Donkey Kong Country 2 took everything that made its predacessor great and cranked it up to 11. I seriously mean everything. The visuals, the music, the gameplay, the levels, the story are all major upgrades from an already fantastic platformer.

While the story isn't great it is much better than the original. The original is legitamately Kaptain King K. Rool stole all of Donkey Kong's hoard of bananas. In DKC2 the stakes are raised from bananas to Donkey Kong’s life as he is kidnapped by King K. Rool. It's now up to Diddy Kong and newly introduced Dixie Kong to save the day. Dixie and Diddy are far and away my favorite two characters in the franchise so it was so much fun to have the entire game revolve around them. The gameplay is smooth and feels great even today. To be fair the original DKC also had smooth gameplay but I always found myself using the limber and quick Diddy over the lumbering DK. In DKC2 Diddy controls identically to the original DKC but now instead of a slower based powerful DK you get a second quick character in Dixie Kong. Plus Dixie comes with my favorite movement in the entire series with her hair spin which functions similarly to Peach's float mechanic in the Mario series. You will absolutely need that hairspin as this game is very difficult, especially the bonus stages. Every world out side of the first is sprinkled with a few very difficult levels which I appreciate.

The levels in DKC 2 put other platformers of this generation to shame. From a pirate ship, to a volcano, to a swamp, to a run down amusement park, to a giant castle this game takes you to many different locations that all feel fleshed out and keep the levels intersting and fresh. Not to mention they are gorgeous graphically. In my opinion it is some of the best graphics of the entire SNES library. The pirate, amusement park, and the bee hive levels absolutely pop with vibrant and beautiful color schemes. The swamp, castle, and volacono have a completely different tone with a much darker palette but equal in beauty just in a much different way. The animations on the enemies and the Kongs were top notch for the time. My favorite animation, which is also one of my favorites of all time, is when you complete a level and Diddy Kong breaks outs a boom box and starts rapping while Dixie pulls out a guitar and start slaying. It’s also very fitting that they celebrate their victory with music as this game with out a doubt has a top tier sound track of all time. As many great qualities that DKC boasts the star of the game is the abusrdly beautiful OST.

DKC2 is rightfully thought of as one of the greatest 2D platformers of all time and this is absolutely a game you should play.

My favorite 100 games of all time:
https://www.backloggd.com/u/DVince89/list/my-favorite-100-video-game-of-all-time/

Basically the metroidvania for me: someone who's not great at action but loves puzzles and exploration. The atmosphere of this game is immaculate, with such a unique visual style to it that really shows the attention to detail put into the game. The world overall is very well designed, with only a select few places where I struggled to figure out what to do, and its well connected enough to where backtracking never felt annoying (altho now that im beginning my postgame egg hunt, that opinion may change). Overall an extremely well made game that can be added to the collection of "games that make me feel incompetent as a developer cuz this guy made something this good all on his own."

Animal Well really is a thing you need to experience with a controller in your hands and full focus because it is a living, breathing art piece that sucked me in. I bought this game 5 hours ago and I haven't put it down since. The way everything animated is like drinking cool water on a hot night. Refreshing.

Seeing the previews of this game, I thought "ok big youtuber videogamedunkey is firmly in his 30's and wants to expand beyond making shitposts and make money by becoming an indie publisher". I wasn't moved at all by any of the promotion for Animal Well. I am bored to DEATH of 2D platformers and this game only teased a pleasant art style which is not enough to make me care. Most 2D games all mostly play the same. I'm sleep.

Thing is I got 24.68 on my Steam Wallet, so why not give it a try.

It is a Metroidvania logic puzzler. There are no tutorials in Animal Well. You are left as to guess how you progress forward. It's not Baba is You go FUCK yourself hard. It is quite simple and natural gameplay that leads to bigger and bigger "ah-HA!" moments. The kind where you feel dumb and smart. Smumb. Darmbt. I felt like I was one of those things.

The gameplay mixed with the environments and ambient music just clicked with me hard. I was 45 minutes into the game after being cynical about the whole thing and my brain just snapped after a certain puzzle solution and I realized this game has a hidden power level of cleverness. It is so meticulously well thought out. It's not trying to reinvent the wheel. It just was catered for you to have a good time.

I recommend this game for everyone. I've been in a gaming slump where no new game releases has really excited me, but Animal Well is the game that pulled my brain out of that fog. Not saying it will do the same for you, but if you give it a shot, it just might.

It ain't as good as Hollow Knight, but this is right under that (so far) as a jaw dropping 2D game with content that keeps upping the ante in amazement.

Jamal Dunkey picked a banger to kick off his publishing venture.