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Donkey Kong Country Series


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That's great news! DKC 2 deserves to be on every system I own. As for the whole removal situation, I still hastily fire up Twitter every day to see if any news of a HD collection emerges, it never does. :red:

 

Agreed, Donkey Kong Country 2 still remains one of the best platformers ever to grace a console, it had the perfect mix of fun characters, great level design and challanging secrets. Id love to see an HD collection and it seems to be rumoured every other day, maybe it will show up on the WiiU store...

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With the Diddy Kong Racing discussion going on in the Wii U board, this getting a bump the other day and my desire to play through games that remind me of the glory days of Nintendo, I decided to play through these gems again.

 

I started playing after finishing Super Mario World and finished the final game this morning. Let the journey begin.

 

DKC

 

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Let's start with the music in this game. It's an obvious thing to be brought up, and has been done many times, but that's a testament to just how good it is.

 

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When firing the game up I actually just sat and listened to the opening theme for a while. I love how it starts with a retro style tune and then kicks in with a few beats.

 

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This is a song that I was never really fussed about back in the day but I found myself loving it this time around. I actually looked forward to playing the bonus stages just for this tune.

 

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Easily the best Funky Kong track in the trilogy. None of the other games came close to topping this.

 

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Hands down one of the best pieces of end boss battle music in a platformer. When it first kicks in around the 30 second mark and again at the 1:15 mark it's fantastic.

 

and of course...

 

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A lot of fans of the series will rate this as their favourite tune. I do enjoy it but I have other favourites.

 

Now to move on to the levels. Man, some of them were brutal on me. I was certainly rusty as I was getting killed left, right and centre at the start. The first mine cart level took me numerous attempts as I just couldn't get the timing down on the jumps. The same goes for the jumping Kritters. I felt like Cranky and that I should just leave it for the young ones to play. :D

 

I finally found my feet and started to make great progress through the game. I wouldn't move on though until I found all the secret exits but was stopped in my tracks by the Orang-Utan Gang level. I could not for the life of me find all of the exits and it took several run throughs of the level until I managed to shake the old nogging and find them.

 

The boss fights in the first game really let it down. They are so easy and uninspired, especially Boss Dumb drum. What were Rare thinking? To be fair though it was the same with the second game and the problem wasn't sorted out until the final game was released.

 

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DKC2

 

With the first game behind me, I was set for my next adventure and loaded up the next instalment of the series.

 

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The quality of the music in this game is where it peaked in the series, IMO. Some of the tunes are simply magical and you just don't get these type of tunes in games any more.

 

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A nice little piratey ( that even a word? :) ) style song greets you at the opening screen.

 

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Their feels like a great sense of urgency and fear form this song once it kicks in.

 

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Another pirate style song that is quite jaunty. You can easily imagine some kind of Riverdance style dancing going along side with this. :D

 

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A a nice slow/tranquil song that made riding the balloons that little bit better. :wink:

 

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A great industrial style song. You can easily imagine some kind of music video with blacksmiths hammering hot steel to the beat.

 

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No need to say anything about this masterpiece really. :hug:

 

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The level that this is on just makes things worse. The music keeps speeding up and it's making you fly faster and faster until you finally crash into some brambles. :nono:

 

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This may be my favourite song it the game. It's a toss up between this and Stickerbrush...

 

I could go on and on with more and more examples but i'll move on. Oh, one final thing. I always tried to make Dixie hit the barrel at the end just so I could hear this.

 

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Gameplay wise this is by far the hardest of the trilogy. Certain levels butchered me and took precision jumping and timing to make it through. It didn't help that I started this one after playing Super Mario World where I was used to jumping and holding the button to float. I kept doing this with Dixie, only to have her fall to her death. :laughing:

 

One level had me tearing my hair out....if I had any. This is why I have a beard for such occasions. Animal Antics was making me rage while playing it. I could get to the Squawk section but the winds kept blowing me all over the place. I finally managed to get to the Rattly section but then mistimed a jump and died. I got there again and then made it to the barrel but forgot it was an automatic one and got shot to my death. :red: My heart was racing by the time I actually beat it.

 

Finally the game was over and I was on to the final part of the trilogy.

 

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DKC3

 

This is probably the weakest in terms of music but the best for me in terms of gameplay. It's usually called the worst out of trilogy but it has always been my favourite. On we go...

 

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The best opening out of all of the games.

 

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This tune sounds very much like it's from Banjo Kazooie. :hehe:

 

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I quite like the haunting theme that plays thoughout this tune.

 

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Another haunting song but this time from the underwater level.

 

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The factory theme from the game. Quite a good tune that builds up nicely and also hints at the future of Banjo Kazooie.

 

I love how the bonus barrels were easier to find in this game. There was always one before the halfway point and one after. Also, the game often gave you a DK barrel if you need 2 people to reach the bonus stages.

 

The levels are a nice difficulty in this game. It's harder than the first game but easier than the second. They got it just right on the last attempt, although one level did cause me issues.

 

Stampede Sprint was another pain in the butt and kicked my backside many times over. Once I started pegging it with Ellie everything was a massive blur. It was really hard to keep focused and make the necessary jumps. I finally made it to the end only to have lost Parry near the end. To make things worse Ellie turned in to the steel keg and I placed it down to scope the area out first before moving on. When I went back the the keg had gone and I had no way to get the DK Coin. Back through the level I went. :angry:

 

I love the Zelda reference in this game. It was such a nice touch.

 

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All done!

 

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One thing I liked about the ending to these games, and Super Mario World for that matter, is you get a good look at all the enemies that you encountered during your adventures.

 

 

So many good memories came flooding back while playing though these games. A simpler time where there was no online, no gamerscores, no bickering over the internet or looking for help on Gamefaqs. It was just a boy and his joypad and his own wits enjoying some pure gaming fun. Happy days!

 

I'm enjoying my trip down memory lane and with Super Mario World and these games done it's on to Zelda: A Link To The Past. Let the SNES revolution continue!

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I'm enjoying my trip down memory lane and with Super Mario World and these games done it's on to Zelda: A Link To The Past. Let the SNES revolution continue![/center]

 

I'm playing Super Mario World on the VC too and it's still unbelievably good :yay:

 

I'll probably never go for full completion of the DKC games as, for whatever reason, I've never felt compelled to.. even the original, which is one of my favourite games of all time :eek: I may join you in playing through A Link to the Past, though, as I've had a desire to play it recently as it's a game I've only ever got a part of the way through. It's about time I played it to the end :heh:

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Kudos to beating all three of the games with the full percentages. Especially DKC3 which has a TON of bonus content. Loved that game a ton but they all add up to a stunning trilogy. I always dip back into these titles now and then on the VC and they are still timeless in the same way that classic Nintendo titles are.

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Good shout Cap'n.

 

Still amazes me how good Rare's ACM titles sounded. Many games don't sound as good today. The actual written music also has a 'soundtrack' quality about them too. Just brilliant.

 

Haven't you heard the awesome remix from OCR's latest album of that tune?

 

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I'm not going to lie, I didn't enjoy that very much Fused.

 

Blending in a couple of other tracks from the DKC games wasn't as strange as I thought it would have sounded if I'd only read about it but they went overboard with some of the pan pipes bits. Parts of it reminded me of Retro's redoing of Northern Hemisphere and the other tracks that feature in the Cliff world... but just not as good. And where was the bass in the guitar bits?

 

I'll stick to the original I think.

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  • 8 months later...

So.

 

The hold music at work....I have come across a song that sounds like a DKC song (although I don't remember which track....underwater one?)

 

I spoke to the director of customer services (ooool) and was like "I have a weird question", anyway, he was able to give me a list of the songs, so I've just gone through them and found it.

 

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This week a lad at work was whistling a tune whilst working in the lab. I recognised it as Jib Jig from DKC2. The lad was very impressed that I knew what it was but I was more impressed that someone I work with knew the tune so well to whistle it!

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This got us talking about how fantastic the series is, especially the music. I told him about a video I watched a couple of months back and figured I would post it here. I don’t think I mentioned on the forums anywhere when I originally viewed it. 

I watched it again today and once again I enjoyed listening to Liam’s view on the music that David Wise composed and the lasting effect it had on most of us who played the games. It also solidifies my opinion that music in games plays a MASSIVE part in my enjoyment and my ability to remember them in a meaningful way.

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15 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

It also solidifies my opinion that music in games plays a MASSIVE part in my enjoyment and my ability to remember them in a meaningful way.

Totally agree.

CLEANSING FLAMES IS THE OOOOONLYYYY WAY TOOOO REPEEEEENT
RENOUNCE WHAT MADE YOOOOUUU

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WORDS THAT KILL
WOULD YOU SPEAK THEM TO ME?

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11 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

This week a lad at work was whistling a tune whilst working in the lab. I recognised it as Jib Jig from DKC2. The lad was very impressed that I knew what it was but I was more impressed that someone I work with knew the tune so well to whistle it!

giphy.gif

This got us talking about how fantastic the series is, especially the music. I told him about a video I watched a couple of months back and figured I would post it here. I don’t think I mentioned on the forums anywhere when I originally viewed it. 

I watched it again today and once again I enjoyed listening to Liam’s view on the music that David Wise composed and the lasting effect it had on most of us who played the games. It also solidifies my opinion that music in games plays a MASSIVE part in my enjoyment and my ability to remember them in a meaningful way.

That's so awesome! It's amazing when that actually happens IRL!

And yes, that video is rad! Defo worth a watch!

This one is also really cool, breaking down how the chord progression works with various songs in the DKC series...

But yeah, music is a BIG part of what makes games so enjoyable and memorable (much moreso than the visuals in many cases).  There are plenty of good games that have utterly unmemorable music, and they are much harder to really remember and reminisce with; concurrently though, there are really shit games out there with fantastic music, and you will remember them whether you like it or not! :D 

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26 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

There are plenty of good games that have utterly unmemorable music, and they are much harder to really remember and reminisce with; concurrently though, there are really shit games out there with fantastic music, and you will remember them whether you like it or not! :D 

Or the worse case, a really awful game with really awful music that you can't ever purge from your memory!

God, I hate you, Sonic Chronicles. You and your awful low-fi 30 second loops!

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