DK: King of Swing
September 17,2005 - Donkey Kong has been a scapegoat for Nintendo ever since they departed ways with Rareware. His name has been used in a lot of different games lately; many of which require you to play them in very awkward ways, like Donkey Kong Jungle Beat does with the drums. Whether you like this new generation of Donkey Kong games are not, the streak continues with DK: King of Swing.

 

The game starts in what looks like another beautiful day in the jungle. The big competition, which really isn’t explained much in the game, starts the day after. Unfortunately, King K. Rool suddenly appears on his flying machine and steals the medals, leaving all of Jungle Japes in complete infamy. Of course, it’s all up to Donkey Kong to save the day.

As you’d expect, you play as Donkey Kong in this action platformer, but the game has a huge twist—you’re completely limited to using the left and right shoulder buttons. While the controls are as simple as it ever gets, it’ll take some practice to get used to them. If the content in this review doesn’t go into enough detail as you’d like, you’ll be required to take part in the game’s tutorial anyway—a very good tutorial at that.

You can use the left and right shoulder buttons or the control pad to move DK left and right respectively. Tapping the two buttons at the same time will allow DK to jump, and you can use any of the two buttons to make DK move towards that direction during the apex of each hop. Quite a few enemies infest every area in the game, so you have the ability to attack as well—with only three hearts of health, it’s especially important to protect yourself. To roll into any enemy, hold the left and right shoulder buttons together to make DK turn red, and launch him into an enemy by releasing the hold.

The game’s main objective requires you to swing around every obstacle until you reach the end of each course. To swing, just jump and grab onto any circular object connected to any platform with your left and right hand (left and right shoulder buttons). When one hand is latched onto any sort of handle, DK will swing in a circular motion for as long as you remain latched onto an obstacle.

Aside from just the many courses you’ll swing and jump to, there’ll be tons of puzzles to solve. Many of which take impeccable timing to complete. There’s one puzzle in which you have to make DK hold on to a switch with both hands, jump onto another handle with his left hand, and land on another right below him with his left hand. A lot of these puzzles are tedious and get rather annoying from time to time, but you get a great sense of accomplishment after completing them.

DK King of Swing also has its fair share of bosses. However, since DK really only has one basic method of attacking, you’ll still have to solve a repetitive puzzle to actually cause damage to your enemies. Upon defeating a boss, you’ll earn a medallion—meaning you’re one step closer to saving the jungle.

The game’s graphics are pretty standard for what you’d see out of a GBA platformer, and the worlds are pretty well done. Although it may seem a bit strange to see DK animated this way, especially since you may be used to seeing DK in 3D—whether it was on the Nintendo 64, the GameCube, or even the revolutionary Super NES Donkey Kong Country games. Though nothing remains original about the game’s visuals, it all looks the way you’d expect, and that’s all that really can be said.

Like the rest of the old school DK games, the only sound you can really listen to here is the game’s soundtrack. Nintendo did a good job mixing and matching Donkey Kong songs of the past here, and they’re pretty much re-mastered into what the GBA can do. Aside from that, there are quite a few hummable choices here, and that’s a lot more pleasing to the ear than DK’s constant death whelps.

DK: King of Swing is a solid game, despite being limited to only two buttons. The course design here is top-notch, and that’s really all you can expect. The bosses are a pleasant surprise, and the game features some of the more brain-squandering puzzles ever seen out of a 2D adventure. The good being said, the game will only appeal patient players with quite a bit of time on their hands. It requires a lot of timing and hands-on coordination; so if you’re not into that kind of thing, go for it. Otherwise, you might want to wait for this game to hit the bargain bin.

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