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By Glen Atwell and Shaun Inguanzo

Gamer Herald - December 2006

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest (Review)

December 29th 2006 00:00
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Players: 1-2
Genre: Platform
Developer: Rare, Nintendo
Platform: SNES
Year: 1995 (USA), 1995 (PAL)

Donkey Kong 2 continues where the first game left off, this time with a new character. Diddy Kong and Dixie Kong team up to defeat K. Rool and save their friend, Donkey Kong ("Thank you Diddy. But our gorilla is in another castle!" anyone?).


In-Game Screen


Which is the better character? Diddy Kong can cartwheel around as well as move faster and jump higher. However, Dixie Kong can do a helicopter spin which allows a bit of a safety net when jumping around.

Controls are similar to the original Donkey Kong, with various changes being made to the game. Stages are more varied, and instead of just riding on animal friends the characters can transform into them. Obviously secrets in the ground are lost (without Donkey Kong, who's going to slap the ground?), but there are new secret and bonus areas to be found.

Other than that, it's more platformer action. I'd rate it a 6, but I rather liked playing two speedy characters as opposed to having one character being rather slow (Donkey Kong).


Score: 7.5/10
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Donkey Kong Country (Review)

December 27th 2006 00:00
Title Screen


Players: 1-2
Genre: Platform
Developer: Rare, Nintendo
Platform: SNES
Year: 1994 (USA), 1994 (PAL)

Yet another platform game from Nintendo, Donkey Kong Country has a similarly simple story. Donkey Kong, with the help of his best friend Diddy Kong are setting out to recover his stolen hoard of bananas from King K. Rool on Donkey Kong Island.

The standard platformer abilities are all here (jumping on enemies, throwing items at enemies) though something new is the tag system. Although you can only play one Kong on screen at one time, the other Kong is still there and playable upon tagging the other player.

Riding Rambi


Donkey Kong is larger and stronger than Diddy, allowing him to slap the ground to reveal secrets as well as defeat stronger enemies. Diddy is quicker and generally more manoeuvrable. Each Kong can sustain one hit, and if both are gone then a life is lost.

The Kongs are not alone in their adventure and have the help of various animal friends. I found the animal friends the most fun aspect in the Donkey Kong games: Rambi is a rhino who can charge enemies and destroy hidden walls. Expresso (a favourite of mine) is an ostrich who can hover in the air and run faster than everyone else, but had a limitation of not being able to jump on enemies. Enguarde (my other favourite) a swordfish available in underwater levels, who can skewer enemies with a charge. There are other animals that help you in your travels as well as NPCs.

After playing Mario games, I found Donkey Kong more fun to play multiplayer: after all, two players could co-operatively play the same stage at the same time.

Score: 7/10


Trivia: Donkey Kong was the first game on a mainstream home console system to use pre-rendered 3D graphics.
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Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (Review)

December 25th 2006 00:00
Title Screen


Players: 1
Genre: RPG
Developer: Squaresoft
Platform: SNES
Year: 1996 (USA), No PAL Release

Now this was a big surprise (well probably not as big a surprise as Square partnering with Disney for Kingdom Hearts when it was first announced) when I first picked it up. Up until this game, I'd only ever played Nintendo's platformers such as Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong. Needless to say, I was getting a bit tired of the platformer genre since its style just isn't what attracts me to gaming. I had reservations about Super Mario RPG since I view character and story paramount to a good RPG, and Nintendo's stories had been rather lacking to say the least.

However, like the reservations I had about Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon: Another Story, these were debunked after getting into the game and noticing how well the game was put together. Or well, all the new stuff the game brought to the table.

Story: Princess Peach is kidnapped by Bowser, and Mario needs to go and save her. That's the basic story (yet again). However you'll find an interesting choice of characters to accompany Mario in his quest, and the playable selection consists of some old favourites (that may or may not have been playable *hint hint*) and some new characters brought in solely for Super Mario RPG.

Battle System: The most surprising and enjoyable aspect. Think of the traditional turn-based RPG battle system. Then think about making it more interactive to break the monotony of selecting something with the D-pad and then pressing the Confirm button. Super Mario RPG does this.

After choosing your action in battle, a timed button press (or presses) can increase the damage on an attack (for example, choosing Mario's Jump speciality will cause him to do a double jump for extra damage and for Peach's standard attack, she slaps twice instead of once)

Battle motion is smooth and crisp, as well as the pace of battle. Rarely do you feel like battle's dragging on longer than it has to.

Battle


Innovation: The battle system takes the cake here, though the other more minor (small things add up though) innovations include the integration of the simplistic platformer Mario world turned into a somewhat more complex RPG world. It's interesting seeing how small things you find on stages in Super Mario Bros are included in the layout and plot of the RPG version.

Graphics: Bright and crisp as you'd expect from Mario, though in this version, the simplistic style is also more detailed and fleshed out in an isometric-3D view.

Sound: Most of your familiar Mario tunes with a few new ones. There are a few annoying sound effects, but nothing major.

Replayability: About what you'd expect from an RPG. It's a longer game to play, so replayability is a bit lower. However, if you miss stuff the first time around there's opportunity to explore the world further again in a second replay without it feeling too old.

Overall: Considering I 'grew out of' Mario near the end of the SNES days, this game was good enough for me to enjoy it despite the usual weaker story/character depth element of Mario games. It was just fun (and smooth) to play and occupied many of my nights until I finished the game. Oh and the cameos. Many Nintendo cameos can be found in the game.

Score: 9/10
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Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (Review)

December 23rd 2006 00:42
Title Screen


Players: 1


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Merry Christmas!

December 20th 2006 06:21
I'll be going to Melbourne for Christmas this year, leaving Friday the 22nd and returning Saturday the 30th. I'll try to queue up some posts before leaving for my flight, but there may be less updates (if any) for the next week or so.

Merry Christmas everyone, and I hope you all have a good time this festive season!
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Super Mario World (Review)

December 20th 2006 06:16
Title Screen


Players: 1-2


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Super Mario Kart (Review)

December 17th 2006 19:17
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Players: 1-2


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Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Review)

December 16th 2006 05:05
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Players: 1


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Super Mario All Stars (Review)

December 13th 2006 11:25
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Players: 1-2


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Breath of Fire II (Review)

December 9th 2006 11:49
Title Screen


Players: 1


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Illusion of Gaia/Time (Review)

December 7th 2006 19:17
Illusion of Gaia - Title Screen


Players: 1


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Dungeons & Dragons

December 5th 2006 22:00
During my Internetworking class at the beginning of the year, I met this incredibly arrogant guy. I had finished the practical early (making Category 5 straight-through cables) and was sitting around waiting for my friends to finish. He came up to me and started off the conversation in an accusing tone:

Him: You haven't finished the practical, have you


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Final Fantasy VI (Review)

December 4th 2006 19:00
Final Fantasy VI - Box Art


Players: 1


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Game Reviews

December 4th 2006 10:15
Just a heads up on how I'm going about these game reviews (I probably should have done this at the start...):

I plan to go roughly in the order I've played games, or at least order of systems, leaving handhelds to last. So it's most likely going to be: SNES, PS, PS2, and then the GB/GBA/DS as I own or have easy access to those. There'll be a few PC and other console reviews, but not that many


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Demon's Crest (Review)

December 3rd 2006 19:12
Demon's Crest Title Screen


Players: 1


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Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon: Another Story (Review)

December 2nd 2006 23:30
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Players: 1


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Chrono Trigger (Review)

December 1st 2006 22:30
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Players: 1


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