Donkey Kong Bananza (Switch 2)

 

The Journey to the Center of the Earth!

Well, it took the postal service a week to get it to my home. It arrived Friday the week after it was supposed to come out. Took me 2 weekends and two hours per day during the week, but now again I have a 100 % cleared games on the Switch 2 (no, don't look at my stack of unfinished or even played Switch 1 games). The game begins on Ingot Island where DK is mining for Golden Bananas until a meteor-looking thing crashes on the island dragging it into the depths of the earth. There he meets a talking crystal person that tries to escape from the Void Company CEO... Void Kong and his two henchmen. First time I've seen evil Kongs in a DK game, but since Metroid have already put in evil Chozos I'm already comfortable with the idea. The crystal person turns out to be Pauline that was kidnapped for her singing voice after you release her from the crystal. You meet different races on your way to the center of the earth in search of the Banandium Root for a way to get home and stop Void Kongs plans.

It's a rather fun game. You break most things and collect golden bananas in order to upgrade your abilities and then you collect gold to buy stuff and banadium chips to use to get more golden bananas or later musical discs. There are a couple of animal elders that allow you to use the Banaza that transform you into different animals, like snake, zebra, elephant, ostrich... and a gorilla. Gorilla form feels a bit weird since you already are a Kong, maybe I thought it would be a rhino as a callback to Rambi, but since there is a layer where you ride on Rambi they maybe thought it was enough. 

The final stretch of the games just ramps up the intensity. You have defeated Void Kong's henchmen and duke it out with the CEO himself, beat him and suddenly King K. Rool appears, beats up Void and get the Root for himself. That came by surprise. I gather that Cranky might imply him during the talks with him, but I didn't get it until he showed up. And now Kremlings appears and buzzaw bees so suddenly it feels like a Country game again. You corner K. Rool at the center of the earth and defeats him and your wish is about to get you back and credits roll, and it's the Kredits from Donkey Kong Country so you know the fight ain't over. K. Rool follows you with his barrel jet packs and you have to occupy him until you can reach the surface. You get to New Donk City where Pauline lives, K. Rool steals the root again and you have to platform to the boxing ring from Donkey Kong 64 and beat him again. Took me three tries, but I did it. Credits roll again and DK returns to Ingot Island while Pauline stays in NDC. 

After the credits you start at Ingot island again and reunite with Pauline that needs help finding a song she can sing. So you meet the elders again and do their rehearsal which is a gauntlet of platform challanges for each Bananza that forces you to use every power (and hopefully you upgraded every Bananza to the full). Zebra was the worst with the timed I thought, but then elephant wanted me to lure monsters into different areas to change shape and so on. After I remember to use the snake's time stop ability that one wasn't that hard. And after all that you have the Harmoneel. A true test of skills since you had to do it all in one go which I learned when I died on the very last stretch. After getting enough resources and changing outfits I went in again and cleared it. Rewarded with yet another credit scene, but I'm a bit disappointed since I thought I could get to New Donk City and just wander around, but no such luck. After that I cleared out the fossil to get every costume since you just could buy maps for those (and bananas as well, but those could be hard to get). 

So overall it was fun platformer. Some people complained that the ending was a bit to long, and if I had played it at the middle of the night before work and just wanna go to bed I might have felt the same, but instead I did it in the early afternoon so to me it was a great escalation. And here comes a reason why I prefer the Mario team to do these games, the bosses have pretty much a cycle of three which means that I can memorize the sequence within reason. Maybe the fact I played through 4 Donkey Kong Country games before I didn't have that hard of a time. Something I noticed though is that if this was Journey through the Center of the Earth and Mario Odyssey would be Around the World in 80 Days, I assume the devlopers at Nintendo seems to be on a Jules Verne binge. Gotta finish the collection of books I have at the night stand before Star Fox returns as a Captain Nemo rip-off... oh wait, that was Steel Diver for the 3DS. (And to be clear, this was written before the Star Fox game for Switch 2 was announced.)

Donkey Kong Country Returns HD (Switch)

 

And the monkey business returns.

Well, I still haven't gotten Banaza and it's been a week now. At least I had time to play through Donkey Kong Coutry Returns for the first time. I got it for the Wii, 3DS and Switch, but this is the first time I finish it. I think I played through the first two worlds on the Wii, but got stuck on the boss and then gave up. It wasn't that hard when I played it now, but that could be the Modern Mode cause I was ready to give up at some times.

Story is that one day the DK Island volcano explodes and unleashes the Tiki Tribe that begins hypnotize the animals and stealing Donkey's banans. Together with Diddy they set out to get them back and beat up the Tiki's. 8 worlds later you defeat the big boss of the Tiki and everything's great again, except it reveals the Golden Temple, yet another stage. I can't take it anymore and I really hope the new game comes tomorrow. 

I might sound irritated, but I spent 10 minutes on the final hit on the boss and I think levels like the barreljets and rickety rides just is infuriating. I used up something like 30-40 lives on two stages each trying to get through. Glad I got enough Banana coins to just buy more extra lives without problems. It was a struggle for me, and I can't see myself 100 % cause some of the feats to get some of the collectibles are beyond my abilities. I had a hard enough time getting how Rambi and the barreljets worked so I probably had more problem than necessary. Lucky I got the instruction manual from the Wii-version. Remember when games had physical manuals in the box? I do miss those.

Overall I can see the charm of it if you like 2D plattformers, which I do to a degree, but maybe not in 30 degrees Celsius on the first week back at my job after vacation. And a non-functioning postal service for the game I'm actually interested in playing. I find it interesting though that the game had really long load times, especially since I played it on Switch 2 since I thought the console would cut some of these, but maybe there needs to be an update for it first. Another thing I'be been thinking about it that compared to say Super Mario, Donkey Kong very often disrupts the flow in a level. Super Mario feels really great when you just enter the flow and can rush past stage after stage since it just clicks. Maybe I don't know the levels enough or the mechanics, but I just doesn't get that feeling over the game, since when it seems I'm on my way breaking the code, the game changes up and slows down the gameplay, either with the rickety rides or barreljets or something like the barrels that spin... or the bonus stages that constantly take you away from the main game. 

Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble (Wii U)

 

Shouldn't it be Tripple Trouble?

Well, had to continue and Bananza didn't come to me on the Monday after release so I had one more evening. Didn't feel it as much in this game. On one hand from start to finish it is very close to the second game, but there is a lot more stuff to do, getting items to trade to find your way to the Secret Area and such compared to the second game where you just needed the money to pay. But at the same time it was straightforward. 

Story is that Donkey and Diddy disappeared in this new area so Dixie sets of to find them. Funky Kong gives you vehicles to traverse the area and Dixie Kong's cousin Kiddy Kong joins her. He's a stand in for Donkey. I liked the gameplay in the second game better for some reason. Maybe due to the things they tried was a bit more obnoxious like the area where you constantly gets shoot at or an area where you swim in poison water where your controls are reversed. I also feels that the stages from Donkey Kong Land 3 is rather different which also maybe gives me a pushback (or maybe since I played that game legit on my Game Boy Pocket I replayed the stages so much that it felt like they where more stages).

Maybe I'm fatigued after playing the whole series during a weekend or maybe that review in Super Play was right, it's not that good of a series. Or the fact that temperatures are reaching 30 degrees C might effect my enjoyment of the game.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (Wii U)

 

The Revenge of King K. Rool.

Continued playing the second game. Basically Donkey Kong's been kidnapped by King K. Rool so Diddy and his girlfriend Dixie Kong sets out to save him. Cranky and Funky returns with them and some new Kongs like Wrinkly and Swanky. Pretty much returning animal buddies like Rambi, Enquarde, Sqwakes and new ones like the spider and snake. And I enjoy this game much more than the first game.

I think because they made it somewhat easier (still hard levels and such), but other things that helped the enjoyment. For one, every animal buddy can attack, compared to the ostrich in the first game. They made it more obvious where secrets are, both in the levels like with banana arrows or letters indicating what ability to use or hints you can get from Cranky. The bonus stage also had a title card for what you where supposed to do so it wasn't that obtuse. This allowed me get over 60 % this time around and my lives was at a full 99 (well, using the restore point I saved up on unnecessary deaths and such, but compare it to the first game when I only ended the game with something around 50 lives, you where supposed to grind for life I assume). 

On the other hand, since I've played Donkey Kong Land 2 a lot and actually finished that one I might have already learned some of the patterns it wasn't completely new to me. Don't like that you have to pay to save at certain points. Always made me stingy with the collectibles. It could also be that the duo Dixie and Diddy actually plays better. You switch characters with select this time around and can join up for some special move with A if both are in the party. 

So this is clearly a better sequel. Or it can be that I haven't gotten to play these games as much compared to the first one and I'm not good at the first one, meaning I never get past it. But we know that can't be the case.

Donkey Kong Country (Wii U)

Time for some monkey buisness!

I was gonna play Donkey Kong Bananza during my final weekend of my vacation, but yet again the postal services have betrayed me. So it will probably come when I started work again. Thanks for that. So what can I do to occupy myself these last days? Well, I got the whole Country-series on Wii U so that could be something. I got the game on GBA, Wii Virtual Console, 3DS, Wii U and SNES Mini and technically I got the Donkey Kong Land as well, but this is the first time I actually finish it for the first time. Only around 50 % since I haven't gotten all secrets and so on and I won't get them since I really don't like the game.

Story is that King K. Rool and his kremlings have stolen Donkey Kong's banana hoard so DK and Diddy sets out to get them back. Kranky Kong, Funky Kong and Candy Kong sets out to help our primate friends as they traverse all over DK Island in search for the golden bananas. It's rather hard and maybe why I don't like it. To often there is a new gimmick for the stage and you basically have to memorize the stages in order to get past them. I remember reading a review of... maybe the GBA game for the Swedish magazine Super Play where the reviewer apologized for ever thinking this game was good so it might have colored my perception as well. 

I got past the game mostly by abusing the save state function on the Wii U and in total the gameplay ended on less than 2 hours, but I assume that it maybe would have been a couple hours added since I restarted all the time. To finish it legit? Who knows how many hours I had to spend on it. Now, if I was a kid and played it as intended on SNES I might have forced myself to learn the patterns and such and have a completely different appreciation of the game. 

But to be more positive, it looks good with the graphics and the music is really good, but it plays a bit bad in my opinion. And the game is a bit evil with enemy placement, for example there is a couple of stages where before clearing a jump from moving platforms there is a big muscle guy you only can defeat with Donkey Kong since Diddy is to small, if you hit them as Diddy, they push you back into the pit, game over. And the bosses takes a lot of beating and with only two hits it's a question of pattern recognition. So you see, I'm not that impressed by the game.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Switch)

 

A return to their roots.

As of writing it's the end of February and I haven't played any video games beside some levels of Super Mario Bros. Wonder when I was at my sisters place the weekend 13 days after Christmas, and before that nothing since early December. As usual I'm not too inclined to play games during this time, and usually I get over it with a puzzle game. The game for 2024 was apparently Mario vs. Donkey Kong for the Nintendo Switch.

It's a remake of a 2004 GBA-game (which make it the second GBA-remake I know of after Advance Wars Switch-game) which I have two versions of on 3DS and Wii U. Never finished though. I finds that being the best thing about remakes, improvements to ease off play that actually allows me to finish them. Yes, I played casual mode that took away the timer which is new for the remake. The mode also gives you five bubbles instead of using extra lives taking some stress out of getting hit (in most levels it doesn't even hinder you from getting a gold star compared to the original). It also seems that they've added 2 set off overworlds since looking at the original it just seems to be 6 overworlds compared to the remakes 8. Since I don't intend to play through the GBA version I won't know unless I'm stuck somewhere with my 3DS and can't muster anything else to do.

Story is that one day Donkey Kong is zapping through the TV-channels when he stumbles upon a commercial for a new toy called Mini-Mario, he rushes out to get one (as the commercials message of "gotta get them all" repeats in his mind, think it's a jab at the Pokemon tagline). The stores is sold out so he rushes to the Toy Factory and steals them from the Toad workers there and Mario just happens to be there so he follows the Kong in order to get them back. He jumps and platforms his way through a set of 6 levels collecting mini-Mario's so that he can use them to collect the letters T-O-Y so that they open a chest he can put them in to get 6 hits on a boss level with Donkey Kong. Both the music and gameplay evokes the Donkey Kong arcade game and the Nintendo 8-bit series. After that you get a new set of levels and continue that for 8 overworlds to fight the big boss and then you do that all over again for the plus levels so that you can fight the final boss, Donkey Kong in a giant Kong Suit. Credits roll.

Then there is 10 extra levels that you unlock by the amount of gold stars you have, in the end I had 112, missing the boss fights. So in total. 130 levels to complete everything, but I don't feel the need to overextend my enjoyment. Took me a weekend of on-and-off play to get through it and that felt enough. A couple of days and I'm ready for something else during my half-week vacation.

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (Wii U)

Happy Together!

So not only have I've been dusting off my old reliable Wii U, I also went through reading this old blog and realised that when I wrote about Smash Bros for 3DS I wrote that I would play the Wii U version, but I never wrote about it, mostly because as noted, I was a bit burned out by the series, and it has actually not been helped with Ultimate. So why didn't I play that instead? Well, I mostly played the Wii U version because it was the last game in the series as of yet to have trophies. And you couldn't transfer data between the version, what a huge hassle.

Cause what is there otherwise to talk about? It's a fighting game and works as much every other Smash game. Didn't help the Wii U that much, but introduced DLC where we finally got Roy back in the fold. As well as Mewtwo that you could get for free if you bought both games and registered it on some Club Nintendo site or such, unfortunately I bought the 3DS version in a Swedish shop meaning it didn't have the code so I had to buy it on the side. Well everything is bought online today so no problem with that anymore.

So I played through Classic Mode with every character, and some on All-Star Mode, but with this many characters it's a real pain getting through it. Also, All-Star mode is fine since it's pretty much the same as it always been, but Classic mode, what a downgrade from the original (now this might be just me playing it on easy since I want to get through it) but I recall Classic mode have different phases with metal Mario, large and small versions and such spicing up the gameplay, here it's just move around the board and choose a group of enemies. And why isn't there any Adventure mode like in Melee or Brawl? At least the 3DS had the great cave offensive or whatever it was called. So nothing special about, works like everyone else and if you have a couple of friends it's a great time, maybe not so much playing alone.

So why is trophies so important? Because it introduced me to a much larger world of games. In Melee you could get trophies from games that wasn't out yet and games that never was released in Europe or the US. The stickers in Ultimate doesn't tell me anything about the games they come from. I learned about Earthbound from the trophies, got me interested in Metal Gear before the Twin Snakes come out and something called the Famicom Detective Club... wait, that came out on the Switch some time ago. And I got it, might be a fun playthrough.

Donkey Kong 64 (Wii U)

 

Here, here, here we go!

So I'm finally here, writing for you, if you know the words you can join in to. Put your hands together as if you want to clap as I take you through this monkey post... what do you expect, I'm not a lyricist. Donkey Kong 64 came out in 1999 and it gotta have been close to Christmas since me and my sisters got to share it as a Christmas present. It was also the first present we were allowed to open on Christmas eve together with N64 controllers for the sisters that hadn't gotten a controller yet. So we sat most of Christmas eve playing the battle mode of this game so our parents could prepare the Christmas dinner or whatever they did. Of course, the battle mode didn't get fun until we unlocked Krusha with his explosive projectiles that blew everyone away. Either everyone played as Krusha or no one played as Krusha. Again, that was probably a couple of months after Christmas.

Basically the story is that king K. Rool has built a new super weapon and is about to blow Kong Island out of the water. And stolen the Kongs banana hoard as well, and trapped most of the members of the Kong family. So it's up to Donkey Kong to rescue his relatives and destroys K. Rools plan. Nothing more to the story really. We never finished the games as kids due to the facts we couldn't get hold of all collectibles to unlock the way to the final boss. And this I heard was a major complaint against the game, too much stuff to collect and all the time switch back and forth between the Kongs since most things are bound to a certain Kong. And that gets annoying at times. Especially in places like Creepy Castle where enemies can throw you off the ledge and force you to restart from the beginning of the stage and you gotta trek all over the place. So playing it now, rereleased on the Virtual Console on Wii U, I at least can alleviate some headache with the trusty quick save alternative. 

You gotta get golden bananas to open new worlds, you also gotta collect 100 coloured bananas with each kong in every world to open the door to the boss that you gotta defeat to get a key to unlock the cage of this giant Kremling so that he can open yet another world for you. You also gotta get coloured coins so that you can pay for upgrades to your weapon, your musical instrument and your moves. The weapon and instruments have their own unique ammo counters, you got explosive oranges and then there is crystal coconuts that power special abilities and attacks. Also, in each world there is this special enemy coloured after the different Kongs that carry blueprints that you exchange for a golden banana, but also gives you time on the final level to finish it before K. Rool fires his secret weapon. And banana fairies you need to catch with a camera you restock with film (which is how you unlock secrets like Krusha), battle crowns won from battle tournament stages and two special coins hidden in to classic games, the original Donkey Kong and JetPac. The Nintendo coin from the Donkey Kong game was the thing that was missing as a child. We weren't that good at that game. And as mentioned, you gotta run around each level with 5 different Kongs. 

That's a lot of things to keep track of, Mario 64 just had stars, sure you could get coins, but they still gave you a star collecting it (addendum since I've played through Mario 64 again, I forgot the keys you get after fighting Bowser, but those are just 2). And the special coins and battle crowns isn't mentioned until the final stage, and the Nintendo coin you just gotta guess I think since I don't think they mentioned it anywhere? And if that wasn't frustrating enough you got the boss fights that gives me heart attacks on some real bullshit they pull. At least K Rool gave each Kong full life for each stage of the final battle. As you might read between the lines, I'm not loving this game 100 %. It has it's moments and I got huge nostalgia googles for it with the Christmas present and the co-op with my sisters, but playing it again... I won't miss several of the bonus stages or extra frustrating bosses. Also, just navigating the levels are troublesome since I would love a map so I know where to go. Also, yes, thanks for keeping track on every collectible, but couldn't you have named them so I know which golden banana I'm missing? Also, I miss the N64 controller. Since the left stick acts as the c-buttons more often than not you pull of the wrong move, the buttons were much more precise. So this game is probably good enough for die-hards and nostalgia seekers. Would I play it again? Well, me and my sisters thought on getting together and play the multiplayer some time, and if they release a N64 Classic Mini, maybe, but 101 % it? No, never, unless they would remake it and fix certain things, it's really slow at times, especially opening the boss doors or getting the bananas for the blue prints since they gotta play out the animations, and they take time. Total time playing through the main adventure was around 24 hours so maybe just a way to extend play time.

Star Fox Adventure (GCN)

I actually liked it

Since I was playing the N64 again I thought give the Rare games a spin since I don't own a console that can play those game at home (the one and only reason I ever is interested in a XBox One in order to get the Rare Replay... and maybe the Mistwalker games). Sadly my sister have taken the Banjo-Kazooie games that I first intended to play so I picked up Diddy Kong Racing instead. Never finished it and didn't do it this time either, but I got further and only have one single stage left before defeating the dragon boss for the second time. So I picked up Jet Force Gemini, still stuck at the double boss at Lupus stage. Picked up Perfect Dark and got to the end boss on easy, but got killed. Tried getting invincible cheat to finally see the end credits, no. Couldn't finish the first stage on hard and actually got out of the Datadyne Tower intro stages on medium difficulty, but not further than that. Put in GoldenEye instead, sound not working so I should probably try to clean the cartridge and couldn't finish the first stage. Then I put in Shadow of the Empire instead, finished the speed-racer and space station stages before the sewer did me in. Put on some Castlevania 64 and actually got to the castle for the first time, where I got my ass kicked and closed the game. Then I remembered another Rare game, Star Fox Adventure on the GameCube.  No memory card though since all of them was at my place so I played the first half of the game in one go and then restarted when I got home on my Wii with memory card plugged in.

I think the graphics looks nice 16 years after the release (compared to many N64 games).

Simply put the game starts with the fox girl Krystal arriving at Dinosaur planet following a distress signal on a pterodactyl (called Cloudrunners in the game) where she is attacked by a flying ship that belongs to general Scales, the tyrant that almost have conquered the planet. Her staff fall to the planet and she is able to esquape to Krazoa palace, a holy place for the dinosaurs where she finds a krazoa spirit and releases it in the temple, but she gets caught in a crystal (ha) by an unseen force. Cut to the Star Fox team that have lost Falco and gets a mission by General Pepper to investigate Dinosaur Planet since it threatens to blow up the whole system (since the planet is being teared apart by the magical forces in the planet when Scales took the four Spellstones that kept the energies in check). As Fox arrives at the planet he is tasked with finding the prince of the Earthwalkers (triceratops) that have been kidnapped by the SharpClaw clan (General Scales army).  Doing so put Prince Tricky as your companion that can help in certain puzzles. 

Escort Mission: The Game

So get the Gatekeepers to open the portals to the floating continents in space, fly there, get spellstone, take it to one of two force point temples, get a Krazoa spirit and take it to the Krazoa palace in order to release it, rinse and repeat. And I gotta say, I liked the game when it came out, I finished it several times, but playing it again... it's rather linear. There's hardly any sidequests and only thing is getting stuff you don't actually need. Mostly cheat tokens that hardly does anything or Bafamdads (1-ups) that you hardly will use after the first spellstone gives you an extra heart container, or Airwing energy-balls that you need a minimum amount of that you shouldn't have any problem with getting. Your progress is constantly determined if you can get item A or do quest B that enables you to get onward, either giving you a ability or giving you the ability for more money to get another item or pay your way past a checkpoint. Why? Why can't I explore and try to find the krazoas in between on my own? Is this Rare's commentary on the rail-shooter by doing the whole adventure on the same style? Well, the reason is that the development got cut short since Microsoft bought out Rare and they finished this as their final game for Nintendo. And it was even in development for the N64, but titles Dinosaur Planet and without anything Star Fox. Now, I know that some people would have liked to see the original intent (and I would lie if I wasn't curious at the time the gaming magazines reported on it) and some people seems to really hate this Star Fox game. I get it if you want a on rails-shooter, but to me this was much more fun than the rails-shooter. It had enough deep story (although now I would say there's some weird things story wise). Then again, I only played the original Star Fox game and not the N64 that everyone seems to love.

I really like the design of the Airwing in this

You get all the stuff and at the top of Krazoa Palace a mysterious force makes General Scales give Fox the last spirit and releasing that and freeing Krystal, Andross awakens once again (being the mysterious force that trapped Krystal and controlled Scales) so Fox follows him on the Airwing and after fighting of the first waves of Andross Falco appears giving you bombs so Fox can blow the brains of Andross once again. Day saved, pay check arrived and Krystal thanks Fox by joining the Star Fox crew. It felt a bit rushed in the end, especially that you never fought General Scales and Andross was a bit from the left field, although it can be chalked up to be the constant enemy for Fox... although he wasn't there for the next two games if I recall. Overall I still liked it, but it is a bit much gathering items that you hardly use (why do I need 31 fairies to light my way when it's only required twice or to have over 100 energy-balls when only around 20 is necessary to complete the game?) and the linearity of the game makes replays rather redundant. You can't really miss anything except things that doesn't help you in any way. Wish they were able to let it stew a bit longer, but sadly it wasn't to be, but it was at least over 10 hours to play the game, but I have forgotten much since I was perplexed several times over the solutions of the puzzles.