I sure love this game, but have to admit getting 102% isn't the most fun thing to do. Many of the collectables are hidden in a way that it feels impossible to find without a guide. Other than that the game is a great joy and always will forever be my childhood game.

My thoughts:
(+ = (mostly) positive; - = (mostly) negative)
++ Gameplay;
Tight controls and great levels. I like all levels aside from toxic tower. idk who came up with that level, but he surely was having a bad day while designing it.

++ Music;
Perfect.

++ Graphics;
Pre-render 3D is still my favourite artstyle.

++ Story/Characters;
Shout out to my by cranky kong. He's so silly.

Recommend?
Yes, play all dkc games!

After stepping out of the first area, you make your first steps onto Crocodile Island, and a landscape of lava unfolds. Bubbles sprout from the lake of fire, and rivers of magma fall from mountains in the background while David Wise's Hot Head Bop sounds in the background. You can hear everything happening around you.

I wouldn't fixate so much in the presentation but Rare did achieve something quite singular beyond realistic-looking scenery. It is a combination of both aesthetically inspired work and sound design that makes the levels have a breathing presence, almost a world-like feeling even, that still resonates to this day.

It's clearly where the efforts went though because once you pick the controller you remember you are playing yet another video game sequel. More to collect to make the player explore, new vertical levels to add variety, new obstacles to face to justify making another game. Yet at the end, more distractions from the main action, more haphazardly introduced content.

Note: If you decide to play this game, you really should do it on an old TV (or the closest you can find to that). It really isn't the same on emulation. The TV blur dissipates the two-dimensional layers to add more texture to the landscape, and the game was designed that way. This is lost in emulation and feels very awkward instead.

MASTERPIECE

Não tem muito o que falar, só pegaram tudo o que tinha no primeiro jogo (de bom e ruim) e melhoraram de uma forma que beira a perfeição. Fases criativas e desafiadoras, que te prendem no jogo, por não serem repetitivas, além da utilização dos "mascotes" (novos e antigos) foram ampliados e aprimorados, o "conteúdo extra" que incluem os bônus e as moedas DK te trazem uma recompensa muito maior por você fazer os 102%, os chefes que pra mim eram um ponto baixo no primeiro jogo ficaram sensacionais, com um balanceamento entre qual personagem você irá usar junto com a utilização do cenário a seu favor e, é claro, a trilha sonora que é perfeita. A remoção do Donkey Kong com a adição da Dixie pode ser a única coisa criticável do jogo a meu ver, mas gosto muito da forma como ela foi utilizada não só como balanceamento mas também pra acessar áreas extras ou então chegar em barris bônus com mais facilidade.

Enfim, jogo sensacional , muito divertido, extremamente rejogável e com certeza marcou muito quem jogou isso na infância.

For many, this sequel marked the true beginning of the franchise. For me, it marks a departure, and not necessarily for the better. It is certainly more polished and more challenging with a smoother difficulty curve. But the literal roller coaster stages are the lone relics that preserve the kinetic thrill of the original. And it's SO prescriptive. Bonus stages no longer feel like secrets; they're tucked-just-out-of-sight showstoppers begging to be completed. Tell-tale signs, tutorials, slow-motion exits that grind the pace to a halt – bonus rooms are treated with an undeserved religious fervor in DKC2.

This is my favorite game of all time!

Improves on DKC 1 in every way! The music is better, the levels are better, the bosses are actually good, going for 100% actually has a purpose and is fun and rewarding and both the characters are actually fun to play as.

The game is super fast paced and fun. It's harder than the first game and is super rewarding to play through!

Donkey Kong Country turned out to be one of my favorite games on the SNES, and while I was excited to check out its first sequel, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be on the same level as its predecessor. Now that I’ve actually beaten it, though, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest took everything that made Donkey Kong Country good and made it even better. The levels are even more atmospheric and well designed than they were in the first game, and David Wise’s score is twice as terrific as the first one. Not only that, but giving Dixie Kong an advantage over Diddy Kong rather than just being a walking shield was a great idea, and it also led to some incredible levels designed around her hover ability.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest is also far more difficult than its predecessor, which was a hard game on its own, and although I found myself losing a lot more lives throughout this game, I also found myself having a lot more fun. Donkey Kong Country was challenging, but fair, and while that still kind of applies to Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest, I saw the game as the perfect balance between a fair challenge and a rage inducer, and that balance was what kept me going, in a way.

Although I still need to play more games on the SNES, especially more story driven ones, I have no problem calling Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest my favorite SNES game, and although I’m still very excited to play Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble!, I’m not sure if it can get any better than this.

It's so bizzarre how DKC2 is able to remain one of the best 2D platformers to this day.

It's so good that it was alone able to turn what was for all intent and purposes a "DK OC made by Rare" into one of Nintendo's biggest icons, stnaidng out to this day (despite his mixed representations in future titles),

It presents immaculate movement, letting you keep your momentum and enjoy the really creative levels on different paces. And this is even without considering the amount of secrets each level has in terms of collectibles and side modes where you get to play as the Animal Buddies.

In terms of the vibes of the game, I love that Rare made a Rayman 2 approach before Rayman 2: the island you known from the first game has now been taken over by pirates, leading to darker and more menacing environments.
But the game doesn't stop at that: it's still able to present a charm like no other nintendo platformer is able to, with its sharp and humorous writing, the incredible visual characterization of any character and enemy, and an atmosphere that sometimes can feel.... oniric or magical.

The fact that an emotional piece of music like Stickerbush Symphony originates from a 1995 game about silly monkeys and crocodiles is incredible.

My only nitpick with this game is that I feel like the addition of Dixie as the "easier" playable character kind of leave diddy to feel a bit off.

Diddy still controls amazingly, don't get me wrong, but the fact that he is standing next to a character with the ability to hover makes him shine a bit less in my opinion: I kinda wish they added something to his gameplay to compensate for this lack of peculiar ability.

But aside from this weird rant.... yeah DKC2 is a masterpiece: easily the best game in the DK franchise.

If 1996 with Super Mario 64 marked a new era for video games, 1995 with Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest was a grand finale for the previous era.

In a generation dominated by side-scrolling platform adventure games, DKC2 is the ultimate apex of the genre. From throwing giant eggs at a pirate crow to riding an Air Jordan-wearing tarantula to battling a giant wasp as a nut-barfing parrot, the pure VIBES of this game are unmatched.

Donkey Kong Country was already very 90s. Think of the opening: old Cranky Kong playing a phonograph of the Donkey Kong arcade soundtrack until a new, younger hip Donkey Kong blasts onto screen and starts grooving in sunglasses. How can you get more 90s than that?

Enter Donkey Kong Country 2: give the monkey sidekick of Donkey Kong a hip, pink beret-wearing gf that flies via her ponytail and send them off on a reptile pirate-themed adventure to the transcendent psychedelic soundscapes of David Wise. Also whenever Diddy completes a level, he does a funky monkey rap while Dixie plays a Guns N Roses-esque guitar riff. If DKC is the 90s, then DKC2 is the 90s squared.

Did I mention our monkey heroes do battle with a giant floating sword over a pit of lava? Damn anyone to the fiery depths of Hell who dare rate this game anything less than a masterpiece.

Needed to take a break from the other games I'm playing so I figured I'd just play my favorite game of all time again.

Played it on NSO for the first time and the game is still amazing, but it doesn't feel the same as playing it on the actual SNES (also why is the button mapping normal for the dkc games on NSO, but weird for the 2D mario games??). Not the worst way to experience the game if you haven't played it before, but I'm probably gonna stick to playing the actual cart in the future.

If you haven't played DKC 2 before, you should (as well as the entire trilogy) as soon as possible. I always recommend going for 102% (or at least going for all the bonus rooms) since you unlock the secret world and secret final boss. Just a heads up though, if you're new to the game, don't save all the secret world levels for after the non-secret final boss. You gotta reload your save after that fight and you start with 5 lives vs however many you would normally accumulate throughout a normal playthrough and you don't want to try those levels with so few lives on your first time.

Look, I've been wrangling with this review for a while, knowing that I tend to put way more of a wordcount on games I'm mixed/negative on, compared to games that I love with all my heart. It seemed like a weird balance in my head, knowing I don't have as much to say about what I think is the pinnacle of 2D platforming. Maybe it goes to show I like talking about negative things more? Does that mean there's something wrong with me? Well, maybe I'm not obligated to dedicate 30 paragraphs on why I love Donkey Kong Country 2. I just simply do. It just feels good. It's hard to describe all the little things this game improves over its predecessor that make for a strikingly different, and more fluid experience. Nonetheless, I will try.

They got rid of Donkey Kong, and somehow it made for a way better sequel. Not that DKC1 was bad by any means, but I did always feel like there were awkward things about it. The combination of one big playable kong, and one small playable kong was part of that. My preference would've always been to play as Diddy, he's smaller, nimbler, just overall more fun to play as than Donkey Kong, who took up more screen estate than I was comfortable with. How does DKC2 address this? Fuck it, just introduce a 2nd Diddy Kong, call her Dixie, and give her the ability to hover.

Dixie isn't just your partner character, or your 2nd hitpoint, she is your powerup. In the same way you obtain a raccoon tail or a super cape in Mario, obtaining Dixie is that additional bit of help to breeze through tough platforming challenges, as long as you're able to keep her around. Dixie is the superior character compared to Diddy, but unlike DKC1, where losing the agile character strands you with the somewhat clunkier one, DKC2's only punishment for losing Dixie is the loss of the hover. You still have Diddy, and Diddy's agility and size is overall equal to Dixie's, ensuring that each character feels just as good to play as.

Another significant improvement has been the retuning of the level design, and more specifically, how it handles secrets and bonus stages. Some of Rare's collect-a-thon trademarks started to come through here, allowing you to access additional optional stages by completing enough Bonus Rooms (thus, obtaining enough Bonus Coins) to unlock each one. Collecting every coin gives you access to the true final boss, and a secret ending to match.

The thing is, I didn't consider hunting down the bonus rooms in DKC1 very fun, due to the lack of reward for actually doing all of them, not to mention that they often relied on repetitive minigame gimmicks that made them less interesting to discover anyway. What I love about each bonus room in DKC2 is how they all feel like their own contained mini-stages. They're quick and to the point platforming challenges that take advantage of each stage's unique mechanic as a little bit of "Let's see if you've learned how this works," or "Let's teach you something that you can then bring into the main level." They're hidden, but intuitive to find if you're paying attention, and clearing 15 Bonus Stages each unlocks one more extra level as your reward, giving you constant positive reinforcement that going out of your way to do this is worth it, if only to discover more of the game's content.

The soundtrack's another high point for me. Though I'd be amiss to gloss over DKC1's Aquatic Ambience, or its final boss theme, I do think that DKC2's change of priorities away from ambience resulted in David Wise's best work. Equal parts energetic, and dramatic in their efforts to capture the theme of a pirate adventure, not to mention the use of more melancholy melodies for Bramble Blast, or the Forest theme. Sometimes cheery, sometimes sad, either way, a soundtrack that encourages you to push onward and save the day at any cost! Like the cost of 1 Banana Coin required to save your game. Okay, so maybe this game has at least one flaw.

But I don't care!! Though it may not be everyone's cup of tea due to its challenging difficulty, DKC2 is so expertly refined and so much fun to play, that I'd gladly lose as many extra lifes as it takes to conquer each stage, and achieve that satisfying 100% completion. This is not something I can say for even something as good as Super Mario World 2, which speaks to how much of a difference it makes, when the requirements to 100% your game are fast-paced. No time is wasted, new mechanics are constantly introduced, and rewards for exploration are everywhere. Did I mention that when you find that one Bonus Room you've missed in a stage, you can quit out of the stage and it'll retain what you've found? Yeah, it's so nice! Play it!!!

Extremamente belo, uma relíquia do SNES.
Todas as qualidades do primeiro DKC estão aqui, e ainda melhores.

O gráfico esta ainda melhor e com uma ambientação ainda mais imersiva e única.
A trilha sonora é absurda de boa, uma das melhores do console disparado.
Level design excelente, vários segredos, porém muito satisfatório de encontrar cada um.
Além deste jogo ter acrescentado os extras na franquia, um mundo extra totalmente novo e desafiador, além de um final verdadeiro.

Simplesmente perfeito, vale totalmente á pena jogar, este game é atemporal.
(Foi o primeiro jogo que joguei na vida <3)

Perfected the Donkey Kong Country formula. Felt like the level themes were too samey or few in DKC1? This game has a ton more variety on Crocodile Isle. Bosses are more than "Jump on it" and more numerous. Diddy and Dixie are both light and have a quicker pace than Donkey. Dixie's hover will feel like a nice breeze to get to difficult jumps when you're struggling. The graphics are still beautiful and go nicer with the more varied stage themes. The music... I'd buy it on vinyl if I could. 102% completion is very possible without a guide, as the levels do much better at throwing you little clues around, and far less cryptic than DKC1. Game just feels satisfying to play. One of my favorite games of all time and deserves every little bit of praise I can give.