two. I did like the Land games a whole ton as a kid. Back when I had a Gameboy, and a friend of my Mom's had all these games she'd let me borrow from her.
Even weirder is I have a buddy who still says he'd much rather play Donkey Kong 64 over Banjo Kazooie. He also says he'd rather pound nails into his nostrils than play Banjo Kazooie, and he bought Donkey Kong 64 from me. Also, we really like to exaggerate. Sort of a game we play.
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Post by megamoronx on Jan 6, 2014 9:14:03 GMT -5
Am I the only who still thinks they look good? In general, prerendered graphics look ugly as hell. That being said, the DKC still looks pretty great. Anyway, I'm a pretty big fan of this series. I remember totally getting caught up in the hype for the game, thanks in large to Nintendo Power's making of video they sent out. I was very invested in the 16-bit wars, on Nintendo's side and that era was when it felt like things were really starting to turn in Nintendo's favor, between games like Super Metroid, Final Fantasy III, s superior port of Mortal Kombat II...by the time we got to DKC, it just felt like they were showing off. I will say that DK64 was the drizzling shits though and killed any love I had for the 3D platformer.
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Post by Ace Whatever on Jan 6, 2014 9:53:55 GMT -5
Some corrections:
The index labels page 4 as page 3 in pages 3, 5, 6, 7.
Page 3 "the expert use lighting, fog, and other"
Page 7 "or duck and blow a gust a wind"
There's also an annoying inconsistency with the articles: There's no mention of the plot for the first 3 DKC games or Returns, but Land and 64 get their plot mentioned and Kremlins are named dropped left and right with no explanation (to the point of Returns being ragged on for not even including them). Jungle Beat doesn't seem to have a plot from what I looked up, but even that needs to be at least acknowledged in the article.
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Post by Malev on Jan 6, 2014 11:29:01 GMT -5
It should be mentioned that DK64 wasn't the first to use the Expansion Pak, only that it was the first and one of the few titles that required the pak. The reason for the pack-in with the game was because Rare could not find the source of the fatal crashes for the game but found that they only occured when the Expansion Pak wasn't used. Supposedly it cost Rare and Nintendo millions, though sales were enough to cover it. DK 64 seemed to acquire more hardware-related specialties, including a special-color system bundle ("Jungle Green") and a JPN-only banana controller. Also the Japanese box art since it looks different: There's a few volumes of a DKC manga in Japan published in CoroCoro, but I haven't looked into enough info on it:
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Post by Narushima on Jan 6, 2014 12:37:27 GMT -5
Donkey Kong Country Returns: "Wiimore/Nunchuck" > Although Wiimore sounds like a great peripheral, that should be Wiimote. "K. Rool and his horde are exhumed completely from the franchise here." > Exhumed means "dug out from the ground". What is meant here is the exact opposite, since the K. Rool gang has NOT been brought back.
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Post by TheChosen on Jan 6, 2014 17:48:04 GMT -5
Wait, there were whole books based on these games?!
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Post by nickz on Jan 6, 2014 18:01:48 GMT -5
Wait, there were whole books based on these games?! There were a few novels based on these games. One of them was called Rumble In The Jungle. I owned that one when I was a kid.
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Post by vnisanian2001 on Jan 6, 2014 18:22:24 GMT -5
Best game: Donkey Kong Country 3. Rare knew this would be the last DKC game on the SNES, they went all out with this one.
Best soundtrack: Donkey Kong Country 2. Love David Wise!
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Post by Revolver Ocelot on Jan 6, 2014 18:55:44 GMT -5
Some corrections: There's also an annoying inconsistency with the articles: There's no mention of the plot for the first 3 DKC games or Returns, but Land and 64 get their plot mentioned and Kremlins are named dropped left and right with no explanation (to the point of Returns being ragged on for not even including them). Jungle Beat doesn't seem to have a plot from what I looked up, but even that needs to be at least acknowledged in the article. The plots of the first three games are as follows: DKC1: Crocodiles stole my bananas. I want those back. DKC2: Crocodiles stole the hero of the last game. I want him back. DKC3: Crocodiles stole the heroes of the previous two games. I want them back. There are no prologues or cutscenes in any of the games, and the games launch you into the first levels of the game with no mention of your characters' motivations, probably because kids just wanted to go in and play back then. And yes, a lot of games that didn't have in-game stories had fleshed out stories outside of the games, but there's nothing in DKC so outlandish or interesting enough to make you wonder what the story is like, say, Earthworm Jim. DK64 was the first game that had a story worth mentioning, and appropriately so as cinematics and narrative had gotten exponentially more important in video games in the intervening years.
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Post by chronotigger65 on Jan 6, 2014 20:03:04 GMT -5
Some games have been left out that have the Donkey Kong Country cast in them (maybe not all of them.) They may not have the DKC title on them but they probably should be looked at.
Gamecube: Donkey Konga Donkey Konga 2
GBA: DK: King of Swing
DS: Donkey Kong: Jungle Climber
Wii: Donkey Kong: Barrel Blast
I've only played DK: King of Swing and maybe tried the DS one so I don't know about the remainder.
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Post by mrcrispy83 on Jan 6, 2014 21:21:04 GMT -5
I think the DKC 1 part should explain in a bit more detail why the bosses are bad (larger versions of normal enemies, and still are reused/palette swapped). Maybe talk about the bosses in the later games a bit too, since the only other thing that mentions them is in the DKL section and just says that they changed/reused some of them.
Mention of "Kirby's Dream Land" under the DKC3 section might should be clarified to "Kirby's Dream Land 3" (even though it's the only KDL on the system, and KSS has a more typical look)
I think that the article might should mention the cheats. At the very least, that in DKC3 you need to play with the cheats to turn the checkpoint/DK barrels off to get the last 2% needed to get the maximum 105% completion rate.
Also the DKC competition cart is probably worth mentioning briefly too.
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Post by megamoronx on Jan 6, 2014 21:39:18 GMT -5
While we're all nitpicking, the DKC 2 article could use a screenshot of the awards stand at the end of the game with Mario, Yoshi and Link.
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Post by Discoalucard on Jan 6, 2014 21:52:35 GMT -5
Some games have been left out that have the Donkey Kong Country cast in them (maybe not all of them.) They may not have the DKC title on them but they probably should be looked at. Gamecube: Donkey Konga Donkey Konga 2 GBA: DK: King of Swing DS: Donkey Kong: Jungle Climber Wii: Donkey Kong: Barrel Blast I've only played DK: King of Swing and maybe tried the DS one so I don't know about the remainder. None of those are platformers, which is what the article covers.
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