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This review was originally written June 3, 2015. I'm really not sure on the assessment if Donkey Kong Country has better music than DKC2, butDKC3 sure doesn't.

In 1994, there was Donkey Kong Country. In 1995, there was Donkey Kong Country 2, and now we finally cover Donkey Kong Country 3, which was released in November 1996, and thus one of the Super Nintendo's last big outings as the N64 (already out by this time) eclipsed it with newer games. It is very rare that a game could come up with two more sequels within two years and still be good (and not just rehashes of the original), and once again, DKC3 succeeds. I would arguably say that it's the best game of the three.

I'm personally happy to say that after playing through Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! consistently for the first time (in early 2015) after dabbling with it circa 2005, it keeps and tweaks the new mechanics introduced in DKC 2 (this time with more differences between the Kongs), and eliminates the more frustrating parts of the previous game. For one thing, the maps make a lot more sense. Not only did it have paths for the worlds so you're not stuck trying to guess point to point like DKC2 (which made absolutely no sense, if you played the game you'd know what I'm talking about), but it is arranged now so that you can freely travel from place to place. Funky's still there of course but now makes newer vehicles you can travel from place to place with (you start out with a motorboat then eventually upgrade to better vehicles to access new worlds), so there's no being stuck in one area until you get to a Funky's Flights. The second thing is that there's no more coins that you have to collect to take advantage of saving or going to a different world, which is also nice. The downside, of course, is that there are coins used for a trading sequence, and once you collect 50 Bear Coins or so (and get royally ripped off in doing so), you just continue to accumulate them, with nothing to do but spend them on mini-games (not very enthralling after the first dozen times) for...more Bear Coins! It's great when you're trying to get 50 for a mirror, but then they become worthless. It would've been nice if you could keep trading them up for unlimited lives. Still, though, it's a minor annoyance and isn't a gamebreaker. The game features Dixie (from the last game) and newcomer Kiddie Kong (Dixie's cousin) as they try to defeat King K. Rool again (for a third time), this time under the guise (maybe--official accounts differ) of Dr. K Roolenstein (or something like that), which eventually leads to finding Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong.

I would recommend it if you played the previous two Donkey Kong Country games, which I would also recommend because they're excellent platformers (though Donkey Kong Country had the best soundtrack of the three, hands down), and up there with Mario & Co. instead of the licensed drivel (and there was a lot of that in the SNES era).

FINAL RATING:   

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