Donkey Kong Land 2 attempts to translate the vibrant world of Donkey Kong Country 2 into the technical limitations of the Game Boy. While the visuals are surprisingly detailed and the soundtrack catchy, the experience is hampered by the small screen and visibility issues. Enemies often appear just off-screen, leading to frustrating hits, and the level design occasionally feels cramped compared to its SNES inspiration. Nonetheless, for fans yearning for more Donkey Kong action on the go, it offers a decent challenge and a nostalgic trip through K.Rool's pirate-themed world.

Controls and plays better than DK Land 1, but is less unique. No exclusive environments, levels are different but feel like easier versions of their SNES counterparts. Definitely DKC2, but for car rides.

But the levels are different! But its the same gimmicks as DKC2 SNES.

Also the sprites glitch a lot. Sometimes it felt like a bootleg. It seems to do this on native hardware, emulation, and the Analogue Pocket so its just a game thing. Really weird.

Better than Donkey Kong Land 1, but not by much. They fixed the jumping, but the levels still feel... off. This is technically the first time I ever beat any version of DKC2. Should I have played something else instead? Yes.

(Heads up to the next tortured soul playing this game, whoever you are. All the animal friends have their special abilities, but only when you press Select. For example, to make platforms with the spider, you have to shoot the webs out first, then press select while the projectile is still on screen. Just keep fucking around with the select button. You're probably not actually stuck.)

One noticeable improvement from previous Donkey Kong Land game is the controls and physics have been improved significantly, however at times I felt like the game wasn't registering my inputs correctly, resulting in deaths. The game isn't as innovative as the previous title, but I don't think the game is necessarily worse for it. The level design is pretty decent, though do expect some screen crunch from such a tiny screen. Overall, a decently enjoyable game, and one of the better platformers for the Game Boy.

(also please, don't call this game a demake of DKC2, the level layouts are completely different)

Unlike the first Donkey Kong Land game, this game has way more in common with Country 2, for better and for worse.

At best, it plays and feels more or less like DKC2, albeit with the colour and screen-size limitations. But it also fails to offer anything new that someone who has already played DKC2 hasn't seen before.

The levels have different layouts, yes. But for the most part they play off the same gimmicks, same level themes and mostly the same music as well.

Worth playing if you're DESPERATE for more DKC2.

Now this is more like it!

Compared to the previous Donkey Kong Land game, this one does a much better job at recreating both the feel and the quality of the SNES DKC games. The physics are improved, the level design is more polished, the save system works like the original game, the NPC Kongs are back... this is essentially a portable version of DKC2! And it kinda works!

With that said, this is still a Game Boy game. Just like the first DKL game, the small screen size is the dealbreaker here. It's especially awful in vertically-scrolling levels, like the ones that require climbing ropes or using Squawks. You just KNOW that if you move upwards a second too hastily you're gonna bash your head into a fucking wasp enemy you had no way of seeing. And good freaking luck beating the King Zing boss. Additionally, the absence of the SNES's extra buttons is felt. The team throw is sadly absent, and the animal buddies' special moves require pressing the select button for some reason. I had to search up a walkthrough to even find out the animal buddies' special moves were in this game at all.

Compared to the first DKL game, this is much more like a straight port of the SNES game than its own thing. It's so similar (and directly inferior) to DKC2 that there's no real reason to play this game today for any reason other than curiosity. So unlike DKL1, this doesn't even have that "diehard fans might get something out of it" appeal going for it. But deciding between DKL1 and DKL2 is essentially deciding between a game that's a unique experience but utter shit, and a game that's solid but something you've seen before. I'd personally take the latter game any day. Unnecessary to play today, but for what it is, it's perfectly adequate.

Compared to DKL1, this game is surprisingly competent for a game made by one programmer. Although I think it's way cooler that DKL1 was a wholly original game made for the Game Boy to be paired with DKC1 on SNES, it's also a pretty bad game so it doesn't end up meaning much.

This, on the other hand... the best way to put it is that it uses DKC2 as an inspiration to create an alternative to the SNES game that doesn't feel like I wasted time or money investing into a playthrough of it compared to the console counterpart. 3 stars isn't a great review, but it's high praise compared to how bad it COULD'VE been. You should still play DKC2 instead because this game doesn't even have Cranky Kong in it smh

Donkey Kong Land 2 is a massive improvement over the first Donkey Kong Land title. Controls here are basically perfect, matching the SNES games almost identically. Backgrounds are still as detailed as before but never do you feel like you can't see something due to detail. The only major issue is the screen crunch. While levels are definitely designed around the game boy with plenty of banana trails helping you see what is unseen, the screen crunch has gotten me killed dozens of times.

I guess the other major issue is that this game is basically just Donkey Kong Country 2 but downgraded all over the place so that it can fit onto the Game Boy. If you enjoyed the uniqueness of Donkey Kong Land versus its console counterpart, you'll be turned off here. I don't really care too much for this because Donkey Kong Country 2 is an exceptional title and it shines through here.

While it's still rather flawed compared to other heavy-hitter platformers on the Game Boy, Donkey Kong Land 2 is a good time.

Pros: A pretty decent conversion of Donkey Kong Country 2 from the SNES. World to world, level to level, they made a miniaturized DKC2, changed the level design a bit so it's not the same game, but same level names, same enemies, same themes, it's all quite impressive to smush such a massive SNES game into a Game Boy form. It does perform well, the physics and movement feel just like DKC2, a good engine! And they made it more readable for Game Boy too, after DKL1 had complaints of the screen being too busy, too animated, mixing background with foregrounds, this game cleaned that up pretty well.

Cons: But... it doesn't do much to stand on its own, you could say it is pretty much worse than DKC2, in every way. The novelty of having DKC2 on the go was kinda what this game was, and now, that's gone, it's of no use. So it's a curiosity to a time when we had "junior" versions of home console games releasing on significantly worse handhelds. Also one major/minor note, what is that box art? Why did they choose that box art? This game carries over so much from DKC2 that any other official art would've worked perfectly fine, but this specific one, has Glimmer the Angler Fish right there... Glimmer the Angler Fish is the only animal buddy to not show up in Donkey Kong Land 2. What kind of joke was this!?!

What it means to me: I really anticipated this game, loving the first Donkey Kong Land. Initially, I was hoping to get something unique like how the first game was, and I gotta be honest... I was disappointed we didn't get that. I wanted to see if Hogwash the flying pig would return, no joke! But hey, DKC2 was a good game, and this was too, so I enjoyed myself plenty. And like, it has an 8-bit rendition of Stickerbush Symphony, can't really hate on that!