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DONKEY KONG COUNTRY 3 Company: Rare/Nintendo Released: November 1996 Genre: Side-Scroller Graphics: 10.0 Control: 9.5 Sound/Music: 9.0 Storyline: 7.0 Review by: Corbie Dillard ©2008 SUPER-NES.COM

Anyone who's read my reviews of the two previous Donkey Kong Country games knows that I'm a big fan of this series. They all combine outstanding visuals, great orchestrated soundtracks, and enough gameplay to please even the most ardent of side scroller fans. Donkey Kong Country 3 carries on the tradition of the two other games and manages to once again add just enough new elements to the mix to keep the series feeling fresh. The difficulty of Donkey Kong Country 2 has been toned down just a bit, although not much, and the levels themselves all have a new and unique look to them that sets them apart from the previous DKC games. All in all if you've enjoyed the first two games in this series, you're gonna love this one as well. It's more of the same, with a few new tidbits for fans of the series to enjoy. Many Super NES fans rate this game as being the best looking of the bunch but I'm gonna have to slightly disagree a bit. I still feel Donkey Kong Country 2 has the best visuals in the series, but even I can admit that in places, DKC 3 has some mighty fine graphics. Once again there is great variety in the look and feel of the different levels. The snowy mountain levels look particularly crisp and detailed and the levels inside the trunk of a tree look fantastic and add a very distinct look to this third game in the series. All of the charactgers in the game, both good and bad, all retain their high level of detail and animation, and the bosses in this game are among some of the largest the series has seen. You'll get a hefty reality of this when you hit the first boss, Belcha, a giant, burping barrel. I guess I should put it this way. As a whole, Donkey Kong Country 2 has the best visuals, but there are a couple of levels in Donkey Kong Country 3 that look better than anything found in the previous two games. There's just not nearly as many of these levels as you'll find in the second DKC game. Needless to say, Donkey Kong Country 3 looks absolutely fantastic and is among one of the best looking games your money can buy for the Super NES. Once again I've always leaned slightly toward DKC 2 when it comes to the best soundtracks in this series of games but DKC 3 is no slouch either. You'll find the same style of music in this game and once again there's plenty of variety to go around. Since this was the last of the DKC games I played, it might be that the music was beginning to get a little stale since it hasn't changed much in its' stylings since the first game, other than the different melodies. It's still a heck of a soundtrack and one that will be enjoyed during the playing of this game. Of the three DKC games I'd still have to rate this one at the bottom of the list as it's not quite as catchy as the soundtracks found in the previous two games. I can only assume that Rare didn't want to mess with a good thing when they put this final Donkey Kong Country game together as it plays just about like the other two games, with only very minor gameplay tweaks here and there. The world map allows for a little more freedom of movement this time around but I didn't find that it added much to the gameplay mix. You'll now find that in certain levels where you become an animal, you have to eliminate enemies in order to proceed through the level. If you don't take out these specified enemies the game keeps bumping you back to try again. This can prove to be slightly annoying but it does makes you take your time when going through some of the levels instead of flying through like some may try to do. I have to bring up the end level routine that got the axe. In Donkey Kong Country 2 you had the bullseye at the end of the level that allowed you to get certain items if you could hit the bullseye with enough force. Now all you have to do at the end of a level is jump and grab a rope and pull it through a pulley. If it sounds boring that's because it is for the most part. It might just be me, but I always looked forward to getting to the end of each level in DKC 2 just so I could try to hit the bullseye and grab an extra item. As I mentioned above, some of the levels got a few new designs, including my favorite, the tree trunk levels, but for the most part it's pretty much the same type of side scroller that we've come to love with the previous DKC games. A nice way to end a terrific series. It's hard to fault the Donkey Kong Country series of games very much due in part to the fact that they're so damn playable. Even as impressive as the visuals and music are in these games, the one thing that's made them so appealing and enjoyable is the fact that they challenge you but also allow you to get better each time you play them. There's tons of stuff to do and collect throughout these games that also adds a high level of replayability to them that seems to be missing from so many of the other standard SNES side scrollers. Rare did a phenomenal job with this series of games and they're a testament to just how far games came on the Super NES as far as graphics, music, and playability go. One of the best, and one no side scroller fan should ever be without.