Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest

"The best of the DK trilogy also the longest, hardest, and most inovative"

After beating DKC I thought a platform game could never get any better than that. A week after the release of DKC2 I learned how wrong I was. From game play to graphics this game was at least twice as good as it's proceeder.

Graphics-10
May not of made me say wow like the first DKC but theses graphics were still amazing. The pre rendered back rounds are back and look better than ever, also the characters looked better and well I could go on for hours but I think I will stop now.

Music/sound-9
The music still got replayed a lot through out the course of the game but rare did improve on it also it repeats less than in DKC. The sound effects still sound great the explosions and the noise the barrel makes when it brakes sound realistic as anything.

Game play-10
This is where it totally destroys it's proceeder. The game play is simply amazing. Once you find out DK was kidnapped you infiltrate kremling island with the help of a new friend Dixie. Each character has special moves like Dixie can glide and Diddy is simply more quick and agile. Also some animal friends have been taken out only to add better ones in, also each animal can know charge up and do a super move. With two exceptions the spider shoots webs and makes web platforms. Also Squawks the parrot is back and does more than just hold a flash light, he comes in two different forms purple and green. Green flies and shoots coconuts and purple is simply used to get down from high areas with out dying. Don't worry secrets are back and they pay even more of an importance to the game. After you find a barrel with stars on it and enter you go to 3 different bonus stages (find the token, collect the stars, and destroy them all) when you beat one you get a token and once you get enough tokens you can pay a huge kremling to go to a secret world and play one of the levels. Once you beat all the secret levels with all the secrets and DK coins found a special surprise awaits you. At first my single complaint was the absence of animal tokens but in the latter levels I found out you enter an animal barrel and use that animal to beat that particular level and it made me forget about animal tokens altogether.

Control-10
The controls are more or less exactly the same as the proceeder. With the exception of the addition to holding down the button to charge up and using R to shoot the web platforms.

Rent/Buy-If you own a snes you really should own this game. Since no store probably rents this game look for a used copy it's probably only 5-10 bucks.

Overall-10
If the first was a revolution in platform gaming this one has to have been a milestone in platform gaming. It's defiantly in the top 3 snes games and no gamer who still owns a snes should be with out this game.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/06/00, Updated 01/17/01