Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe’s guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo’s download service. Written by Sam C Gittins

What a joyous event we have here as we finally receive what can only be described as one of the most important platform games ever to be released on a home console, its portable counter-part plus another classic which you should be familiar with. Anyway enough from me and on with the games!
 
Available for download this week we have...     

Adventures of Lolo
Donkey Kong Land
Donkey Kong Country

 
Price: GB £3.49, EU €4.99
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Hal Laboratory
Released: 1991
System: NES
 
Before there was Kirby this is one of the early games that helped to put the now infamous HAL Laboratories on the map; in the years since it's release it's a title thats remained relatively obscure due to it not reaching the same heights of success as games of the same era and genre. However it's clear that this title is the sum of a solid effort of development for it's time and in this VC re-release it has the potential to reach a much larger audience.

Aside from the cliché' story revolving around a princess named Lala, some evil demons of an empire, a kidnapping and you taking on the role of Lolo (a round spherical creature) the hero who will save her, the rest of the game oozes originality. Each level is based on a room inside a castle, you must collect hearts while avoiding enemies; upon collection of all hearts a treasure chest opens and activates all creatures in the room and provides an exit to the end of the level.



In addition to the ever-present evil enemies you will encounter other obstacles including boulders and single direction tiles which will mean you will constantly planning your escape route. Only really comparable to Solomon's Key (another decent puzzler of the same format and era) in terms of graphics and audio it's understandably underwhelming due to it's age but the gameplay truly shines through and still feels fresh, frantic and fun.

Conceptually simple and yet deviously designed; Adventures of Lolo offers so much in terms of the simple satisfaction of success as completing each level offers a great sense of achievement. For those who want a decent puzzle game that offers a little bit more and that won't leave you feeling short-changed, this comes highly recommended.  

Verdict : A particularly well polished puzzler.



Price: GB £3.59, EU €3.99
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Rare
Released: 1995
System: Game Boy
 
Remember when Cranky Kong berated the dynamic duo about the game having 'fancy graphics & sound' claiming that 'kid's will play anything these days' *grumble grumble* amongst other ramblings, so taking up the challenge D.K alongside Diddy get ready to do it all again but this time in 8-bit, so it's all arranged as King K. Rool steals the banana horde once more - this is literally the story - and there we have it, an excuse to play thirty new stages set across four different worlds; as Cranky might say 'What more do you want? You kids are never happy! In my day...' so best just to get on with the Kremlin crushing.

There seems to be a decent amount of thought put into the game initially as you see everything from DKC but in shrunk down colourless form but you get the feeling that it's just using up of leftover ideas from DKC especially when you find two K-O-N-G letters right next to each other, but when the surplass ideas are still decent playable stages you can't really complain as it's more for your money on a smaller scale just under half the size of its home console counter-part. The map screen appears in sections to fit it all on screen which works but can be a bit jarring when you change screen as the perspective shifts, there are also alternative paths which can be opened with bombs collected from end of stage, it all needs to be unlocked though so it's just a way of getting you to play through a stage twice, especially if you're a completionist.



Just as well that there is a reasonable amount to collect as in addition to the infamous letters there are again multiple bonus stages to find, helpfully if you find them all in a stage them you'll get an exclamation mark denoting completion, you can gain many lives fairly easily though as the lives count up you get hearts on the bottom of the screen up to a maximum of twenty which should be plenty but it's quite easy to lose them. Controls are similar to its home console bretheren except less in-depth as you'll only be making simple jumps here, you can switch between characters at any time by pressing 'Select' though this time it's a 'one hit K-O' scenario which can get annoying so I would advise cautiously making use of save states; aside from that it's business as usual with plenty of enemies to bounce off, barrels to blast out of and bananas to grab... oh and a few bosses to beat as well though movement can feel ever so slightly compromised at times but I would say that it's worth persevering with especially if you can't get enough Donkey Kong plus this game has Flying Pigs for enemies, bonus!



It's hard not to admire just how much detail Rare were able to squeeze down from the almighty SNES using it's more than capable graphics technique to the humble monochrome Game Boy with its limited but still impressive palette though I must admit that if you have ever played a game like this on a Super Game Boy then it definitely feels like a missed opportunity that these options aren't either possible or made available to us via the Virtual Console; still it's a technical marvel in any case. Amazingly parts of the sumptuous score from DKC composed by David Wise with Graeme Norgate made it across relatively unscathed, of course the quality isn't the same but the essence of the tracks is still there which makes a huge difference; the sound effects have been nicely sampled as well making for decent approximations of the originals so at least the general feel of a portable Donkey Kong adventure has been captured overall.

Ultimately if you can't get enough of Donkey Kong Country style platforming and you've played the console games to death then why not give Donkey Kong Land a go because I honestly think that it might just surprise you. It might not be quite as compent, the controls are less reliable plus it's a lot shorter and a little on the simple side but there is still a decent challenge here with a lot of fun to be had as well; just so long as you can be doing without those 'fancy colour graphics' that you've become used to then you'll be fine, now where are those bananas?

Verdict : A perfectly practical, playable Donkey Kong adventure in portable form.



Price: GB £5.49, EU €7.99
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Rare
Released: 1994
System: SNES

Much like Donkey Kong in the above banner I gave a confused look when I discovered that the almighty Donkey Kong Country had not yet been reviewed as part of VC Weekly in the past, this owes to the feature only starting a couple of months after the Virtual Console on the Wii existed, so in a sense we've always been playing catch-up - just as I am now - but fear not for all of these wrongs shall be righted as this true digital delight finally gets the review it deserves. Almost twenty years ago on November 24th 1994 Donkey Kong Country was finally released in Europe on the SNES and what a joyous year it was, unfortunately I didn't own Nintendo's glorious 16-bit machine at the time - I had a Sega Megadrive - but I distinctly remember playing this monumental release alongside my best friend at the time who lived next door, it was one of the greatest gaming experiences of my existence as to this day I'll never forget the magic of playing it co-operatively; for a platform game you have to understand that this was relatively uncharted territory at the time so what was achieved here just by having one player control Donkey Kong with his trademark 'DK' tie with the other player assuming the role of Diddy Kong complete with his 'Nintendo' cap while you went on an adventure to recover your banana hoard from King K. Rool and the Kremlins was nothing short of show-stopping brilliance which to this day is hard to top, even by the valiant effort made by Retro in the recent 'Tropical Freeze' which is the closest you'll ever get to this gem but not quite achieving the same sacred status.

Following the brilliant intro you are placed on the map screen at the start of DK Island, this acts as your main hub being that you can return to any previously played stage or visit one of the many members of the Kong clan who are your support characters of sorts; you have 'Funky Kong' who helps you travel quickly to previous areas on the island via Funky Flights, then you have Candy Kong who handles your game progress via her Save Station and then of course there's good old Cranky Kong who will depart to you his many pearls of 'wisdom' which results in many moments of good humour that both the series and Rare used to be famous for. Some of the very first stages are genius from the infamous Minecart Madness where never before has gaming with just one button felt so tense, to Stop & Go Station where you need to time your progress inbetween hitting barrel switches which turns the stages enemies 'Off' for a short time before they come back to life again; even some of the Stage names are genius like Vulture Culture or Elevator Antics to some which have awesome alliteration including Forest Frenzy, Millstone Mayhem and Temple Tempest.



Regardless of title though each stage will task you with several objectives including most notably collecting each of the 'K-O-N-G' letters which seem to be simple to find in the first few levels but if doesn't take very long before they become rather illusive, there will most likely be more than one stage where you end up near the end with just 'K-O- -G' or 'K- - N-G' and you'll be scratching your head wondering just where that last annoying missing letter is. There are also nemerous bonus stages to find which can be accessed via some well hidden barrels or even some which you can only get into if you enlist the help of one of your animal buddies who are ever useful, for instance you have Rambi the Rhino who can charge through enemies but if you run into certain walls then you'll end up in a banana collecting bonus area; there are other better ones though such as one where you control Enguarde the Swordfish in an underwater collectathon plus there are even other associated animals including Expresso the Ostritch, Squawks the Parrot and my personal favourite Winky the Frog all of whom you'll need to call on if you want to discover everything.

Controlling your chosen character thankfully is a joy because of the pinpoint precision which is offered by the SNES controller - this VC version supports all expected inputs though I'd recommend the Super NES Classic Controller for authenticity - as you can pull off some really incredible moves including Roll and Cartwheel Jumps for D.K plus Diddy respectively which you will need to execute with aplomb if you wish to get those collectable which are perilously placed over a gap which you would otherwise fall down using a normal jump; If you're playing single player then grabbing a DK Barrel will give you the opposite character to which you selected plus you can swap at the touch of a button which is useful for certain sections. Most enemies you can take out by simply bouncing off their heads but some you will need to break a barrel or a bomb over, the end of area bosses are always challenging too quite often testing your abilities being that this is a 'one or two hits' game which you can thankfully build up a stock-pile of lives in or strategically use save states with but not too often less you ruin the atmosphere for yourself by constantly bringing up the useful but obtrusive VC menu.



When it comes to Visuals the style used was nothing short of pioneering as no game before had used the Advanced Computer Modelling technique to such stunning effect, Rare invested heavily in the technology to make these visuals possible to it's just as well that it ended up working with such success as the graphics used in the game just wouldn't have been possible otherwise. Even today it all holds up tremendously well, I'd even go as far to say that though the visuals in the recently released Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze are very nice in HD and something Retro should be proud of, the visuals created here by Rare have an infinitely greater amount of charm than any other modern-day platformer could ever dream of; all of that extra depth afforded by such rich details still make the environments 'pop-out' even today in a way that not even DKCR3D on the 3DS could match, indeed the prospect of the game ever being re-released in HD or 3D is an intruiging one but I honestly don't think there is a way that it could be done without compromising the original look so personally I'm just grateful for being able to run through Jungle Japes enjoying that beautiful environment coupled with the astonishing level of animation that's been preserved to this very day.



Music score one of the best in videogame history thanks to David Wise who ultimately really 'is' Donkey Kong Country personified in the sense that his music elevates the entire experience to an unfathomable level of bliss way up there above the jungle tree-tops and beyond with every track composed by him being a unique masterpiece with some truly spine-tingling tracks from the opening stages, minecart sections, a jovial overworld theme - that piano - plus of course those two words... 'Aquatic Ambiance' are all I need to type as that marvelous music comes flooding back into memory. Unlike the 'Go Ape! CD which was included with the original SNES release which I dug out to listen while I reviewed this which just provided a simple yet tainted 'nostalgia' trip back to 1994 and not quite in the same way as playing this joyous title did, still a free CD with a Nintendo game in the nineties... who wouldn't have been thrilled at the prospect? Having said that these days it would be nice to have a collected DKC trilogy CD collection available through Club Nintendo because the original sound tracks are simply sublime. Oh of course the well-sampled sound effects are more than worthy of a mention, from the sounds of Donkey Kong beating his chest as you leave him idle, to Diddy's 'Ow!' when taking damage right through to the enemy kill sounds, the 'snap' of crocodile jaws, barrel blasting, the thundering of mine carts across a track, banana grabbing and of course the most cheerful 'losing a life' jingle imaginable.

An Absolute must-play by anyone who claims to be a gamer, Donkey Kong Country is a classic now just as it always has been, an absolute masterclass in how to create the perfect platformer and it still will be in another two decades, so when everyone is gaming on and Ultra HD 16k Bio-Organic LED display or a head-mounted device, I'll be more than happy if I can still play the definitive version of this 16-bit classic on whichever Nintendo machine I own, or failing that the original SNES game; advancements in gaming may transpire over time but those moments spent playing as D.K and Diddy will always be mine as the cart will never die, always heavenly to hold remaining pleasing to the eye.   

Verdict : Donkey Kong Country remains the undisputed king of platformers.

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!