Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest / YMMV

Anti-Climax Boss: The True Final Boss with K. Rool at the end of the Lost World, while not a cakewalk by any means, is regarded as an easier fight than the fight against him in the Flying Kroc, since it only takes one hit to defeat him — especially after the extremely difficult levels you have go through to reach him in the Lost World. While you do have to dodge many more obstacles to be able to hit him than you did for any segment against him in the Flying Croc fight, the lack of phases and strategy changes compared to the first fight make this not much of an issue.
Awesome Music: This is the only DKC game to be entirely scored by one person, David Wise, and it is rightly considered his magnum opus, even over his also-impressive contributions to the first game:
- The tune that really stands out to a lot of people is Stickerbush Symphony, which even got an encore performance in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze!
- Crocodile Cacophony, easily the most intense and climactic of K. Rool's battle themes.
- Disco Train, the roller coaster theme, is also a blast.
- In A Snow-Bound Land is an outright enchanting track with major Vangelis influences that is certain to put any listener at complete ease.
Best Level Ever: Rickety Race. It's a wheeled-vehicle level much like Target Terror and Haunted Hall...that's also a race, in which the 1st-place prize is the DK Coin.
Breather Level:
- Between Those Two Levels of Krem Quay, Glimmer's Galleon and Slime Climb, sits Rattle Battle. It's a cathartic romp across the ship's upper deck, with you bouncing your way as Rattly off Kremlings and Zingers from start to end without much resistance. It's just plain fun, and the Awesome Music reflects this perfectly!
- In Rambi Rumble, right after an extremely tense chase by King Zing, there's a Bonus Level right before the No Rambi sign. Said bonus level is painfully easy, consisting of flat hallways of enemies that Rambi can just effortlessly charge through.
- Clapper's Cavern is comparatively very easy to the other endgame levels in K. Rool's Keep. The hardest thing it does is mixing up two mechanics from previous levels from the early game (Lava Lagoon and Slime Climb), but otherwise, it doesn't have many enemies and the player should be familiar about what to do.
Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Dixie's propeller-spin makes platforming so much easier than Diddy's normal jumps that there's seldom a reason not to use her if you have her available. Not helping matters is that one of Diddy's main selling points from the previous game - holding barrels in front of him rather than above him - isn't as useful this game, because the original's hidden caves (which Diddy could find much easier by holding a barrel in front of him and running into walls) got replaced this game with Bonus Barrels.
Demonic Spiders:
- Cat-O-9-Tails, due to the unpredictability of where they will throw you...or if the game registers the catch as a hit and you lose a kong/life.
- The very rare black Klobbers, who take away one of your lives every time they collide with you. Note that they don't kill you while doing this. As such, if you're really unlucky and encounter one in a confined space, you can end up losing dozens of lives, especially if you're not quick to escape and capture them back before they float off. Even worse if you get harmed by a normal enemy or stage hazard after having your lives knocked down to one — enjoy that Game Over screen!
Difficulty Spike: Worlds 3 and 4 are often viewed as the time the game starts getting tough, most notably with Slime Climb in the former and Bramble Scramble in the latter.
Esoteric Happy Ending: The Golden Ending — in terms of both canon and meta. Crocodile Isle's destruction is treated as the ultimate Moment of Awesome for the Kongs; however, along with the Inferred Holocaust, this also means that many beloved levels are gone as well.
Even Better Sequel: Of the three Donkey Kong Country games released on the SNES, this is considered the best one by a large margin. It has tighter controls, better graphics, a highly acclaimed soundtrack, and even more gameplay variety than the original.
Fan Nickname: The mine level music, which was absent from the official soundtrack and didn't have an official name for years, is most commonly called "Mining Melancholy" on fan websites, originating from DK Vine in 1999. The GBA remake's Sound Test officially calls it "Kannon's Klaim", after the level where the music first plays.
Fanon: The hand that is holding Kleever... is revealed to only be an effect; Kleever itself is the boss. However, after the GBA remake that included a new boss Kerozene, and considering Kerozene is even using smaller Kleevers, made some fans to speculate that Kerozene is the one holding it under lava. Other fans think it diminishes Kleever as the boss and takes the away the awesomness of the sword itself being the boss.
Franchise Original Sin: This is the game where the collectathon traits of Rare's platformers started to kick in. The first game had four collectables, but all of them were geared towards extra lives, so you weren't required to get them to get the max completion percentage or the good ending. This game added in three new coins on top of the four prior items and you needed all the Kremcoins to get the best ending. There was some restraint in that Kremcoins were the only ones you needed for completion percentage, outside of Hero Coins collected in the Lost World. But the third game required you to get all of its unique collectables for the best ending.^*This would culminate in Donkey Kong 64 and its huge number of items, each requiring a specific character, that would be looked down upon by players.
Goddamned Bats: The green and yellow Klobbers, which only bump you around (and take bananas in the case of the yellow ones). They're rarely much of a threat, but they're often very annoying — especially in Klobber Karnage.
Good Bad Bugs:
- When playing through any of the honeycomb levels, if Diddy and Dixie use their pair up mechanic, they won't end up being tethered to the floor by the honey and can walk around freely.
- There's a glitch where you can avoid the difficult Bramble Race against Screech. If you come up right behind Screech to where the race will not start yet, and you fly upwards (you must have both characters at this point for this to work), you will then hit the the ceiling and hurt yourself causing yourself to blink. Quickly, while you are still blinking, pass Screech and head off to the rest of the level without having to worry about doing it in good time.
- The Castle Crush glitch is one of the most infamous, scariest, and a literal Game-Breaking Bug in the series, but with so many results and odd visuals and effects upon activating it, it can also be one of the most entertaining. If you have an emulator or a Virtual Console port, go wild, just make sure to try to back up your save files, but do not attempt it with a real console.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- At the ranking screen when completing the game, you can see Mario, Link, and Yoshi as the top three heroes, while Sonic's shoes and Jim's gun are lying near a trash can labeled "No Hopers". The jab at Sega after the company's jab at Nintendo with their infamous "Genesis does what Nintendon't" advertisements is funny enough, but it becomes cruelly funnier seeing this after knowing how much the Sonic franchise has suffered in its later years. And once Sega went third-party, Sonic would end up in official Nintendo games such as Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games and Super Smash Bros.. It's a bit sadder in Jim's case, since his series would be reduced to relative obscurity after a poorly received jump to 3D.
- A few of the wrong answers to Swanky's questions unintentionally predicted names in later games; one of the answers to "What is the name of the trendy, surfing Kong, who operates his Barrel flights?" is "Chunky", while "What is the name of the first lava level on this area of the island?" has the wrong answer "Meltdown Mayhem", which would go on to be the penultimate main level of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.
Inferred Holocaust: The "true" ending features Crocodile Isle exploding and sinking beneath the waves, and the only survivor that we see is K. Rool sailing away by himself on a raft. Obviously the Kremlings weren't completely wiped out, considering that we see more of them in the following games, but that had to cause a lot of casualties.
Memetic Mutation:
- Diddy Kong Pointing at an Unknown Object with His Hat on Backwards^Explanation
- Internet Checkpoints^Explanation
More Popular Replacement: Fans often consider Dixie Kong to be an even better character than Donkey Kong for not only being a playable Action Girl who serves as a Battle Couple with Diddy, but also for her added ability to glide with her hair.
Obvious Beta: Not a huge example, but you can tell very easily that the hitboxes and physics are off in the GBA version compared to the original, such as stars in Collect the Stars bonuses being easier to get (not so bad) and some cannons in Bramble Scramble not firing you where they're supposed to (a little more overt, but still not as bad as it could have been).
Scrappy Mechanic:
- Much like with Winky in the previous game, it is common to hear complaints about Rattly being difficult to control due to his constant hopping. That he is mandatory in Toxic Tower and Animal Antics — two of the hardest levels in the game — does not help. He's much easier to control in the GBA version, where his hopping is merely just a normal running animation.
- The code to start with 50 lives can only be applied when starting a new file, and lives are reset back to 5 every time you load a file that's already been started. Unless you plan to beat the game or at least make a lot of progress in one sitting, the code seems pointless. This is the only game in the SNES trilogy to have such a restriction; the next game allows you to get the 50 lives when loading an existing save once again.
- The original SNES version is the only game in the series where you have to pay to save your game. Sure, it's only 2 Banana Coins, but if you're broke and on your last life, hope you can quickly revisit a level and get a coin without getting killed. The option to use Funky to fly to an easier early-game stage (which tend to be full of Banana Coins and extra lives) is there... but Funky also charges you for his services. At least you're safe if you've used him once before since he only charges you the first time. It becomes even worse if you save before a boss, as besides Krazy Kremland, you'll need to go through a fair number of stages before you can reach Wrinkly Kong, and getting a game over entails having to fight the boss all over again, on top of all the stages from the last attempt.
Sequel Difficulty Spike: This game is considered to be harder than both its predecessor and its sequel. While the tighter controls and more responsive jumping are certainly welcome, DKC2 also has a number of gimmick levels that are considered very tough. Many of these — such as Toxic Tower and Gusty Glade — have you play more-or-less exclusively as an animal buddy, which are relatively hard to control in comparison, and there's quite a few such gimmick levels late in the game.
Special Effect Failure:
- In the lava stages, beginning with Hot-Head Bop, the kill barrier is located at the bottom of the screen, but the surface of the lava isn't, allowing you to pass below the surface of the lava without getting hurt. It's especially noticeable in the stage Red Hot Ride, which has slowly descending hot-air balloon platforms. Of course, no one's complaining from a gameplay standpoint, as it makes this already Nintendo Hard game somewhat easier, but it still looks weird.
- The GBA remake has the new boss Kerozene. While the idea of having a new boss for the remake sounds like a good idea, Kerozene ends up looking very out-of-place. Not only do his sprites manage to be poorly modeled (in a game that already has CG sprites), his animations are incredibly choppy and lifeless. He ends up looking very hastily thrown together just to add more content to the GBA version.
Spiritual Successor: To Donkey Kong Junior. Both focus on Donkey Kong's younger sidekick having to rescue him after being captured and both feature a heavier focus on vertical platforming and climbing mechanics. The real kicker? Diddy Kong was originally meant to be Donkey Kong Jr. before Nintendo ordered Rare to change his name.
Suspiciously Similar Song:
- The music in the swamp levels has the exact same drumbeat as "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins, which inevitably led to this.
- The Bramble level BGM "Stickerbush Symphony" takes chord progressions, beats, and a short excerpt from "I Will Remember You" by Amy Grant.
- The ice cave level BGM, "In a Snow-bound Land", is based on "Theme of Antarctica" by Vangelis.
Sweet Dreams Fuel:
- The song for the Enchanted Wood level.
- "Jib Jig."
- "In a Snow-Bound Land".
That One Boss:
- Most of the difficulty in the King Zing fight comes from being forced to play as Squawks, who is one of the hardest animal buddies to control. You have to dodge the boss' projectiles and shoot at the his stinger six times, which is very tricky due to it being located on his underside and Squawks' Abnormal Ammo being affected by gravity. In phase 2, King Zing splits into regular-sized Zingers, the last of which you have to hit three times while it homes in on you.
- When you hit Kreepy Krow, he flies away and you have to chase after him by climbing up ropes, dodging several lightning-fast cannonball shots that come from every angle.
That One Level:
- The first level that's likely to give a beginner player trouble is Red Hot Ride. It's the first gimmick-heavy level in the game, where your platforming skill takes a backseat in favour of riding hot air balloons through a punishing obstacle course.
- Glimmer's Galleon is completely underwater and there's no Engarde anywhere to give you a means of offense or defense. It's also nearly pitch dark, illuminated only by a cone of light from the titular animal buddy.
- Web Woods is one of the longest levels in the game. You have to play most of it as Squitter the Spider and traverse extremely long bottomless pits by using his quickly-vanishing spider webs as platforms, while avoiding tough enemies like Mini-Neckies and Kannons.
- Bramble Scramble can be incredibly infuriating if you don't take extra care with your jumps, since it's a very long level where all the walls are covered in deadly spikes.
- Animal Antics is a long level where you play as the cast of animal buddies. In the Bramble segment, you take control of Squawks, whose awkward controls are made even worse by the gusts of wind that are programmed to push you in the direction of the spikes.
- Toxic Tower is a level where you have to use the animal buddies to travel upwards in order to avoid a rising acid lake. The Rattly segment has punishing platform placement where missing even a single jump will flat out kill you. The segments with Squawks and Squitter also require precision, as they involve dodging numerous obstacles on a strict timer.
- In Gusty Glade, the heavy wind mechanic means the slightest wrong move will cause the Kongs to miss their jumps and plummet into a bottomless pit. Getting the secret Rattly doesn't make the stage all that much easier, as his hops still need to be timed with the wind, and he's lost at the halfway point of the stage.
That One Sidequest: In Web Woods:
- You have to let a Kannon shoot its gun, then follow the projectile so it breaks open the door to a hidden bonus room. The problem is that this involves backtracking across a bottomless pit by using Squitter's spider webs as platforms, which requires great precision from the player.
- One of the prizes from the end roulette is the DK Hero Coin, so if you miss the timing, you have to replay the whole level again for another shot.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: Some fans pity Krow. After already dying once, he later comes Back from the Dead as Kreepy Krow for Revenge... only to get beaten Deader than Dead on top of it. And his ghost Mooks (implied to be his children) sometimes give him Even Evil Has Loved Ones points with said fans, too.
Visual Effects of Awesome: It's easy to miss because you're busy dealing with the level's hazards, but the background in Lockjaw's Locker is actually a fully 3D ship deck that changes your angle of view depending on your vertical position in the level. This was pulled off on the Super Nintendo, but it wouldn't look out of place in a PlayStation 1 game.

YMMV / Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest

Edit Locked