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Chiphead's Donkey Kong Land Review
Donkey Kong Country blew everyone away when they managed to cram impressive CGI graphics in a Super Nintendo cartridge. Then they managed to cram impresseve CGI graphics in a Game Boy cartridge. Four shades of gray (or yellow and green at the time) pales in comparison to SNES's 256 colors, but Donkey Kong Land looks damned good for a Game Boy game. They animation is almost as smooth as it is in Donkey Kong Country and the levels, both the old and new ones, are more detailed than those in some Game Boy Advance games. Pop it in a Super Game Boy and you get specially designed colors and a cool rendered jungle border. Super Game Boy was in its infancy, so this was something new at the time.
Some people complain that the backgrounds are too detailed and it's hard to tell what's going on. I always play my original Game Boy games in black and white and I never have any problems. The GBC/GBA's default color scheme makes things even clearer, with the characters and items being different colors than the backgrounds. I even played the game on a Game Boy Pocket to make sure it wasn't the horrible refresh rate. I still had no problem. So there.
9.5
The music in Donkey Kong Land is some of the best 8-bit music ever. Both the remixes from Donkey Kong Country (some of which are more loosely based on their SNES counterparts) and the music for the new areas are brilliant. I even went as far as to burn a CD of DKL music. Sound effects are just your typical beeps that you'd expect from a Game Boy. Nothing special there.
9.0
Despite a few buttons missing, Donkey Kong Country's controls adapt very well to Game Boy. It can be a bit annoying to take your thumb off the + Control Pad and press select if you need to dismount your animal buddy quickly, unless you're playing on the Game Boy Player and you can use X or Y. You won't find yourself doing that much anyway. Another minor thing is that Donkey can't do his hand slap move. However, the only major complaint I have about Donkey Kong Land is that the camera can't keep up with the Kongs falling and usually if the ground is off screen, you die anyway. Overall, though, DKL controls almost as well as DKC.
9.0
Rare could have simply watered down Donkey Kong Country and we would have loved it. They seemed to think we deserved better. Along with new enemies, a new story takes breaking the fourth wall to a new level, and new levels have been thrown in, some of which take you back to the old school Donkey Kong of the 80s. A very nice touch there.
9.0
Donkey Kong Land is a great game. Back in the day, it was perfect for anyone looking for a portable Donkey Kong Country or something to hold them until Donkey Kong Country 2. Even today, it's great for anyone looking for a good platformer or something to complete their DKU collection.
Hmm... this review isn't very amusing. Maybe this picture from that Happy Days cartoon can fix that.
Yeah, that's better.
9.5
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