DK: King of Swing

"Interesting concept that turns out to just not be fun"

"DK: King of Swing" is a new concept, to be certain, and it is in fact quite a bit of fun to swing from things in videogames, as we all know. Here's the thing, though: in a nutshell, Nintendo and Paon had a pretty good thing going with this nifty new concept, but the execution leaves quite a bit to be desired. The game is challenging, yes, and does have its share of variety, but most of the time you'll find yourself continuing to play it because you haven't finished it and haven't unlocked this, that, or the other thing -- never because it's legitimately fun to play.

The graphics, while simple, are nice and indeed rather polished 2d renditions of characters we're primarily used to seeing as prerendered polygon models -- this may be Dixie Kong's first foray into the world of pixel art, for that matter. There is a lot of subtle polish you'll see here and there, but there were few, if any, "wow" moments I can remember. It's all sort of consistently reasonably pretty, and that's about the extent of it.

The sound is good, too, though it seems like there's not a whole lot in the way of music (though I'm sure there's more than I noticed -- it's just that a few get stuck in your memory and the rest get ignored). It's not going to rock your world or even really be worth noting for the average person, but hey, uh, it has music. And sound effects.

And sure, there's plenty to unlock. The problem is whether most people would find it worth their while to spend what feels like hours upon hours playing the same frustrating stage layouts over and over to get that crystal coconut or to grab all the medals, or, for that matter, even just to finish the game.

In short, it's a pleasant diversion, but it really would have been much better suited to being something simple with far more level design variety (such as Jungle Beat) or as part of a different, larger game with more gameplay variety. As it stands, it feels more like an overblown minigame than anything that refuses to admit it.

I wouldn't pay more than about $20 for it, personally.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/18/05