Retro Corner: Donkey Kong Land (Game Boy) Review · 10:00pm Aug 21st, 2020
A new edition of Retro Corner Reviews is up, and we take a look at another technical marvel. In the past I went over the impressive ports of Doom for Super NES and Resident Evil 2 on N64. On this occasion we check out Rare’s attempt to recreate Donkey Kong Country on the Game Boy with DK Land. What makes this a technical marvel is the fact Rare took the digitizing 3D models and effects and were able to make them work on limited hardware. It’s one thing for the Doom Super NES port to have those presidio-3D visuals as games like Stunt Race FX and Star Fox had these effects. However, to take those digitized 3D assets and develop them to work on the black and white GB was unseen. Throughout the handheld’s lifetime, many developers would fail when comparing this to the Mortal Kombat trilogy. It was a combination of laziness and bad game design between the gameplay and the graphics that caused those failures on GB.
DKL itself continues the adventure from DKC as Donkey Kong and Diddy visit Cranky at his shack. Needless to say, both DK and Cranky were having a debate as to see if his son could do the same adventure with limitations. Of course, DK claims he could do this on Game Boy as Cranky laughs at the idea. So, his son and Diddy set out to prove his previous quest is possible on limited hardware. Yes, that’s the backstory as to why the adventure from DKC continued and there is nothing else to it. Truly hilarious how the theme and its characters are meta but that’s the point of the joke. Probably the most interesting thing regarding the plot is this was the first time Nintendo went meta with their games. We all know they wouldn’t go this route until the late 2000s. The infamous Frances comment about complaining about games he never plays from Super Paper Mario is an example. Does DKL hold up to its console counterpart or has age been terrible to the game?
