Nintendo Gamecube: Donkey Kong Jungle Beat – Review
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat was released for the Nintendo Gamecube in 2005 and was ofcourse a console exclusive. This was the first platforming Donkey Kong game in years, but its unique character was defined by its unique controlling method, namely the DK Bongo. DK, give me a beat!
Story:
How appealing this game may look, the story value is very very low. I honestly have no clue what the real story of the game is, and if there is any. Of course like all other Donkey Kong games you can have a decent amount of fun, without actually having a decent plot to work with.
Graphics:
What the game lacked in story it makes up in its appearance. Overall the game may look simple but it is actually quite detailed for a game that was released for the previous generation of consoles.
In certain combat scenes when taking a closer look to the enemies or DK himself, you see that the game was developed to fully use the console’s capacities.
The stages and all the characters (as mentioned earlier) look detailed, colorful and appealing.
Sound:
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat’s soundtrack is a decent one but it lacks the quality of the soundtracks we came to love from the previous titles. The music is still very enjoyable and some of the tunes will surely wander around in your head for quite some time.
The overal sfx aren’t too shabby either and they don’t get annoying after playing the game for some time. Overall a job well done, even though the game may miss that authentic Donkey Kong feel.
Gameplay:
As mentioned earlier the game is a platformer, and a decent one. You’ll keep yourself occupied with obstacles most of the time rather than actual monster killing.
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat consists out of different ‘worlds’ and each of them consists out of 3 stages. (except the last world!) Each of them follow the same structure, namely 2 normal stages and 1 boss fight.
The overall goal is to collect as many banana’s as possible to earn medals to unlock the next worlds. Some are quite tough to unlock because you will need quite a lot of gold medals to unlock the later worlds. Strangely enough, the end boss unlocks before all other worlds are unlocked. That aside ingame your survivabiltiy will be determined on how much bananas you collect. This means every time you get hit, you will lose some of the bananas you collected and if you run out it’s game over, and you will have to redo the level you’re in.
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat can be played in 2 different ways. The first way of controlling DK is by using the normal gamecube controller. A method that feels quite weird to use, seeing the game was actually designed to be used with the DK Bongos. The DK Bongos happen to be the second method of playing the game and are as expected a controller shaped like 2 small bongo-like drums. Each drum is a button, which can be used seperately or together, the other special thing about the controller is that it has a sensor that can detect if you clap (by which you will also perform ingame actions).
The overall control scheme with the ‘DK Bongos’ is very simple: Tapping the left one makes DK go left. Tapping the right one makes him go right. Combining both will make him jump and clapping will perform most combat actions and most other special actions. During a close-up battle (usually activated by a clap) each bongo will be used to perform punches.
Playing a platformer like this with the bongos makes the game a pretty unique experience and most of the time you will really enjoy playing this way. Sometimes the way/timing of how the controller picks up your clapping can be quite awkward which makes you miss those bananas or get hit in combat when you actually don’t want to fight.
Conclusion:
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat might not be the best game that came out of the DK franchise, but surely can be dubbed as one of the most unique games out of the series. If you’re a fan of old school platformers, you will surely have a fun time, using the DK Bongos to guide Donkey Kong through ‘hostile’ lands.
Nintendo Gamecube: Donkey Kong Jungle Beat - Review,
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