Day 143, Game 143 - Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest

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The original Donkey Kong Country was a classic game. I established that in the last blog. It was revolutionary for the genre, the franchise and the character of Donkey Kong. But also, it established his partner-in-crime more soundly, that being Diddy Kong. 

In the original arcade games, there was a character named Donkey Kong Junior, but somehow, when the "Country" trilogy was created, Junior vanished from memory and was replaced on screen by Diddy Kong, mysteriously.

For whatever reason, the first Donkey Kong Country game established Diddy Kong as a formidable character himself, although in the first game, he was just a secondary helper character. He was basically the Luigi to Donkey Kong's Mario for as long as Luigi had been around. But much like Luigi eventually got his own game (Luigi's mansion on the GameCube), Diddy was granted his own adventure to set himself apart from his secondary role. Unlike Luigi, however, his coming out party came much sooner into the franchise than the brother of Mario had to wait. 

In this game, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, the little monkey is put in charge of rescuing Donkey Kong, naturally. He isn't alone, however, as he is partnered up with Dixie Kong, who plays the role that Diddy had played in the previous game. The game itself plays much like the first version, with a few minor tweaks to pretty much perfect the wheel, as they say. The graphics are phenomenal, as the colors pop and the backgrounds are lively. It's almost hard to tell this is a SNES game at some points.

They did something very creative too, which I hadn't remember until I popped it in this evening. The game picks up on the same pirate ship from the final battle scene of the first game, which is an awesome tip of the cap to those who enjoyed the first game. Sure, to everyone new to the series with 2, this didn't mean a thing to them. But for everyone who fondly remembers the final battle because they beat it over and over again, this was the perfect way to start the second game. It was clever, not forced and to this day, not done often enough in gaming. That's the sad truth.

This game is awesome. I forgot how much I loved this game, mainly because of the nostalgia of the first one. But this is literally the Mario Galaxy 2 to the first one. It's far superior in every way, but because of the impact the first of these games had, the sequels are cherished but often overlooked. 

Unfortunately, unlike the Galaxy series(so far), the Donkey Kong Country series became a trilogy. The third one wasn't necessarily a bad game, but it suffered from another setback that developers hate. But more on that tomorrow night...

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