| | by SwimmerBoy, December 02, 2005 |
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I was looking forward to this SNES remake for GBA, but to be honest, I wasn't impressed with it at all. You know that feeling when your mom says, "I tried something different tonight with the meatloaf" and that "something different" just made it awful? That is what Donkey Kong Country 3 (DKC3) is like for GBA.
Let me be blunt. DCK3 for GBA is NOT the same game as DKC3 for SNES. They are similar, but by no means are they identical. When RARE decided to bring this game to GBA, you can tell it wasn't shown any love. Unlike the classic Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past SNES titles, DKC3 has got to be the worst port from SNES to GBA I've seen since Earthworm Jim. Way to go RARE on the horrible job.
Now, honestly, when DKC3 was released originally for SNES, I never really liked it as much as the original in the first place, but I did think it was much better than DKC2. It had an atmosphere, a sense of wonder about the world Dixie and Kiddie were exploring. Apparently, the GBA is stronger than the SNES... but based on the fallbacks of this remake, they could have fooled me. All of that was wiped away during the transition from SNES and GBA, and here's how:
-The original masterpiece soundtrack has been replaced by sub-standard bleeps and bloops, that hardly push GBA's sound capabilities. So don't be expecting to hear your favorite DKC3 theme when you turn this game on for the first time.
-The map has been completely re-rendered and reanimated. I still prefer the SNES overworld over the GBA remake for two reasons. The original overworld music does not exist, and the GBA map does not have those tiny details that make it seem real and mysterious.
-The levels have been redesigned to play easier on the GBA. This would be fine if done minimally and if it were unnoticable. But the changes they make are both obtrusive and unfaithful to the original.
Those are the reasons this game does not stand up to the SNES original. I would like to mention though, the graphics in this game. If you've seen any of the screen shots, they may look terrible. I am here to say that they actually aren't that bad. When you play the game and see it in motion, despite the extreme contrast difference in the color pallets, the graphics are much better than the first DKC remake. So there is one area of improvement at least.
I was looking forward to this port, and I was greatly dissappointed by it. I truly felt like RARE purposefully made this game crappy. It's almost like they put an 8-bit remake of a 16-bit game, into a 32-bit console. Does that make any sense to you? The game itself is polished, but its presentation has much left. I'd say unless you are desperate for some portable monkey lovin... stick with the superior SNES masterpiece.
Thank goodness RARE doesn't have to torture us again by taking a fantastic game and butchering it into a GBA remake.
This game earns a rank at the bottom. Gameplay is the only thing that saves it with a semi-decent ranking of 6.5! Shame RARE... shame. |
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