Donkey Kong Land

Donkey Kong Land
Developer	Rare
Publisher	Nintendo
System	Game Boy, 3DS Virtual Console
Release Date	Game Boy US June 1995 JP July 27, 1995 EU August 24, 1996 3DS Virtual Console JP April 2, 2014 EU October 16, 2014 US February 26, 2015
Rating	ESRB: K-A

Donkey Kong Land is a Game Boy game that was developed by Rare alongside Donkey Kong Country. It acts as a companion game of sorts, but with its own unique environments and enemies.

Story

Following the events of Donkey Kong Country, Cranky Kong is reluctant to acknowledge Donkey Kong's success, saying that Donkey Kong Country was only popular due its fancy graphics. So Cranky dares Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong to repeat their feat on the technically-inferior Game Boy. They reluctantly accept the challenge, and Cranky calls in K. Rool to steal back Donkey Kong's bananas again, but this time hiding the bananas in new areas.

Gameplay

The gameplay follows that of Donkey Kong Country. Notably, Donkey Kong Land is not a mere re-hash of Donkey Kong Country, as it contains a variety of new enemies and environments. Once again Donkey and Diddy are aided by animal buddies, but in this game they can only use Rambi and Expresso. Instead of granting an extra life, collecting all four K-O-N-G letters in this game is the only way to save your progress.

The game was divided into four worlds, with one world acting as an homage to the original Donkey Kong arcade game.

Continuity Notes

• The instruction manual story directly references the events of Donkey Kong Country in a partially metafictional sense and acts as a direct follow-up to it, with Cranky daring DK and Diddy to repeat their defeat of King K. Rool on the technologically inferior Gameboy.
• As mentioned above, Great Ape City contains an homage to the original Donkey Kong arcade, although it was unclear if this was intended to be the actual construction site from the game (which would mean it took place on Donkey Kong Island) or a recreation of it (which would also be possible considering Cranky's love of the glory days). Years later, the setting of the original Donkey Kong game would instead be established as having been New Donk City in Super Mario Odyssey.
• This game's instruction manual contains evidence supporting Cranky Kong being Donkey Kong's grandfather. In the instruction manual, Donkey Kong is referred to as Cranky's "grandape", and in the comments section, Cranky refers to himself as "old grandpa Cranky", both of which imply that Cranky is Donkey Kong's grandfather

Legacy

Donkey Kong Land inspired a new trilogy of games on the Game Boy that acted as handheld companions to the Donkey Kong Country games as they were released. Of the three, the original Donkey Kong Land featured the most original content, as the two following two Land games borrowed more elements from their Super NES counterparts.

This was also the only Land game to influence the Country series, as the pirate ship levels and Flotsam enemy introduced in this game later appeared in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest.

Remakes

• In Japan, Donkey Kong Land was later made available through the Nintendo Power system.
• In 2014 (2015 in America), Donkey Kong Land was released as a downloadable purchase through the 3DS eshop as part of the 3DS Virtual Console.

Sequels

Donkey Kong Land was followed by Donkey Kong Land 2, which acted mostly as a low-tech remake of Donkey Kong Country 2.