CGR Undertow - DONKEY KONG LAND 2 review for Game Boy

Classic Game Room presents a CGR Undertow review of Donkey Kong Land 2 for the Game Boy developed by Rare and published by Nintendo.

In the middle of the 1990s, there seemed to be no end to Donkey Kong mania. And the games were so good, no one cared! Case in point, Donkey Kong Land 2. Released to the Game Boy in 1996, it's hard to believe this game is even running on such old, outdated hardware. But it is, and it's amazing. Donkey Kong Land 2 is essentially a stripped-down Game Boy version of the Super NES classic, Donkey Kong Country 2. Players control Diddy and Dixie Kong on their quest to save Donkey Kong, who was kidnapped again. Smells like Donkey Kong, Jr. up in here! Donkey Kong Land 2 is an incredible platformer, offering the same gameplay and incredible style of graphics as the Country series on the Super NES. And it even comes in a yellow Game Boy cartridge. Donkey Kong Land 2 is a single-player Game Boy game and kind of a miracle.

This video review features video gameplay footage of Donkey Kong Land 2 for the Game Boy and audio commentary from Classic Game Room's Derek.

[NewCanadianTurtle]

Dumbed down, black and white, sized down, and still fun as heck. That's how you know a game has passed the test of time

[rushnerd]

I used to play this one so much, the music is fantastic. There is a huge amount of levels and gameplay there.

[psovegeta]

I remember when Donkey Kong Land came out when I was 16 years old. My art teacher was showing us how to do dot-ism and he instructed us to use a photo to recreate. I begged him to let me do the box cover to DKL since it used 3d computer graphics.

[Locuts]

This is indeed very impressive considering the GB's hardware!

[matthewb]

I miss this channel and CGR they were the best retro game guys on YouTube.

[montengro]

This game's music pushes what a gameboy could do, its even better then the GBA version of Donkey Kong Country somehow.

[ThePSXcollector]

I still remember Christmas day when I was given this game along with my original Gameboy :) So much fun and hours spent trying to find the bouns barrels so I could get Krem coins.

[TXFDA]

I'm hoping for a review of every other donkey kong game in existance, before tropical freeze.

[chocolatiel]

Heck the music so loud, the voice so low argh. I really wanted to finish the video but it's impossible.

[un]

That game was so hard.  How did we play this as kids?

[sonicmario]

I used to have this game when I was a kid, and I remember playing it nonstop on my Game Boy as well! :D

[sayanbakshi]

I think Derek is not doing the tropical freeze review because he promised Kevin he would not review a sequel to country returns until...Kevin returns !

[NykkesJourney]

I'm very very surprised by how much technical power was put into the Gameboy. It pushed the system limit at it's highest I mean Gameboy is like an 8-bit handheld! DKC 2 is an SNES 16-bit game that was effortlessly packed into a smaller handheld makes it a technical achievement! So now I'm considered getting GB games like this one. :3

[lctb]

I think I have this game!  Game boy games were really great back then and still really fun to play now!

[FCKHERBIE]

Donkey kong land was an amazing series. Loved it on the GB.

[katakisLives]

It was a damn good system and by the time this game was released (judging by the date) a lot of people would have been playing the game boy pocket which had the back and white screen and sorted out a great deal of the motion blur of the original.

[goldensolder]

This game astounded me as a kid. My dad bought it for me without my consent & I thought 'A Donkey Kong on the Game Boy? I don't think this will look like the one for SNES.' Surprisingly it proved me wrong, for a GameBoy title it pushed it's capabilities over how good the graphics can be.

[mattymatt]

Just imagine if this was a gameboy release title, we'd still be cleaning up brains today from all the minds that would have blown.

[conkeronine]

I Have Some Pretty Good Memories with Donkey Kong Land 2 when I was 5 Years Old. ^_^

[Fyllis]

About that kiddy kong bashing.... feels like everyone just dislike dkc 3 because of him/her/it! But dkc 3 is totally the best one in the country-series imo