Donkey Kong Country 2 (SNES) is fantastic on Switch! (Review and Gameplay).
Just two months ago, the Super Nintendo classic Donkey Kong Country came swinging onto the Switch. Now, its 1995 sequel, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, is now available to subscribers of Nintendo Switch Online. If you're playing it for the first time, it's a beautiful, addicting piece of art.
One of the best 2D platformers in gaming history. Hang on to your bananas... you are now... in a country... that belongs... to Donkey Kong! The year was 1995. The same year that brought us eBay, Windows 95, and the day that the U.S. House of Representatives voted 246-188 to cut taxes for individuals and corporations.
Bernie Sanders: "This is a bad bill and a very unfair bill." None of this even came close to topping the worldwide gaming phenomenon that is Donkey Kong Country 2. The story of Donkey Kong Country 2 picks up right after the first game. This time, Donkey Kong has been kidnapped by pirate wannabe, King K.
Rool. Do people even say the word "wannabe" anymore? God, I'm getting old. Anyway, you literally just find a note from this guy in the first level telling you he kidnapped Donkey Kong. That's it, that's the story. The Game Boy Advance version made a cool intro cutscene expanding on this almost 10 years later, but you won't see that here.
So now it's up to his nephew Diddy Kong alongside his girlfriend Dixie to rescue him. I wonder how these two met? Probably some app. Everyone's meeting on the apps these days. At its core, the gameplay is similar to Donkey Kong Country, but it takes things to the next level with more challenging stages, new types of enemies, these dragonflies are literally just vibing, and a brand new playable character.
Diddy Kong plays exactly as he did in the first game. He's fast but doesn't have a ton of weight behind him to stomp on some of the larger enemies. Dixie Kong adds a lot of variety to the gameplay, and if you ask me, she's way more fun to play than Diddy.
She can spin her hair around like a helicopter, to glide down slowly as she falls through the air. This makes it easier to land certain jumps. But don't get me wrong, this game is still hard. In fact, it's much harder than the first. If you remember the ridiculously difficult minecart levels from the first game, just wait till you see the roller coaster stages.
But that's the thing. Even though it's hard, and sometimes you want to throw your controller out the window, you still want to keep playing. It's got that "je ne sais quoi." Not bad, huh? I've always wanted to say that. You have new animal buddies to help you along the way, like Squitter the Spider.
He can make web platforms to reach new heights, and he also wears four pairs of shoes at a time. That sounds like it would get expensive! And there's a lot more to do in the game. The world is larger, and each set of levels feel unique. One of the bigger additions are these special coins scattered around the levels that unlock The Lost World, a collection of bonus stages you need to complete to see the true ending of the game.
Also, it feels SO good when you get one of these DK coins, and they're not even that important, they don't unlock anything. I guess that's how dopamine works. I don't know, ask your doctor. You're going to want to use the save state feature, a lot.
We didn't have that back then on the Super Nintendo, and the game felt impossible at times. If you ran out of lives, it was so repetitive to have to go back and beat the last few levels to catch back up. At the very least, use the save state after every level.
Otherwise, you have to beat several levels in each world before you can save your game at the Kong College. Which is actually where I got my degree! If you've got a friend nearby, you can play this game co-op on the same console with another person controlling the second character. The graphics in this game are incredible, and the animations are even more refined than the first. Like the first game, each asset was meticulously modeled and animated in 3D on computers, and then converted into 2D sprites.
The result is gorgeous graphics that are unmatched by anything else on the Super Nintendo. And the independent layers of graphics in the foreground and the background give the game an illusion of 3D depth. I love the way the water looks in the early levels especially as the sun goes down.
This could all only come together through a combination of inspired art direction and brilliant software engineering. I know it might sound like I'm exaggerating, but there just isn't a better looking Super Nintendo game. As a kid, I was blown away by these graphics, and it still looks beautiful on the Switch's screen today. I just wish there was an option to make the borders black.
Please, Nintendo! Just like the first game, the music that David Wise composed for Donkey Kong Country 2 is iconic. I dare you to not get some of it stuck in your head. There are so many bangers in this game, even Drake used a sample from one of the levels in his song "6 God." But most importantly, this game is the home of the transcendent musical masterpiece, "Stickerbrush Symphony." You're gonna want to play this game with the volume up. I'm so happy to finally see this game on the Switch.
In my opinion, it's the pinnacle of the Donkey Kong franchise, and I'm excited to see new generations get to play it for the first time. If you have the patience for a difficult but rewarding game, you're in for a treat. This is one of the best Super Nintendo games out there, and one of the greatest 2D platformers, period. If you missed my review of the first Donkey Kong Country, check it out here.