Monkey MicroGame$! - Episode 4: Animal Frantics
0Originally recorded: September 19, 2024
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I'm not going to lie: I was worried that I wouldn't finish the game this time around. Fortunately, I had more than enough time. I guess DKL2 was just incredibly front-loaded, both in terms of world length as well as difficulty. Not exactly sure what Rare was thinking in that regard, but that's just how things seemed to shake out.
Honestly, the most interesting part is that multiple stages that proved my undoing back during my complete playthrough of DKC2 came back to haunt me this time around. And yet, these iterations were all easier than their respective source materials to at least some extent. Toxic Tower was felt significantly shorter overall, Animal Antics was a walk in the park. If anything, the race with Squawks might've been the hardest of the bunch, if only because the parrot's controls and hit detection felt a bit off. Speaking of which, the Quawks level was just as annoying as I remember it being last time.
I was surprised by just how easy the Lost World was compared to its console counterpart. I remember struggling through it during the DKC2 stream. Yet, this time, it was really only the true final boss fight that gave me any major issues. In fact, I'm pretty sure that was the only point where I actually managed to get a game over. But despite my relative ease of clearing it, I still decided to save after beating each level. And honestly, I stand by that choice. Better to be safe than sorry.
That just leaves Donkey Kong Land III, which I'll be starting up next time. KI tells me it's the best of the bunch -- and is even doing a replay of their own ahead of my next stream. That's an impressive assertion and I'm curious to see if it lives up to the hype. After all, while I couldn't deny that DKC3 wasn't actually the worst game of the original SNES Donkey Kong Country trilogy, Diddy's Kong Quest still easily edged it out in my eyes. It'll be interesting to see just how their portable equivalents compare.