Tl;dr Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is still one of my favorite Donkey Kong games of all time. I still hold it dearly to my heart and I'm really glad I was able to play it again properly with a pair of DK Bongos I bought again (which were the same ones I sold off to a local store ages ago). Only main critique I have of the game is the short length but that's really it.

Jungle Beat is one of those games my dad's side of the family owned when I was a kid and would play when I would go over to their house. When I was a kid I was completely out of the loop regarding the Rare buyout, I just saw this as another cool DK game, and it was definitely a pivotal game from my childhood that made me fall in love with Donkey Kong with DKC2 and DK64 being my main entry points.

And I'm very happy to say that Jungle Beat is still a really fucking fun ass game for me, probably even more fun for me now after mastering the DK Bongos as an adult. The game feels so satisfying to control, play, and my god its so rewarding to string long combos and finally land on the ground netting a ton of beats. DK's a mad powerhouse in this game and it really shows in the levels and boss fights too. Levels are so tightly designed around it's limitations that it feels exquisite to master movement and find the most optimal routes to keep your combo gauge going.

I love this game so much man; Jungle Beat, Jungle Climber, and Tropical Freeze are definitely my favorite 3 Post-Rare DK titles.

I highly recommend it to people especially since DK Bongos aren't in any demand right now, it's better time than now to get them before they fetch higher prices.

Cookie Cutter has such a strong artstyle, seeing it in action felt truly special. I also really like Cherry and her moveset from the get go being fighting game inspired. It felt really good to chain light attacks into specials. She has alot going on. Though unfortunately you hit that stride by the time the game is reaching it's end. It's shorter than I expected.

I didn't have much gripes outside of wishing Cherry had a faster movement option on land, walking to the fast travel spots was a bit tedious. The game's abundance of instadeath spikes towards the latter half was annoying too because there really isn't anything to use to avoid them more effectively (they were p annoying in Golden Tower too). Enemy variety isn't very vast, I did find it really cool they animated unique glory kills for enemies though, but I imagine most people wouldn't use em once you make Cherry a high power killing machine with upgrades.

The strange decision to have voice acting at the beginning and then cutting it for the rest of the game was...baffling. Which is a shame cause I really did enjoy the voicework of Cherry & Raz (I mean come on, Cherry has a design that tells you off the bat what she sounds like). I chalk it up to a budgetary thing clearly most of it went into the presentation which is no slouch.

The ending was also...very abrupt? I felt like this game could've done more to make Cherry regaining the memories of her past as a more gradual buildup rather than just being shoved in last minute after the climax. Granted, the story wasn't amazing/super duper engaging (not poorly written at all, it was just by the numbers for me) but I wish the importance was carried throughout gradually rather than at the start, kinda nothing inbetween with small buildup, then the giant drop at the end. The Infonet and Denzels stuff was neat though.

Overall though, Cookie Cutter is a solid ass game and it shows a ton of promise for this dev studio. They're constantly updating and tweaking it too which is really great to see. They really do care about this world they made and that's a great thing to behold.

(Played Wiredcrackpot's recently released retranslation patch for the Saturn original)

This was an amazing translation, I genuinely didn't think it'd ever happen, but I'm so glad it did. The story is still pretty nuts but it feels so good to actually experience the proper personalities of the characters and the comedic timing of jokes on-screen. I loved this game so much already, but this retranslation patch is most certainly the best way to play it now.

The patch's existence makes Working Designs' handling of the script all the more apparent. While I do appreciate them bringing the game to the West back then, they really messed with character personalities, adding forced jokes that were never there, and scrubbing of biblical allegories that the original script had.

If you're interested in checking Silhouette Mirage out, I implore you to played Wiredcrackpot's retranslation patch. The game takes a bit to learn but you will not regret it.