Donkey Konga

"Rythm For Your Hands!"

Owning a Gamecube and not a Playstation 2 caused me to get this rhythm game. My first choice would've been Dance Dance Revolution, but hey, I don't own a Playstation 2. I myself am a fan of the musical instrument called the bongos. Percussion is something I enjoy even though the only instrument I really play in my personal life is the bass guitar. I heard about this game and decided that it'd be something I would enjoy; percussion and a nice variety of songs. I will explain my experience with this game through a review, please read on.

Graphics: First stop is the graphics. The graphics are truly nothing outstanding, but it's not like this game is supposed to have some big focus on the graphics. I'm not saying the graphics are bad, they're just mediocre. Who really needs an eye pleaser when you're focused on these moving circles and half circles? Anyways, not much to say about the graphics as they have no major impact on the game, in my opinion.

Sound: Next stop is sound, the games strongest area overall, and main focus. I guess if I were to score the sound portion of the game I would score it in the high 9 percentile. I give this part such a strong score because it had a nice variety of music that almost anyone could enjoy, even though the majority of songs are covers and not as nice sounding. The music is also, for the most part, rhythmic and provides good material to beat your bongos to. It did seem to miss a couple of genres though such as hip hop, jazz, metal and that's all I can really think of that was missing. The only thing I wish the music selection had was Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice.

Difficulty: The difficulty of this game is easy. Even on the hardest mode Gorilla it's easy. There's also a way to make the game even easier by just pounding on both bongos whenever a note comes up and then clap when a clapping note comes up. Let me explain that more thoroughly; in the game you either hit left bongo, right bongo, both bongos or clap. Now whenever a left bongo, right bongo and both bongo come up you can just hit both bongo's and it's all good. Either way the game is easy, whether you play cheap or fair.

Game play: Now when I first played this game I thought the game play was great and I had a lot of fun getting gold notes for every song on every difficulty. But as you go to each new difficulty you see that the game can become a little monotonous, good thing it has mini games. There are three mini games which consist of juggling bananas, bashing K Rool on the head in a Whack a Mole sense, and climbing vines. I personally think that juggling bananas and bashing K Rool on the head were more fun than the actual game itself. But hey, everyone has their own taste.

Replay Value: Here we arrive at the wonderful Replay Value stop. This is definitely the weakest part of the game, weaker than the graphics in my opinion. I played through the game, unlocked everything, got gold notes on every song, and there's not much else to do. The only time I go back to replay Donkey Konga is when I want to try and get a higher score on the mini games, otherwise I don't touch the song portion, unless I happen to play with some friends. So there's really not much to replay with this game once you do everything you can.

Overall: I hereby give this game a mediocre score of 7/10. It had it's fun in the beginning and still has me coming back now and again for it's two fun mini games. The song choice is varied and there are som catchy tunes. I really do wish that the developers would've gotten the original songs for the game instead of these somewhat nice covers, guess you can't always get what you want. Just think of a 10/10 score being a stuffed delicious deep dish pizza (not to mention it being combination) and this game being a thin crust cheese pizza. It's still good but it just doesn't pack what it can. Fin.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/14/06