Donkey Kong’s Overlooked Adventure 

The fact that Cranky taunts about Dk’s amazing graphics is so charming and hilarious.

When you're desperate to save, it is possible to go back to earlier levels with easy to find Kong Letters. I remember replaying level 1-1 a lot in this game..

Thank for mentioning the city - that’s what I remember most from that game, and I’m annoyed by anyone saying “it’s just like dkc “ when it has brand new level themes!!!

Nintendo cramming DK and mario adventures onto the GB cartridge with these and the mario land series was pretty impressive

If you're gonna play DK Land nowadays, I'd highly recommend the DX rom hack. It adds full color to the game and completely fixes the problem of all the sprites blending together. (There's also a full color version of DK Land 2, and an english translation of the Japanese-exlusive Game Boy Color version of DK Land 3)

Thanks for this video! This was the very first game I owned and played as a young kid. What a nostalgic trip!

DK Land is one of the more fascinating Game Boy games from afar to me since like you said, it ended up sorta forgotten about and brushed off as a lesser Game Boy version rather than a whole new game. But in Land's case that's doubled since Rare went ahead and more directly remade for GBC _anyway_ a few years down the road!

So fun fact, even though I had DKC1 on SNES as a child, I did not even know there was a DKC 2 or 3 until 2005-6 (kinda lived under a rock) but I did have a Super Game Boy and a friend gave me his copy of DK Land, which I imagined was a straight up sequel. Never got to the end when I was young, but I loved the soundtrack - apparently it’s a combined effort between Wise and Norgate, but I’m not 100% certain who did what tracks. Still, a weird little game that I feel could only be done on a portable machine, and a real showcase of what the Game Boy can really do.

I've never played DKL before and now I want to! Great history lesson!

I got Donkey Kong Land 1, 2, and 3 on release and I love them. They were great to play for on the go or just be in the backyard instead of being in my room. I still own them today.

I played this on the 3ds virtual console. Getting 100% was fun but as you said, not worth it. I suppose it ain’t a bad attempt for a gameboy dkc platformer game, but the other 2 games control and play way better. I especially reccomend dkc land 3. Also this game has that annoying quirk where if ya go too high, the bottom of the screen just kills ya instead of scrolling back down.

You unlocked a core memory for me of reading about Donkey Kong Land in an old issue of Nintendo Power. I loved playing the SNES trilogy + DK64 but never got around to these. Thanks for the fun nostalgia trip!!!

THIS WAS ONE OF MY FIRST GAMES AS A KID! It's so bizarre seeing gameplay footage of it again- after seeing so much footage of the SNES, I had almost convinced myself this game was in color!!

I really love and appreciate the attention you gave to the soundtrack. I haven't played this game before, so it helps provide a bigger picture and something additional to get excited about! I find so often soundtracks are left out or not given solo time for the viewer to immerse themselves in, even though they are so important to gameplay and a game's identity!

Cool to see you do a video on this; Donkey Kong Land was one of those games that felt ubiquitous when I was a kid, but I've hardly ever seen anyone talk about it since. Feels like a lot of the GB/C library in that way - unless it's Pokemon Gen 1/2, Link's Awakening, Tetris, Super Mario Land 1 or the Game Boy Camera, Game Boy rarely seems to get much retrospective treatment.

I remember buying this game from a flea market and thinking “what knockoff game did they sell me” lol

The gameplay is pretty good but the MUSIC is amazing. Taking the ambient soundscapes of the first game and turning them into catchy chip tunes works so well. And the originals are equally good

Me at the start of this video: "Wait, did I have this game as a kid? I don't remember..." Me upon seeing footage of the cloud section: "OH GOSH, YES I DID, THERE'S THE PTSD AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

I’m in my 30’s and grew up playing DKC on my cousins SNES, later in 1999 I got it for the Game Boy Colour and was blown away by the graphics. It wasn’t until I could find real good emulation that I was finally able to play the DKL trilogy for the OG Game Boy and I’m still seriously impressed. It’s underrated! 🍌

I really expected Jon here. This seems like the sorta thing he would also talk about.

I downloaded all three recently while cleaning up my eShop wishlist. But I have distinct memories of playing the first one on my cousin's Game Boy. For a long time, the only time I got to play video games were when we visited them.

It seemed to be the ambition to have all Game Boy takes on DK games to throw you and give you more than you expected. Given that the Land games were not copies of DKC, and even the Donkey Kong take on the original arcade game completely throws you and takes you after the initial levels into an entirely different game.

This game was way more ambitious graphically than it's sequels. With far more busy backgrounds and actually being able to ride the animal buddies as opposed to only being able to transform into them. I love this game, I love the inventiveness, but it was very smart that the tweaked the formula for DKL2 and 3 by pulling the camera back and simplifying the backgrounds. The sequels aren't as "flashy" but they have aged much better and feel so much more solid to play.

I don’t know if they ever made an official statement about it, but I always imagined the conception of Hogwash on Donkey Kong Land was after someone expressed “Donkey Kong Country on GameBoy? Yeah, when pigs fly”

It's a great game. Love this game. Especially New Donk City. Some levels were a little hard.

Finally someone gives this game the recognition it deserves. I'm glad you brought up the point that it stands on its own two feet as an entirely unique Donkey Kong platformer, and that it's not just a portable variant of the original Donkey Kong country.

Wow! This game and its soundtrack still rocks in my head. I played this so hard, and I beat it which was rare for me. Got me through some tough times (rubs knuckle on eye corner)

For a second there my brain was going "I remember owning something like this?". I remember playing a DK game on my GBC but chances are it was Country. That said it's awesome to see what they were able to do on the Gameboy

Had this game on one of those dodgy 100 games in 1 cartridge that my parents bought for me while on holiday in Spain.

god, this was not only my first donkey kong game, but my first rareware game in general, since i didn't have a snes growing up, either, and i also didn't have an n64 never beat it, but i do still have some nostalgia toward it, and the soundtrack is just as divine as you'd expect from what's essentially a dkc game (and yes, i freaking love that boss theme)

The Cloud Theme is the best new Song Banger. It will sometime pop in my head as I drive along on certain sunny days

I wasn't allowed to own any TV consoles so this was basically my only DK exposure for my entire childhood. It was the first game I ever beat on my own, and will always be one of my all time favorites

I played the original DKC religiously on the SNES as a kid, so when I read about "Donkey Kong Land" in one of my brother's copies of Nintendo Power, I was delighted that there was going to be a game like DKC, but portable. When I finally got myself a copy of it, I was blown away by how good it was, even with the insane difficulty spikes in the 3rd and 4th worlds. Not to mention trying to get all of the K-O-N-G Letters in order to properly save my progress. But I remember being so proud of myself for beating it, since I wasn't able to beat the original DKC until I was much older. Anyway, great video! Looking forward to more! Keep up the awesome work! P.S. I totally agree about the boss music going so hard. I remember really rocking out to it as a kid.

i remember the first time i saw screenshots of dkc i was convinced that it was one of the upcoming games for the soon to be released N64. it literally blew my mind when i learned that it was in fact a SNES game. i am eternally grateful that i came up with video games and got to see first hand how they have evolved over the years. literally playing the 2600 when i was a toddler and watching and growing up right along side the industry.

I absolutely adored this game as a kid, thanks for the stroll down memory lane

I just hope when they inevitably get added to NSO people see them for the gems they are, all anyone talks about is how blurry they can occasionally be.

Finally somebody who actually shares my opinion about Donkey Kong Land. I remember distinctly the day when I made it to the area with the KONG letters in Level 3-5 and cleared it without using the hidden exit. It’s impressive how many level gimmicks they were able to fit in the game when, among the three DKL games, the first game was the least like its SNES cousin.

I’ve heard about it plenty, but this is my first time really seeing a deep dive into the game, so it’s interesting to hear about. Thanks for such a fun video, Derrick!

I remember this one don’t think I beat it as a kid but looks like a impressive feat on the game boy after watching this good work Derek.

It's kind of funny. People sometimes think of DKC3 as the "odd duck" in the series, but Land fits in perfectly between the first two games and you could think of them as forming a cohesive trilogy in itself.

Our introduction to Donkey Kong Land is pretty similar! I didn't get to own a Nintendo console, let alone a SNES I bought off eBay till the Wii era, BUT I grew up fondly with the Game Boy. Donkey Kong Land 2 was my initial dip into the series & really sunk my interest for the series, getting 3 then 1 at later dates, but getting to learn much later that Land 1 holds a more independent worth compared to 2 & 3 was such a neat bonus when I did get round to owning Country 1 in the 2010's. Your video brought back alot of nostalgia and fond memories and it's just nice to see this entry getting abit of attention and awareness that it's not a port but it's own entry to the franchise. Great vid, Derrick!

It's really cool to see Donkey Kong Land getting some well deserved love, finally. The console counterpart tends to get most of the attention but just as DKC did incredible things for the Super NES, so did DKL for the Gameboy. The graphics were phenomenal for the platform at the time, the soundtrack just as fantastic as the console Donkey Kong, and, just some overall uniquely great ideas going on. Donkey Kong Country was my first encounter with Rare's Donkey Kong games, but I still really enjoyed playing through Donkey Kong Land later on just as much.

I think this was the first Donkey Kong game I ever owned though I got Country a few months later. I played the older games but for some reason never owned any until after I got this. It sucks this has been mostly forgotten because IMO it is a very good game in its own right.

This game is the reason I fell in love with chiptune music. It was composed so well.

There was always something really charming about the game/port. I think it’s the music.

As someone who played DK Land 1 and 2 as a kid, it's great to see this game get the attention it deserves!

I grew up with this game in place of Donkey Kong Country. It certainly wasn't my most beloved, but I've considered going back for retrospective look for comparison. Thanks for doing the leg work!

Donkey Kong Land 2 was the first game I ever owned, I had the whole "Land" trilogy as a kid, and they were my precious treasures. I ADORED those games! This was before I ever really knew what a Super Nintendo was--these games existed in a vacuum for me, so they were just these three really awesome games that I only later learned were spinoffs of a bigger series. Looking back as an adult, though, I do think the original Donkey Kong Land is my favorite. It controls clunky compared to the later games, but it's so much more of its own thing compared to DKL2 and DKL3, which feel much more "port-like." And yeah, the music is amazing. I would plug my headphones into my Game Boy, go to certain levels, and just hit pause so I could listen to the music.

I had this game as a kid, I still have all my old games and still play it from time to time.

This game brings back so many great memories. Ma got me a black GameBoy Boy and this game in '94. Makes me think of her. She passed in 2014. Miss her so much.

Fun fact: the boss theme is also used in the 64 version of Blast Corps. The music has been remplaced in Rare Replay however.

This is the game that made me get eyeglasses. Played it everywhere and even at night with poor lightning.

Donkey Kong land is the first video game I ever owned. I got the Dk land with Yellow brick gameboy bundle back in i think 1996 as a Christmas present when I was 5. Still got them both. I played dozens of hours of that game and it deserves the attention you gave it here. I look forward to your DKL 2 and 3 videos 😄

On modern emulators you can usually set a custom palette for sprites and background - and the game looks *amazing* with a golden brown palette for sprites and green for backgrounds.

I LOVE the Land trilogy with 2 being my fav, and it's so cool seeing someone talking about em.

I love Donkey Kong Land’s creativity and ambition. I played all three games back-to-back earlier this year, and this one ended up being my favorite. DKC2 is my favorite in the SNES trilogy, but Land 2 was surprisingly the one I enjoyed the least (it wasn’t a port, but it felt the most like one).

Love the inclusion of the composer info. The zeppelin and cloud level tracks were amazing and the mention of Blast Corps makes perfect sense because the DKL boss theme was sort of remixed (in a major key) for one of the common racing level tracks in that game.

This brings back memories, I honestly don't think I've even thought about this game since I played it!

Fun Trivia: After you beat Dkc cranky tells you he could've gotten all the bonuses and beaten the game in under an hour. If you accomplish this ultimate task your reward is he doesn't say that anymore.

Submerged Ruins is one of my favorite compositions from a video game

As far as the screen space and "blind jumps", I beat this on 3DS Virtual Console, and I would say the game has a very reliable language to indicate where regular level progress is headed and where secrets are hiding. It's almost too obvious as the secrets go.

When I was a kid my mom surprised me with a gameboy and DK Land. I loved this game as a kid it was my introduction into gaming.

My parents got me a Genesis too. But to my surprise my parents brought me a Gameboy Pocket with Donkey Kong Land 2 before we went traveling. It kept me quiet and entertained during many flights and long drives.

I’m glad someone took the time to look into this. My brother saved up every single dollar for a full month as a young kid and bought this game with his own money. My parents were not amused (my parents both emigrated from Haiti, so the parent/child relationship is entirely different than typical American parents’s relationships. Most 1st generation born children have a similar experience.) but absolutely worth it. In my opinion, DKL is the better version of DKC. Yeah, it has its problems, but I thought the level variations, the music and the bosses were more fleshed out and unique. It’s the most underrated DK title that no one has ever played.

This was my first ever Gameboy game when I was a kid, got it for Christmas along with my clear Play it Loud Gameboy Pocket, man I played the hell out of it that Christmas

Omg, the nostalgia! I used to have this, it was the only DKL game that I owned. I unfortunately sold it along with a bunch of other games and a few consoles several years ago bc I needed the money. Definitely remember beating it although I'm not sure if I managed to get 100% but I'm generally a completionist (especially back then) so I'm pretty sure I would have at least tried. Also the music! I haven't heard those songs in years but instantly recognised them when I heard them. Gaaah, now I wanna play it again :p (also lol at that "CONGRATULATIONS." with the period, in the end credits. I had actually forgotten about that, but I do remember being somewhat disappointed that there wasn't more to the end sequence when I beat it the first time)

I never played DK Land until recently. I grew up with DK Land 2 and thought that, as you mentioned, it followed the SNES game a bit more closely.

This used to be one of the only GBC games I had as a kid, along with castlevania, and Pokemon Gold

00:50 i can relate, thats where My grandma came in and saved the day 😂

I remember my bro getting these due to me not affording the snes ones, particularly DK2, which I wanted badly after playing it with my friend's big brother. None of the the Gameboy versions lacked the quality at all, it scratched the DKC itch very well. So much passion was put in.

Yup, this game felt like a miracle when I was a kid. I wasn't allowed a SNES so I felt like I was cheating when I got this. Obviously it doesn't compare to the console DKC games but I still admire what Rare pulled off.

This game looked way better on the Super Game Boy. Rare did a great job and I love their Battletoads-style 8-bit music tracks!

I had this one for my Game Boy too. I remember i thought it Was really fun.

I remember trying this game on a demo unit in the electronics section of a Sears (those were the days) and being impressed with just how well it worked compared to all the cut-rate Game Boy ports of SNES games from that era - especially considering that the graphics in the original should have made a port unthinkable. It helps that Donkey Kong Country's gameplay was simple enough to scale down to two buttons well as that's where a lot of those ports suffered.

Despite us owning an SNES, we never owned Donkey Kong Country because our parents were stingy prudes. But we did also own multiple Game Boys and Donkey Kong Land. Back then I wasn't too skilled and got stuck around the Gangplank Galleon stage.

DK Land was my first game in the series. Our house was broken into and they stole my gameboy and games. It wasn’t until last year when I finally got my hands on another copy, a good 26 years later

Fun thing about the boss theme is that it got recycled into Blast Corps, as the Marine Quarter theme.

Oh my god I haven’t seen this game since I was 10 back in the late 90s. The music brought back so many memories. Crazy how these old games can be time capsules

Clocked this for the first time last year only. Great ambitious Gameboy game.

I remember having this when I was a kid. Honestly I didn't think very much of it. I got stuck on one of the cloud levels and never got to world 4. It was generally hard to see what was going on and I don't think I ever understood that the KONG letters saved the game. I had DKC2 on SNES, so as you can imagine I spent most of my time playing that one.

I have all three cartridges. It's pretty in yellow but I would have preferred them to be gray like the others.

Also played this on the original Gameboy, though I did have the SNES version of DKC. This was a great option for mobile game-players at the time! You also did a great job of showing the inventiveness of the level design.

I loved playing this when I was in middle school! I never got too far in the game though thanks to the difficulty.

Of the three Land games, the first one is the only one I've never played but wanted to. It was the only one of the three that actually felt like a new game, whereas the other two were just ports of their SNES counterparts.

I got this game via a mail-in promotion with Dole - send in three UPCs from packages of fruit cups, get the game for half-price. A very strange promotion; I can't recall anything else of the kind. I remember Nintendo Power, on their high-score challenge page, posted a completion time from a game counselor who said, "No one will beat this time!" And indeed, no one did - I think they had to walk that back a few issues later. My best time was about 34 minutes, I think? I didn't particular enjoy getting it that low; needless to say, it involved many restarts. The Cutting Room Floor notes that the game has two unused pieces of music. I read once that it was supposed to be possible to trigger the alternative boss music somehow, but I think that was just unsupported speculation.

This game has quite a bit different about it that I feel it deserves a remake to see those enemies and locations in modern day graphics.

Playing on the OG Gameboy: walk forward, BLUR. stop, figure out where to go. jump forward, BLUR.

I just played it a few days ago and 100% it again after 20 years I still got it laughs. Pretty good game even today. I love that it’s a good challenge for those that like platformers

I still go back and play these to this day. Definitely one of my favourites for the gameboy

This was the first game I ever got for the Gameboy. Not sure how old some of y'all are in here, but frankly, this game blew my young 90s' mind as a kid. I used to get to the water level, put on some headphones, and listen to the music at school with the gameboy in my pocket.

Probably one of the most visually complex games for the OG Gameboy. Impressive feat for mobile hardware from the late 80s.

I might still have this cart. Battery's definitely dead by now, but it's the cart.

I like you also did not have a SNES as a kid. My parents were of the we have a NES why have a SNES. My friend however had a SNES and DKC and I fell in love. So when I found out DKL existed I was so thrilled! The DKL trilogy holds a special place in my heart for giving me the Donkey Kong experience I wanted until I was older and could play the SNES games.

This was my very first game I had for my Gameboy....ahh man the nostalgia is REAL 🥲 GREAT TIMES!

The thumbnail surprised me as I have the game sitting right next to me.

I never forgot this. I was not happy I got this instead of the SNES version

I love Donkey Kong Land! I know it shows it's age more so than DKC, but I still love it! I personally think it has one of the best osts out of all the DK games.

I remember getting this game for 8 bucks like 3 years ago, I had a blast with it and beat it.

I loved this game as a kid. BAck then when saw the ads for wanted Donkey Kong Country, I really wanted it but I didn't have a snes, I had a Gameboy though so I got Donkey Kong Land instead. I remember the banana yellow cartridge and the hours I spent playing it, I thought it was awesome. At the time I thought it was a port of the snes original and that was good enough for me. I still play it now (but on an emulator). I remember one time I lent the game to a friend and had a LOT of trouble getting it back.

My parents got me a Genesis as a kid when I wanted an SNES. So my first DK game (outside of playing at other peoples' houses) ended up being DK Land 2