Okay, so the iconic Donkey Kong Country launched in November 1994. After its stunning success, British developer Rare adapted it for Nintendo’s highly popular Game Boy handheld.
Donkey Kong Land promptly launched in the summer of 1995 and sold almost four million copies.
Naturally, it’s a big step behind the SNES version (technically and gameplay wise). But the chance to have a handheld version of DKC to take anywhere with you was irresistible. We had the game, it’s okay, but that’s better than you can ever imagine.
The Joys of Donkey Kong Land in Handheld Form
To mark the 30th anniversary of Donkey Kong Country, Nintendo has brought the Game Boy ports to the Switch’s Super Nintendo online collection. So, you can get to play DKL!
The main goal here is more nostalgic than anything else, as these Game Boy titles haven’t exactly aged gracefully. But there is a certain charm to playing through these older games now.
We had Donkey Kong Land—Rare and Nintendo launched it with a distinctive yellow cartridge case (rather than the bog standard grey ones you got). That helped mark it out in your collection.
As with Donkey Kong Country, the DKL is about touring through 30 levels to defeat baddie King K. Rool. That’s after the no good SOB has nabbed Donkey’s banana hoard.
A simple plot. In application on the Game Boy, it looked like this (this is the whole game by the way, lasting around 60 minutes).
PRIMITIVE stuff, then, even by 1995 standards. That was one of the things about being a Game Boy owner, you knew it was technologically behind the times. Yet it didn’t matter, as so many of the games were great fun. And you could play them anywhere!
Credit to Rare on this one, they did try to make Donkey Kong Land similar to DKC in so many ways, despite the condensed play time.
That even included a Game Boy version of David Wise’s iconic music Aquatic Ambience. Wise again worked on this music, heavily condensing his DKC score to fit on the handheld’s limited sound chip. This time with the help of young composer Graeme Norgate.
Despite Rare’s best efforts, the technical limitations of Nintendo’s handheld created problems. The British developer tried to cram a lot of detail in on screen and replicate those pre-rendered graphics from the SNES title.
The problem there is the Game Boy’s weird mix of beige and creamy colours played all hell with your mind. Seriously, go back and look at that trailer again… mind melting.
In cave levels, or the snow stages with multi-layered backgrounds, you have to strain your eyeballs to see where the kongs are. That can be frustrating and mean extended periods of play aren’t advised (unless you want a headache).
Curiously, this was no cash grab from Rare. They worked on DKL concurrently with DKC, with the developer adapting their Battletoads series game engine to manage Donkey and Diddy Kong.
As with Game Boy titles, this hasn’t aged well.
But back in 1995 it met with strong reviews and was named best Game Boy game of the year. Playing through it again on the Nintendo Switch and its limitations are painfully apparent, but it’s still an intriguing title to see in action. One heavily entrenched in Donkey Kong lore.
