Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble

"The Kongs had it good back in the SNES days; oh they had it good..."

The bunch of wacky Kongs we all came to realize and love back in the SNES days--or in the circumference of these days--were back with a third Donkey Kong Country that had so little to do with Donkey Kong, and I'm supposing, so much more to do with his Country. In this iteration of the Country series, Dixie the female Kong is in the leading role of monkey protagonist; sidekick? A fat baby monkey known as Kiddy Kong--though a baby, he packs the punch that Dixie replaces with ponytail-gliding ability.

As the two monkeys, you roam an overworld that houses the eight worlds of this game plus some secret and not-so secret caves for setting birds free. You start off swimming from patches of land to others, and as the game progresses, you'll be finding comfier and integral means of swimming the waters--a jet-ski will help you climb up against water currents into new territory. The overworld is in no way big: all in all, it's a small area, approximately six tv screens big. It just helps make things feel more in the hand of the player than the fixed world of older Countries.

Each world has a set of levels and an end-boss. Also scattered through the over and ins of the word world, there is an all-sorts-of-colors bear brothers, smartly named Brothers Bear (I said wow). These bears sell, barter, and offer paths up to new items that will ultimately yield more bird caves and a camel tip that will lead to uncovering a lost world--you'd think you finished the game once you've overthrown the seventh world boss, but once the lost world is uncovered, you realize you've yet to finish the game.

A bad point in the score of the game here is that you're forced to collect every single worthy collectible--Bonus Coins, DK Hero Coins, and Banana Birds to finish the lost world. However, you may consider the lost world as a second ending that requires all the worthy collectibles in order to be finished. And if you're a goal-oriented person, you'll enjoy getting each and every last one of these collectibles.

"This sucks! How would I know I'm missing a Bonus Coin in a certain level of a certain world!

Worry not, for Rare has devised a flag system for your worries. If you get the Hero Coin in a certain level, you get a yellow stripe on your done-for level flag. If you get one of the two Bonus Coins, the flag will flutter a bit. If you get both Bonus Coins, the flag will flutter about crazy. A stat screen would've been nicer to keep watch of your progress on each of the levels, but the flag system makes things more graphical, more game.

The game uses the Mode-6 engine for its graphics output, which put it at a graphical edge back when it first released, and which put it at a still-pretty advantage today. The characters are 3-d sprites with 3-d drops on a 2-d lane. Colorful and varied defines the eye candy of this game, ranging from the jungle greens to the snow whites: your adventure will take you from the depths of the seas to the heights of the skies, from piercing fat fish with Enguarde's sword nose, to flinging barrels from a-high with Squawk at unsuspecting mechanical bees.

Who are Squawk and Enguarde? They're the animal buddies of this game, famous from day 1 in the Kong Countries. Too cutesy for words to describe, these buddies make the game more interesting, adding a layer of strategy, a layer of variation, and a full layer of fun. A Bonus Barrels hangs in the air, unreachable by the Kongs; you get to control Squitter the Spider, spitting webs of death on vulnerable enemies, and spitting another sorts of web, a round mass, that can be used as a platform to reach higher areas: this means with Squitter, the sky's (or ceiling's) the limit.

The main moving point of the game is the almighty BARREL--barrels that warp, barrels that launch, ghost barrels, DK barrels, even barrels that alter barrels: what what! Let's take a scenario to explain the beauty of the barrel. A ghost barrel disappears and reappears: this can prove both helpful and un-so. If you happen to get in the barrel when it appears and there's a mechanical bee overhead--sound of death plays-- there's one less monkey to play with.

Your monkeys move in sync--one leading and one in the background. You bring about your Dixie or Kiddy to the spotlight by pressing Select. Dixie is the brains, and Kiddy is the brawn, and together, they're a high jump. If you press A, the monkey in the spotlight will piggyback the other monkey. Jump then fling the monkey in the desired direction to reach otherwise unreachable platforms/objects--teamwork at its finest!

The audio score is something: when you're swimming the depths of the game's murky waters, the riffs make you feel like you are actually underwater; when you're skidding all over the snow levels, the tunes put you in vibe with the happy nature of Christmas-synonymous snow; when you're deep in the jungle, the melodies give you a jungle high as you stay put anticipating tarzan. As for the clinks and clanks of the entities and objects of the game, they clink and clank as they should.

The game isn't long per-say, but it is challenging, which puts it at a decent length to the finish. To get to the first ending screen, it'll take you a good 4-5 hours, and to get everything else and so to the second ending screen, you'll be looking at an extra 3 or so hours. That's not long, but it's decent. Replay value depends on how much you love those monkeys, but in my opinion, the game loses plenty of glitter after the first run--puzzles that made you happy for figuring out have already been figured out.

Monkeys have always been fun; add barrels and a bunch of happily-named animal buddies to the monkey ingredient, and you have barrels of fun. The game comes out short when it comes to the length and replay value, but by the time you hit the game's end time, you've already experienced a fun-filled monkey journey.

Pros

+ Graphics that outlast time for a 2-d platformer
+ Great audio score
+ Animal buddies add great variation
+ The barrels are just fun
+ Bonus levels are fun
+ Getting some of the DK Hero Coins prove challenging and fulfilling

Cons

- A bit short, both in length and replay value
- To get some extras, you'll be required to make leaps of faith
- Some people hate collectathons

Visuals - 9

The 3-d sprites on 2-d lane prove time withstanding

Audio - 9

Great score w/ fitting clinks and clanks

Gameplay - 9
-Fun Factor - 10
-Controls - 9
-Difficulty - Normal

The game is FUN; from barrels to animal buddies, from bonus levels to getting the Hero Coins, it's all packed with fun

Lifespan - 5

The game is 8 hours for 100% and then the replay value loses its magic

Overall - 8

Barrels of fun for as long (or as little) as it lasts

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/29/08

Game Release: Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble (US, 1996)