Donkey Kong Land is a video game developed by Rare (known as Rareware at the time) and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy in 1995. The game is the first in a trilogy of Donkey Kong platformers for the handheld, which act as companion games to the Donkey Kong Country trilogy on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
Following the success of Donkey Kong Country, Cranky Kong dismisses the title's popularity as merely a byproduct of the game's fancy 3D graphics, while Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong argue that the game was great simply because it was fun to play. Cranky, unconvinced, challenges the two Kongs to a similar adventure on the 8-bit monochrome Game Boy, without the power of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System to back it up, and hires King K. Rool to steal the Banana Hoard a second time. Now, Donkey and Diddy set off for adventure once again, not just to get their bananas back, but also to prove their old man wrong.
The game plays very similarly to Donkey Kong Country, as the player takes control of Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong and ventures through various side-scrolling platformer levels while collecting bananas and battling the Kremlings. While the less powerful hardware means many elements from the console game were omitted or simplified, much of the console game's content is replicated here, such as the prerendered graphics, the bonus games hidden throughout the stages, and Animal Buddies that the Kongs can ride.
The game starts off using many of the same level tropes from the console game, but as it goes on, it begins introducing a variety of environments not seen in its counterpart, or even any of the Super Nintendo Donkey Kong games. The game also features a handful of exclusive enemy characters not seen in the console games, including boss battles with unique characters, with the sole exception being the Kongs' archnemesis, King K. Rool.
Donkey Kong Land is compatible with the Super Game Boy add-on for the Super Nintendo. Playing it using the peripheral allows the game to be played with more complete color, and adds a jungle border around the screen.
Donkey Kong Land contains examples of:
- 100% Completion: The game tracks your completion percentage and displays it on the save/file select screen. In order to get it to 100%, players will need to enter every bonus stage in every level.
- Adaptational Badass: Expresso can defeat enemies by jumping on top of them, unlike in Donkey Kong Country, where he couldn't damage enemies at all.
- Adapted Out: Rambi and Expresso are the only Animal Buddies returning from Country, so Enguarde and Winky are absent. In addition, none of the other Kongs (except Cranky in the manual's backstory) appear in the game either.
- All There in the Manual:
- The story is not reflected in the game itself with any cutscenes or dialogue, so reading the manual is the only way to learn about it.
- The names of the levels do not appear in the game itself. The manual contains maps of each world that show their names. This leads to a rather odd result when the level called "Construction Site Fight" has Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong having to use balloons to cross gaps and the level called "Balloon Barrage" has the Kongs heading across a construction site with a balloon only appearing in a bonus area.
- Balloonacy: Construction Site Fight note contains balloons that rise and fall as they inflate and deflate. The Kongs can use them as platforms to cross large gaps.
- Belly Flop Crushing: King K. Rool gains this as a new attack after being hit a few times.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: Inverted, in the Japanese release, the names of Balloon Barrage and Construction Site Fight are renamed to "Construction Site" and "Balloon Lift" to better fit the levels.
- Clam Trap: Clambos are giant clam enemies that appear in Kremlantis. They open and close to temporarily block narrow passages, and damage the Kongs on contact.
- Continuity Nod: The fourth world is in fact the city that the very first Donkey Kong took place in, the one where the original Kong held Pauline hostage on top of a skyscraper.
- Do Not Touch the Funnel Cloud: Swirlwinds are tornadoes that appear as enemies in Kremlantis. They chase after the Kongs when they are nearby, and can damage them on contact, but the Kongs can harmlessly bounce on top of them, and use them as springboards.
- Fake Difficulty: Rears its ugly head with very slippery jumping controls and inconsistent physics when trying to roll/cartwheel to gain speed.
- Final Boss: Just like in Country, the final stage has the Kongs confront their nemesis King K. Rool. The fight is very similar to the one found in that game. Here, the battle takes place on a blimp and King K. Rool has a more limited attack pattern.
- Gangplank Galleon: The first world includes stages taking place aboard King K. Rool's pirate ships. Curiously, stages with this theme would not debut in the Country trilogy until the sequel.
- Hailfire Peaks:
- The first world, Gangplank Galleon Ahoy!, alternates between radically different level tropes between stages, including jungle stages like Jungle Jaunt, Simian Swing, and Tyre Trail, snowy mountain stages like Freezing Fun, Rope Ravine, and Arctic Barrel Arsenal, and pirate ship stages like Deck Trek and Riggin' Rumble.
- World 3 is two interconnected areas known as Monkey Mountains & Chimpanzee Clouds. The stages here alternate between caves and mountains, and high in the sky.
- Level in the Clouds: Track Attack, Sky High Caper, and Collapsing Clouds, all from World 3, take place atop clouds floating high in the sky. Most of them contain lifts that the Kongs have to ride through the sky to avoid falling.
- Levels Take Flight: Kong Krazy, Fast Barrel Blast and the final battle against King K. Rool take place inside a giant blimp floating above Big Ape City.
- Metropolis Level: The final world is Big Ape City, a world that doesn't resemble any locations from the Country trilogy. The levels feature the Kongs navigating the heights of city skyscrapers and construction sites.
- Ninja Prop: The level Kong Krazy has more KONG letters than the usual four, and at certain points in the stage, the Kongs press switches that cause the letters they have collected to leave the HUD at the top of the screen to become platforms they have to use to cross large gaps.
- No Ending: The game immediately cuts to credits after the Kongs defeat K. Rool. The only other indicator that you won is the word "Congratulations" beforehand.
- No Fourth Wall: Donkey Kong Land is fully self-aware, with the Excuse Plot being DK and Diddy embarking on an adventure on a limited game system like the Game Boy just to prove Cranky that they could do it.
- Perplexing Pearl Production: The Giant Clam boss creates pearls so quickly that it can use them as a primary attack against the Kongs. The Kongs must direct the pearl at a closed Clambo, so it'll open and redirect the pearl at the Giant Clam.
- Ratchet Scrolling: One level in World 4 features conveyor ropes to carry the Kongs up or down and, in most areas, you have to ride the rope to scroll downward. If you try to jump, you will die.
- Save-Game Limits: The player cannot save their game unless they collect all four KONG letters in a stage and then clear it. Failure to collect all four will result in the player missing their chance to save.
- Sinister Stingrays: The boss of the first world is Wild Sting, a stingray that flies back and forth across the screen and attacks by swooping down at DK and Diddy. He gradually gets faster the more hits he takes.
- Shout-Out: Within the game's coding is a string under the name "PFLOYD".
- Solid Clouds:
- Track Attack, Sky High Caper, and Collapsing Clouds all feature giant clouds that the Kongs can run across as if they're solid platforms.
- Certain stages contains small cloud platforms that the Kongs can stand on, but they disappear almost as soon as they step on them, so the Kong's cannot afford to wait on them.
- Tactical Suicide Boss: The Giant Clam boss at the end of Kremlantis floats around and fires pearls in the direction of the Kongs, but if the pearls hit the harmless Clambos that appear in the corners of the arena, they will bounce off and hit the boss, damaging it.
- Underground Level: Pot Hole Panic and Spiky Tyre Trail take place in dark caverns within the Monkey Mountains.
- Underwater City: The second world is Kremlantis, an obvious parody of Atlantis consisting of temples submerged under the sea. The game's swimming levels are all found here, as are some more traditional temple stages.
- Weaponized Headgear:
- Hard Hat the mole throws his mining hard hat at the Kongs each time he pops out from one of the holes in the ground.
- King K. Rool's main attack is throwing his crown at the Kongs, just like in Country. The crown keeps his head protected as long as he's wearing it, so when he throws it, that's the Kongs' chance to attack him.
- Whack-a-Monster: World 3's boss is Hard Hat, a giant mole who rises from one of three holes in the ground and attacks the Kongs by throwing his hard hat on his head in their direction. The hat protects him as long as he's wearing it, so the Kongs have to jump on his head after he throws it.
- A Winner Is You: The ending consists of nothing but "Congratulations." followed by the credits. Yep, not even an exclamation mark.
