Donkey Kong Land

Donkey Kong Land

released on Jun 26, 1995

Donkey Kong Land

released on Jun 26, 1995

Donkey Kong Land is a Jump & Run classic, developed by Rareware and released by Nintendo for the Game Boy in June 1995. Cranky Kong, jealous of all the success Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong have had from Donkey Kong Country on the SNES, challenges the Kongs to beat another adventure on an 8-bit system (Game Boy). As King K. Rool agrees with Cranky and steals the bananas again, Donkey & Diddy Kong set out to go through another adventure!


Also in series

Donkey Kong Land III
Donkey Kong Land III
Donkey Kong Land 2
Donkey Kong Land 2

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More Info on IGDB


Reviews View More

Why does a Crocodile live in a penthouse in a city?

Either way its basically DKC 1.5 and its neat. Some fun levels if you exclude the arrow platform ones.

Play it in GBC mode to save yourself some headaches.

This is one difficult platformer, like many handheld platformers from this era. While the graphics and music are impressive, the game itself is just a much harder version if the original and doesn't bring anything extra outside of it being portable Donkey Kong.

Passable for a gameboy platformer. The graphics aren't bad if you're playing on a GBC but forget it if its an original GB. Some cool aesthetics in here though with the cloud and city levels. Wish that had made it into the SNES version.

A ver, está gracioso que sea un juego de SNES metido en la gameboy. Es feo como el solo pero es gracioso

considering the console it originally released on, an impressive demake.

no real reason to play this over the snes og however.

What might initially seem like a simple port of Donkey Kong Country turns out to be a whole new experience which, while borrowing heavily from the SNES game, still manages to validate it's own existence.

The best thing I can liken this game to is it's own soundtrack, which while being very reminiscent of Donkey Kong Country, has melodies often diverge slightly or entirely from their original versions.

The game looks good for a Gameboy game, and it sounds great too. But the platforming is unfortunately clunky and often results in some frustrating deaths that never entirely feel fair. The screen size can also add some artificial difficulty, though the levels are usually designed around the small screen.

Speaking of level design, I think the game definitely holds up in this regard, save for a few levels in particular. The last world even features a completely original (and very fresh) world theme.

I enjoyed collecting 'KONG' letters to save, I feel like it made them seem more valuable beyond secret-hunting. But there were definitely instances where I either couldn't find or reliably access a KONG letter and had to accept that I couldn't save after completing a given level.

In short, if you're looking for a fun little gameboy platformer, or are just desperate for more DKC, I think it's worth your time so long as you can overlook some funky controls and compromised visuals.