Partridge Senpai's 2024 Beaten Games:
Previously:
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
* indicates a repeat
1~50
51.
Adventures of Lolo (Famicom)
52.
Adventures of Lolo 2 (NES)
53.
Adventures of Lolo II (Famicom)
54.
Adventures of Lolo 3 (NES)
55.
Kickle Cubicle (NES)
56.
Adventures of Lolo (GB)
57.
Cocoron (Famicom)
58.
The Darkness (PS3)
59.
Haze (PS3)
60.
Animaniacs (GB)
61.
Lair (PS3)
62.
Bionic Commando (PS3)
63.
Donkey Kong Land (GB)
64.
Darkwing Duck (NES)
65. Donkey Kong Land III (GBC)
Continuing my journey through the GameBoy Donkey Kong Country spin-offs, this was next on the docket (as the second game in the series hadn’t arrived in the mail yet <w>). This is *technically* a different game than the English version, as rather than being a normal old GameBoy game, Rare spent another two or so years turning it into a full blown GameBoy Color game. The end content is the exact same as far as the gameplay and levels are concerned, so far as I’ve read, but the game is all in color (looking much like a Super GameBoy-enhanced normal GameBoy game, really) with some light music and sound touchups here and there. It took me around 3.5 hours to 97% complete (everything but the time trials at the end) the Japanese version of the game on emulated hardware without using save states or rewinds.
The story to this game is a bit odd, though more so in execution than in actual content. A mysterious person has offered a big prize for the first people to find a fabled “Lost World”, and DK and Diddy have already set out to find it. Not to be left behind, Dixie and her cousin Kiddy (or, as he’s known in Japanese, “Dinky”) Kong are hot on their heels to find it first! This is once again basically entirely in the manual rather than in the actual game, but it doesn’t super matter regardless. It’s not like we usually go to Donkey Kong games, let alone GameBoy ones, for the story, after all <w>
That said, while it’s similar in flavor to DKC3, as it’s a Dixie & Dinky adventure without DK and Diddy (where they fight K. Rool at the end), the other characters present are very different. It might be more accurate to say the characters absent rather than those present, really, as the only NPCs you’ll find are Wrinkly Kong to save your game and generic bear NPCs (rather than all the different bear characters in DKC3) who let you play a matching game for certain collectibles. These NPCs have *very* reduced dialogue compared to anything found in even the earliest of the SNES DKC games, and while it’s hardly something to complain about in the broader sense (as I said before, it’s hardly like the narratives are a vital keystone to these games), it certainly makes this game feel far lesser than its SNES counterpart given just how much character and dialogue that Rare managed to fit into that game.
The gameplay is also very similar yet different in style and execution to DKC3 on the SNES. Compared to the first Donkey Kong Land, the physics and play control in this feel incredible. It’s honestly surreal just how close to the SNES DKC games they’ve gotten the controls in this, and it’s a great improvement from the first entry in the series (as one would hope with this being released so many years later). While the swimming and flying controls are still a bit scuffed and weird feeling, the controls are still really good and overall stand very comfortably just behind their SNES big sibling’s control feel.
There are a few gameplay cuts made due to the inferior hardware, however. Just like in earlier DKL games, we’ve got less animal companions, and those we do have have been given less powers or slightly different powers to account for how you’ve only got 4 buttons to work with now instead of the SNES controller’s 8 (such as how Ellie the elephant now has infinite water shots rather than needing to suck them up and spit them out with the R and L buttons in the SNES game). We also lack the processing power to have both Kongs visible on screen at the same time, just like the earlier games, so the ability to throw your buddy Kong around to break floors or scale far away platforms is also gone (as we have no face button to trigger that anyhow). This stuff isn’t a great loss, sure, but it does end up limiting the level design as a result, and that’s an extra noticeable issue with just how much this game takes design inspiration from DKC3.
Where Donkey Kong Land 1 was an entirely original game made with lots of pieces from Donkey Kong Country 1 (but with lots of new stuff on top of that), DKC3 is more of a conversion of the SNES game in many regards. While the levels themselves are largely original, and the bosses have by and large been completely redesigned (though more often out of necessity than anything), there are very many levels with shared names to levels in the SNES game, and they generally have similar themes or similarly put together sections/gimmicks, such as how “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop” is a minecart/sledding level in both games. Aside from how ill advised it is to make a minecart level with a screen resolution this small (something that DKL1 very smartly avoided), all of that homage to the design of the original really makes the cut corners feel far more cut here.
Compared to earlier DKC games, DKC3 is trying a *lot* of new stuff. From its animal companions to its bonus games to even the general level design gimmicks, it’s trying a ton of new stuff to always make it feel like you’re trying something new with every new stage. DKL3 gives a valiant attempt for a GameBoy (Color) game, but it really just can’t hold up to what a late-life SNES game is able to put together, and what we’ve been left with is a lot of kinda unfinished or sloppy design. Where DKL1’s more original design left it free to make levels that generally felt more well considered for the GameBoy’s smaller screen resolution, there have been far more times in DKL3 where the smaller screen combined with the better controls have, ironically, landed me in hot water or taking a needless hit just because I couldn’t see what was coming just around the corner.
The way this game just feels lesser to its SNES big sibling is especially apparent with the bonus games and DK coins. Where DKC2 and DKL2 at least have DK coins that can be hidden anywhere (albeit often very annoyingly in hidden walls and such), DKC3 has the Koin enemy guarding them in every stage, and that requires a certain conceit of level design on where to hide Koin as well as the metal barrel to clobber him with before robbing him of his precious coin. DKL3 tries its best, but it’s just not that easy to make levels with that kind of depth or verticality on a GameBoy’s hardware, and the DK coins end up feeling really just tossed together in really obvious places in most levels (even more so than they can often feel in DKC3). The hidden stuff in general is a real downgrade from the console game too, frankly, as where DKC3 basically completely abandons the all too often method that DKC2 uses where hidden barrels/hooks/etc will just be literally invisible (you just need to successfully guess they’re there), DKL3 unfortunately goes back to that method, and the game’s collectibles really suffer for it. Where finding all of the bonus barrels and such in DKC3 was a ton of fun to both find and play them, DKL3 makes it a confounding chore just like it used to be.
The bonus games’ designs also suffer a lot from the more limited hardware, and a lot of them end up boiling down to “walk right past/through 3 or 4 enemies and just grab the coin”. That’s hardly all of them, sure, but they’re rarely a challenge, and when they are, it’s largely the tiny resolution’s fault. The same can similarly be said for the game’s difficulty in general. While I’m certainly no proponent of every game needing to be crazy hard to be good, DKL3’s difficulty almost feels self-conscious rather than well-tuned. Where most bonus barrel games in the console DKC games will dump you somewhere far off, where it’s burdensome if not impossible to retry the bonus game without totally replaying the level, DKL3 more often than not puts you right next to where the barrel is. The same goes for the game’s checkpoints for normal levels, and combined with the generally kinda bland level design, it’s really hard to not view this game as a compromised version of the console game rather than a handheld-focused sister game (like I’d argue DKL1 successfully does).
The aesthetics are thankfully quite nice and well suited for the handheld experience. The music is once again a nice mix of GameBoy-ified versions of songs from DKC3 (though genuinely original tracks are far less present than they were in DKL1), the graphics have also thankfully gotten a very smart change. This was something already mostly tackled in DKL2, but we’re thankfully free from the overly textured backgrounds that made it so hard to see where you were on a monochrome screen. Granted, this is a GBC game, so your character always has distinct colors and such to help them stand out from the enemies and background, but this would be a very serious boon to anyone playing the GameBoy original version of this game.
It also bares pointing out, however, that while this may be a very well animated and detailed game for a GameBoy game, with enemies and the player characters looking like they’ve hopped right out of the SNES game, the actual *color* is very lacking for a GameBoy Color game. If I compare this in my head to other GBC games that I’m familiar with or, hell, even GameBoy compatible black cartridge games, this is a very unimpressive GameBoy Color game. As I said near the start of the review, it’s very neat that this looks just like how Super GameBoy enhanced games tend to look, with entities usually being one solid color and environments having one or two colors as well (usually), that’s really unimpressive for a proper GBC game. It’s not the greatest sin in the world, of course, as this *is* literally just a touched up original GB game at the end of the day (and the lavish animations in the original are likely to blame for why the color in this version is so limited), but in the wide wide (okay, admittedly not *that* wide) world of GBC-exclusive games, this is easily one of the least impressive that I’ve seen, and I don’t think it justifies the extra two-ish years spent porting it up from the GameBoy terribly well.
Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. This is a very difficult verdict to give for very similar reasons that DKL1 was, but they’re also very different at the same time. Where DKL1 has a lot of originality and ambition but is held back by a tiny resolution and slightly wonky controls, this game has tightened up the controls yet lost a lot of that ambition and originality. While it’s certainly true that trying so hard to recreate the flair of a late-life SNES game on a GB/GBC is quite ambitious in and of itself, the successes of DKL1 have already showed just what’s possible when you really go out of your way to try and create a more original experience. DKL1 is a rough game but manages to be worth your time because of just how original it’s trying to be, but this game spends a lot more time wallowing in mediocrity in an attempt to too closely replicate the feeling of the SNES game. I still wouldn’t really call this game bad, per se, but it’s definitely underwhelming compared to what the first DKL offers and especially compared to what the SNES games offer. If you’re a big DKC fan and you’re looking for more DKC to light up your life, you can certainly find it here, but just keep your expectations at an appropriate level, as this is definitely not doing anything revolutionary with the concept.
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me
it's clear he had moved onto Quake engine full time by this point. The music and visuals are nice, but the levels are tough to navigate. It's notorious for being overtly difficult and to me, it's the weakest of the original game's 4 episodes.