Donkey Kong Land 2

Last updated
Donkey Kong Land 2
Donkey Kong Land 2 Coverart.jpg
North American box art
Developer(s) Rare
Publisher(s) Nintendo
Designer(s) Lee Schuneman
Programmer(s) Robert Harrison
Artist(s) Keri Gunn, Dean Smith
Composer(s) Grant Kirkhope [lower-alpha 1]
Series Donkey Kong
Platform(s) Game Boy
Release
  • NA: September 23, 1996 [1]
  • AU: October 1996 [2]
  • JP: November 23, 1996
  • EU: November 28, 1996
Genre(s) Platform
Mode(s) Single-player

Donkey Kong Land 2 [lower-alpha 2] is a platform video game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy. It is the sequel to the 1995 Game Boy game Donkey Kong Land and is part of the Donkey Kong video game series. It was released worldwide in Autumn 1996. It was enhanced for the Super Game Boy with different shades of color, as well as a 16-bit banana border on the edges of the television screen. [3] Like the original Donkey Kong Land, it came packaged in a banana-yellow cartridge. The game was followed by Donkey Kong Land III , which was released in 1997.

Contents

Gameplay

Nintendo Power described the game as a conversion of Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest .

Plot

Donkey Kong Land 2 stars Diddy Kong and Dixie Kong in their quest to rescue Donkey Kong from Kaptain K. Rool and the Kremling Krew. While its stage names and world themes are borrowed from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (except for Castle Crush, which became Dungeon Danger; and Haunted Hall, which became Krazy Koaster), the level designs are different. [4]

Donkey Kong Land 2 had the same storyline from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. The manual contains a simplified version of the story from its SNES counterpart - K. Rool has kidnapped Donkey Kong and is at Crocodile Isle, and it's up to Diddy and Dixie to save him. [5]

Reception

Donkey Kong Land 2 is rated at 79.00% at GameRankings based on five reviews. [6] Nintendo Power praised the gameplay and graphics but criticized the similarities between the levels and those of Donkey Kong Country 2. [3] GamePro was positive to the game's side-scrolling action, hidden areas, music, and graphics. [7]

Nintendojo gave the game 8.5 out of 10, but was critical to its save system. [8] Nintendo Life gave the Virtual Console re-release a 7 out of 10, praising the amount of content Rare managed to cram into the game but criticizing it for being similar to Diddy's SNES version. [9]

By 1997, 1.5 million units had been sold worldwide. [10]

See also

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References

  1. "Donkey Kong Land 2: Diddy's Kong Quest". Nintendo . September 23, 1996. Archived from the original on June 6, 1997. Retrieved July 17, 2024.
  2. "Donkey Kong Land 2". Nintendo Magazine System . November 1996. p. 38. Retrieved July 17, 2024. Release: October '96
  3. 1 2 "Now Playing". Nintendo Power . No. 88. September 1996. p. 94.
  4. "Donkey Kong Land 2". Nintendo Power . No. 88. September 1996. pp. 80–87.
  5. Donkey Kong Land 2 Instruction Booklet (PDF). Nintendo. 1996. p. 2.
  6. "Donkey Kong Land 2". GameRankings . Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved November 22, 2015.
  7. "Donkey Kong Land 2: Diddy Kong's Quest". GamePro . No. 100. IDG. January 1997. p. 44.
  8. Ross, Patrick. "Donkey Kong Land 2". Nintendojo. Retrieved November 22, 2015.
  9. Frear, Dave (October 24, 2014). "Donkey Kong Land 2". Nintendo Life . Retrieved November 22, 2015.
  10. Rothstein, Edward (December 8, 1997). "Nintendo's Game Boy lives as nostalgia for simpler computer games catches on". The New York Times . Archived from the original on 2015-05-27. Retrieved 25 December 2021.

Notes

  1. The soundtrack is an 8-bit conversion of the Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest music, composed by David Wise.
  2. Released in Japan as Donkey Kong Land (ドンキーコングランド, Donkī Kongu Rando).