 Not strong. Finally, it's time to look at the Donkey Kong Country series, a video that will no doubt piss off at least 80% of the viewing audience, and why is that? Because I didn't play these games as a kid, so many will feel that I don't love these games enough. There's zero nostalgia here, the goal is to be objective as possible, so try and keep that in mind as you're clicking the dislike button out of rage. Donkey Kong Country was a major massive deal when it came out just in time for Christmas in 1994. We'd only known Donkey Kong for the most part as a two-dimensional chest-pounding adversary to Mario in the original Donkey Kong arcade games. Donkey Kong Country sees him reinvented as a three-dimensional protagonist in a side-scrolling platformer, and the game opens up an entire Donkey Kong universe of characters from Sidekick Diddy Kong, to the hilarious Cranky Kong, to the final boss, the evil King K. Rule. This is a fully-realized world from start to finish. It has an artistic style unlike any other game you'd see anywhere, and not just from how the characters are rendered, but the backgrounds, the distinct color palette, and especially the music and sound design. The music from David Wise throughout the entire series is what makes this series as good as it is. I can't imagine playing these games without it. So yeah, the visual and audio presentation are more than okay throughout the series. The gameplay control and level layout are where things start to get murky. Let's start with the first game in the series, and man, some of you guys are gonna hate me, so I have to set this up by saying Donkey Kong Country, the first game, is a perfectly good game, but I do not think it's aged that well, especially with the improvements made in the later games. Here you play as Donkey Kong, who's big and lumbering, and the quicker, sprightly Diddy Kong. I should mention real quick that you can play all three of these games with a second player, but if I'm playing Donkey Kong Country, I'm fighting tooth and nail to play as Diddy Kong. Donkey Kong just feels like his sprite is a tad too big, and as a result his hitbox can be a bit wonky. And when you have a bigger, slower character and a platformer like this, there needs to be some momentum when stopping and starting. Hitting normal speed and stopping so quickly like that just doesn't feel natural in the slightest, and I think it's a problem. I feel like this is less of an issue with Diddy and later Dixie Kong, because they're smaller and quicker and there's a little more margin for error. Jumping and landing feels a lot more natural, especially with Dixie, but let me just say it's no coincidence that Donkey Kong was left out of the two sequels. Another issue I found with the first Donkey Kong Country is the small amount of screen real estate on certain levels. Sometimes it feels like you can outrun the camera. I mean it doesn't scroll vertically at the same rate of speed it does horizontally, which causes a lot of unexpected issues. It's not that big of a deal in most of the game, but in Ice Age Alley, wow. It's hard enough to have everything absurdly slippery, but the camera can't even follow where I'm going or allow me to see where I'm supposed to go. That is frustrating for the wrong reasons. I have to mention the boss fights in this game as well. You fight a big mole thing, a big vulture head thing, a wasp, an oil drum, a second big mole thing, and a second big vulture head thing before you get to the final boss. It's just kind of uninspired. The battle themselves are also very easy, which is a disappointment. Yeah, I know I'm being a bit hard on Donkey Kong Country. Please believe me when I say I don't think it's a bad game, but it's considered a classic and it's sold 9 million copies. It should be held to the highest possible standard. It is a perfectly good platformer on its own. There's some clever level design, especially with the shooting barrels. As hard as that stage is, I enjoy the timing-based gameplay here, and there's a certain rhythm to this game that once you adapt to it, it can be kind of addicting. I love all the companions that come across, like the rhino and the swordfish and spoiler alert. I love the fake-out ending in the final boss fight. That was great. And of course, you can't say enough about the soundtrack. It is fantastic. It's also fun not only to just mow through the game conventionally from start to finish, but to get the highest percentage possible by collecting as many items and by uncovering as many secrets as you can. The problem with this is that more often than not, the game just isn't intuitive on where some secrets are located. Like, I'm supposed to just jump down here? Why? How? Why can't I jump over here? Oh, there's nothing over here. How the hell am I supposed to know that? It is absurdly difficult to try and get 100% in this game. Ask anyone. You end up just falling down random pits, hoping to get lucky and find something. So yeah, Donkey Kong Country is fine, but I do not think it's as good as it's been hyped up to be over the years. And if you get the impression that I'm being too hard on it, it's because the second game, Diddy's Conquest, improves on it in every single way. Now this is a game that's aged fantastically because not only are the visual and audio presentation just as good, if not better, but the feel of the gameplay and the level design is much, much improved. They ditch Donkey Kong altogether for Dixie Kong, who can spin her ponytail in the air for a floating effect, not unlike how Mario can float with the cape in Super Mario World. So with both Diddy and Dixie as her playable characters, the focus of the level design is shifted to fit their capabilities, and it's a perfect match. They really nailed it here, making many of the levels here run vertically for a change. And that really helps de-emphasize what I talked about earlier with the lack of momentum when you start and stop moving because most of the time here you're jumping. Not only that, more importantly, the developers of Diddy's Conquest made the numerous secret areas and secret items a lot more intuitive to find, while still being a challenge to locate. It is a lot of fun, instead of being frustrating and seemingly random in the previous game. You know how some writers will start with an ending to a story and then work backwards? The hidden items and areas in this game kind of remind me of that. It's like they thought of ideas where to hide things and design the levels around them. Another change in Diddy's Conquest is that the items you obtain aren't just to run up your completion percentage, you need certain items to save your progress, unlock other areas on the world map, or just help make your journey a tad easier because, oh, this game is pretty dang tough. Just look at Bramble Scramble, wow. Or clobber carnage, ugh. There's also levels like Web Woods where you morph into your sneaker-wearing spider companion and slowly make your way across a dangerous area, creating your own unstable platforms as you go. And I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up animal antics, good lord. Here you morph into each of your five companions and the parrots section might be the hardest in the entire series, it is brutal. Anyway, other aspects of the gameplay and level design are tweaked as well, like for example, you have a bit more control of the barrels in sections like this. The boss battles are also a huge improvement from the first game. They're a tad more creative and a little challenging while still being fun. So yeah, the best Donkey Kong Country game on the Super Nintendo is Diddy's Conquest without a shadow of a doubt. It's a top 10 and maybe even a top five game on the system. So how do you top that? Well, Donkey Kong Country 3, Dixie Kong's Double Trouble certainly gave it a try. This is a very, very ambitious game. Some of it works and some of it doesn't. To put it one way, this game feels like a band that gets sick of playing conventional rock music, so they want a quote-unquote experiment and man, they really go far here. There's tons of ideas thrown out there and while I appreciate the gameplay variety, it's not all that cohesive and some levels are just downright ridiculous, like Rocket Rush. I mean, what is this? You're awkwardly floating around in this barrel rocket thing. The controls are weird and it just feels completely out of place. Then there's levels like Poisonous Pipeline where the poison gas reverses your controls to where pressing up goes down and pressing left goes right and I just, why? Why? Just for the sake of doing it, I guess. It's not even that it's difficult, it's just annoying and again, out of place. There are a few other bizarre levels like that in this game and it's a shame too because so many of the other levels in this game are fantastic. I like Riverside Race where you speed run across land at sea to avoid getting chased down by a group of angry bees and I thought Loji Labyrinth was pretty cool too, which as you'd expect, has you floating around in low gravity. The secret areas and hidden items are fun too, a lot better than the first game but not quite as fun as the second game and I think that's because Dixie Kong's Double Trouble is really hard, the toughest of the three in my opinion. It takes a long time to get good at this game so if you wanna get 100% buckle up. I'll admit it might feel more rewarding to get that 100% in Donkey Kong Country 3 but you'll have a more fun time getting there in the second game. I also really like the open world aspect of the world map. It makes the game feel like Donkey Kong Country the RPG. It's really well done. There's all new bonus areas and characters for you to visit and stuff for you to unlock. The visuals in this game are spectacular, the best in the series. Like just look at the forest background here for example, wow. Of course David Wise's soundtrack is up to par and the level design like I said earlier is usually up to the task but there are some levels in this game that just make you shake your head. I get that they're going for gameplay variety but it's just too ambitious for its own good. And speaking of head scratchers, one odd decision was ditching Diddy Kong for Cousin Kitty Kong. Again, why? Just for the sake of having another new character? So yeah, if you're still with me, let me sum up. Donkey Kong Country is a fine game. Repeat, a fine game. I don't hate it and I certainly don't hate it for the sake of hating it to be different but it just hasn't aged very well because of the stiff platforming physics behind the Donkey Kong sprite, the lack of intuition to finding hidden areas and the boring boss fights. Diddy's Kong Quest is by far the best of the three games because the level design not only matches Diddy and Dixie's capabilities perfectly but because the secrets and hidden items are so much better designed and player friendly and that gives the game more of an addicting quality. Dixie Kong's double trouble is very good. It's better than the first game but you get the feeling the game bit off more than it could chew. There's some really strange levels here and it's also brutally difficult. Just look at lightning lookout, yikes. Anyway, obviously my pick for the best in the series is Diddy's Kong Quest. I think it's the most fun of the three by far. The team of Diddy and Dixie is just perfect and like I said, it's an easy contender for a top 10 and maybe a top five Super Nintendo game.