Very technical platformer, much like its predecessor. I will give it though, the difficulty was more evenly smoothed out in DKC1. In this entry, I felt like the opening half was a cake walk and near the second half it began to ramp up, until the last two levels which were near-impossible in some spots. Toxic Tower was rough as I wasn't aware Rattly could do a super jump until my 20th or so death on the first high rock (I had thought you had to damage boost off a bee the whole time). I thought the K Rool fight was good, but his attacks were either easily manageable or downright masochistic (looking at you parabolic spinning spike balls).
Dixie was an utter beast for some of the levels, I seldom used Diddy at all.