Nintendo Lists

10 Donkey Kong Country Facts and Easter eggs

April 6, 2015 by Timby No Comments

Today it’s time to jump into a moving barrel and high five your ape buddy as we explore the second bestselling SNES game ever that has sold over 9 million copies worldwide! So sit back, watch out for Kremlings and enjoy as we explore 10 Donkey Kong Country facts!

Donkey Kong Country Facts

Number 10
We are all familiar with the blue and purple Klaptrap’s but there are actually 3 more colours hiding unused! Kritter also has a hiding purple variation and the Zinger enemy also has a Purple and blue colour palette that goes unused but remains in the game’s data.

Number 9
The crocodile like enemies known as Kremlings were actually being developed for another of Rare’s projects at the time. The development team found them to be a good fit with the art style of Donkey Kong Country though and, well, the rest is history. Rareware employee Kevin Bayliss has gone on the record and stated the game they were originally planned for was a Battletoads game.
Number 8
For a while there it was rumoured that Shigeru Miyamoto actually disliked Donkey Kong Country. The rumour going around was that Shigeru had said that “Donkey Kong Country proves that players will put up with mediocre game play as long as the art is good.”
An interview with IGN later clarified that these rumours were false and that he did like the game and even worked closely with Rare to develop it.

Number 7
Early beta footage of Donkey Kong Country shows that the banana-counter was planned to go beyond the usual 2 digits. I’m guessing it would have been too hard collecting hundreds of bananas for an extra life or their idea for Banana use changed before the final release.
(refer to video below)
Number 6
There are a couple of neat ways to access debug menus in Donkey Kong Country.
At the file select menu of the game enter Down, Down, Down, Down, A, R, B, Y, Down A, Y, then Select to access a sound test menu for the game.
Using the Game Genie you can also access this Camera and Collision debug mode. These seemingly random numbers and letters actually relay things like camera coordinates, collision box locations and even DK’s current sprite.
There are also other debug modes like using an Action Replay code to access a weird Free Movement debug tool. It makes all the enemies freeze in place and the player can move around freely with the control pad. (refer to video)

dkc_hidden_options
Number 5
Next time you are visiting Funky Kong take a closer listen to the sound byte that goes “Hi-Yah!”. This little addition is actually sampled from a song by “The System” called “The Pleasure Seekers”.

Funkys Flights

Number 4
There are a couple of differences between the PAL version of the game and the Japanese release. Most of the time games are made easier for their western release however the Japanese version of Donkey Kong Country is one of the few games that is actually easier than it’s PAL counterpart. The Japanese version features less enemies and more DK Barrels making completion a little bit less stressful.
The title screens of the game are also different. The Pal version shows Donkey and Diddy swinging on a rope whilst the Japanese version, called Super Donkey Kong, shows both Donkey and Diddy hanging out with Expresso, Squawks and Rambi with a few enemies lurking in the background.

DKCTitle DKCTitleJ
Number 3
I can’t be the only one that enjoyed the name Jungle Hijinxs for the first level of the game. In an earlier version of Donkey Kong country this level was actually known as “Jungle Japes”. Even though the name was changed it wasn’t forgotten and was reused for the first level of Donkey Kong 64
Number 2
Diddy Kong was originally planned to be the Donkey Kong Junior character from previous games. However with Rare’s redesign of the character, Nintendo felt that he looked too different to the original DK Junior’s appearance. Nintendo gave Rare the choice of either re-working the design to fit with the old character look or rename him. Rare opted for a name change and thus Diddy Kong was born. Diddy was nearly known as Dinky Kong but the name was dropped for legal reasons. Other name choices for this trouble maker included Titchy Kong, DK Lite and even Diet DK. Sounds refreshing.

DonkeyKongJr Diddy_and_Expresso_-_Artwork_-_Donkey_Kong_Country
Number 1
Ending with number one it seems fitting to dedicate some time to Cranky Kong. After all Cranky is actually the Donkey Kong seen in the original arcade and NES game! That’s right, the DK that you play as in Donkey Kong Country is actually Cranky’s grandson!
The intro of the game is also a hat tip to this era with Cranky standing on the red girders from the original game! The background music is also from the NES and arcade classic.
Cranky Kong has become an iconic character for the series however early in development he was planned to be much nicer! Some of this earlier Cranky is still found on the games cartridge in some unused dialogue. Some of these gems include: