Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest is a 1995 platform game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). It was released on 21 November 1995 in Japan, 4 December in North America, and 14 December in Europe. It is the second installment of the Donkey Kong Country series and the sequel to Donkey Kong Country (1994).
Players control Diddy Kong and his girlfriend Dixie Kong, who must rescue Donkey Kong after he is kidnapped by King K. Rool. The game is set on Crocodile Isle, with eight worlds of varying environments, totaling 52 levels. The game uses the same Silicon Graphics (SGI) technology from the original, which features the use of pre-rendered 3D imagery.
Diddy's Kong Quest received acclaim and is regarded as one of the greatest 2D platformers of all time. Praise was directed at its graphics, gameplay, and soundtrack. It was the second best-selling game of 1995, and the sixth best-selling game on the SNES.
It was re-released for the Game Boy Advance (GBA) in 2004. The game was made available for download on the Virtual Console for the Wii and Wii U in 2007 and 2015, respectively. It was followed by Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! in 1996.
Gameplay
thumb|left|230px|At the end of each level, the player must land on a target pad from a certain height for a chance to earn one of a series of quickly changing rewards, such as an extra life balloon.
Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest is a 2D side-scrolling platformer in which the player controls either Diddy Kong or his girlfriend Dixie Kong through 52 varying levels over eight different worlds. The main objective of the game is to rescue Donkey Kong from King K. Rool. The game features a wide number of enemies, which include land-based reptilian Kremlings, rats, porcupines, bees, and vultures. Enemies in underwater sections include pufferfish, stingrays, starfish, and piranhas. Each world culminates with a boss fight, which is required to be defeated in order to progress to the next world. The player-characters can defeat most hostiles by jumping on them, cartwheeling through them, or throwing a barrel or other throwable objects at them. When hit by an enemy, the active character runs away and control will switch to the other character. The player can reclaim their partner from barrels marked DK. If both characters die, the player will lose a life and will restart from either the beginning of the level or from the last checkpoint, which comes in the form of a star-painted barrel. If the player loses all of their lives, the game will end with a Game Over.
Diddy and Dixie have unique attributes; Diddy is more agile and will run faster, whereas Dixie has a higher jump and can spin her hair to glide. and Rattly's ability to jump to extreme heights.
The game is Dixie Kong's first appearance in the Donkey Kong franchise. Other characters include Cranky Kong, situated in "Monkey Museum", who is back due to "popular demand" to divulge secrets of the game world and provide comic relief, as well as offer advice. Wrinkly Kong, the wife of Cranky Kong and grandmother of Donkey Kong, makes her first appearance. She runs an educational facility called "Kong Kollege", where she gives guidance to the player. Swanky Kong runs a game show quiz where the player may complete quizzes and earn extra lives. Funky Kong offers an aeroplane that allows the players to switch between already completed worlds. Additionally, the player can meet a large Kremling called Klubba,
Plot
Some time after Donkey Kong Country, Donkey Kong is relaxing on the beach, until he is ambushed by the Kremlings. He gets kidnapped and brought to Kaptain K. Rool, who demands the Banana Hoard he unsuccessfully tried to steal for a ransom from the Kongs. Diddy Kong and his girlfriend Dixie resolve to go to the Kremling's home island, Crocodile Isle, to rescue Donkey Kong. They travel through Crocodile Isle and are helped on their way by an assortment of animals to defeat Kaptain K. Rool.
Development and release
Development of Diddy's Kong Quest began shortly after the release of Donkey Kong Country, Rare founder Tim Stamper served as director, whereas his colleague Brendan Gunn, who had worked on the original, returned to design. In response to complaints from veteran gamers, Donkey Kong Country 2 was designed to be more challenging than its predecessor. Several working titles were considered, including DK Rescue!, Diddy's Day Out, Diddy's Wild Country, and Diddy's Wild Frontier. Diddy Kong's Quest was decided on, but was slightly altered into Diddy's Kong Quest to create a play on the word "conquest". The game was announced at E3 1995. A Virtual Boy port was in development at one time but never released.
Like its predecessor, Diddy's Kong Quest uses Silicon Graphics (SGI) and Advanced Computer Modelling (ACM) rendering technology, in which pre-rendered images are modelled as 3D objects and then transformed into 2D sprites and background layers. Mayles said that he dared to do without the iconic character of the series because his team's youth (Mayles himself was 23 during development) allowed them to disregard risks. The design choice to have Diddy and Dixie transform into the friendly animals that were initially mounted in the previous game was made out of concerns over sprite size; additionally, Gregg noted that having the two player characters clinging onto a parrot would significantly reduce its maneuverability.
Audio
The soundtrack of Diddy's Kong Quest was composed by David Wise and was released in the United States as The Original Donkey Kong Country 2 Soundtrack. The soundtrack maintains similarity to its predecessor with its prominent percussion and eclectic genres ranging between big band, disco and hip hop. The melodies and rhythms are largely comical in tone, but occasionally melancholic. Certain themes are reminiscent of compositions by Vangelis and Phil Collins. The orchestral sound of Donkey Kong Country 2 was influenced by the works of Russian classical composers such as Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, and Mussorgsky, which was done to fit with the game's darker theme. As with its predecessor, the music was produced for the SNES's SPC700 chip for the game to sound similar to the Korg Wavestation synthesizer.
The game's soundtrack was the focus of an OverClocked ReMix collaboration, Serious Monkey Business. The final track, "Donkey Kong Rescued", was remixed by David Wise himself, featuring Grant Kirkhope on electric guitar and Robin Beanland on trumpet.
Reception
Upon release, retailers struggled to meet the demand. Diddy's Kong Quest sold a combined 4.37 million copies in the United States and Japan on the SNES; the total number of copies sold in Japan at 2.21 million, and 2.16 million in the United States. It was the second best-selling game of 1995, after Yoshi's Island, and the sixth best-selling game on the SNES. The SNES version holds an aggregate score of 92% at GameRankings, Aaron Kosydar of AllGame thought that Diddy's Kong Quests graphics were superior to that of its predecessor. A reviewer of Cubed3 heralded the visuals as "unbelievable" for a 16-bit game. In 2018, Complex ranked the game 17th on their "The Best Super Nintendo Games of All Time".
The music also received widespread praise, and is considered one of the greatest video game soundtracks of all time. The track "Stickerbush Symphony" in particular has received critical acclaim, with Rolling Stone describing it as "a dreamy, forlorn, new-age ballad unlike anything we typically heard in console mascot games." Writing for Kotaku, Ethan Gach called the track "melancholic and reflective" while still "up-tempo enough to be a bop," and said that when combined with its accompanying level, it was "one of the most transcendent platforming moments in the genre." Writing for Clash, musician Skott called the song "good music to cook to. Or drive to," and "one of my favourite moods." Brett Elston of GamesRadar also praised the theme, saying its "mood is right in between somber and inspirational, as if it's calling us to action but we're too caught up in thought to comply." Taking it a step further, Luke Winkie, writing for Vice, said the track was "one of the best songs ever written." He believed that it had "charisma, an otherworldly mystique, a gorgeous, misty aesthetic, and some of the best midi-sax of all time."
Sequels and re-releases
A sequel, Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, was released for the SNES in 1996 to positive reviews. In the game, Dixie Kong and Kiddy Kong must find both Donkey and Diddy Kong, who have disappeared while exploring the Northern Kremisphere, which has been invaded by the Kremlings. It was further followed by a succession of more related Donkey Kong video games, such as Donkey Kong 64 in 1999.
Despite Microsoft buying out Rare and essentially dissolving the company's second-party relations with Nintendo, they developed a remake of Diddy's Kong Quest, which was released for the Game Boy Advance in November 2004. While the graphical quality of the remake is downgraded due to the console's limited display of contrast, it includes a more detailed introduction to the plot as well as exclusive multiplayer minigames.
The original version was released for the Wii's Virtual Console in May 2007. It was made available for the Wii U and New Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console in 2015 and 2016, respectively. It was later made available on the Nintendo Switch via the Nintendo Classics service on September 23, 2020.
In the United States, the game's Game Boy Advance version sold 630,000 copies and earned $19 million (~$ in ) by August 2006. During the period between January 2000 and August 2006, it was the 41st highest-selling game launched for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS or PlayStation Portable in that country.
Unofficial port
Super Donkey Kong 2 (Chinese name: Chaoji Da Jingang) is an unofficial port by publisher Ka Sheng of Donkey Kong Country 2 to Famicom, targeting users of Chinese "Famiclones". Game Developer praised the port's gameplay as "as solid as the original", but criticized its visuals and how it only included four of Donkey Kong Country 2's levels.