Donkey Kong Country (Game Boy Color)

Donkey Kong Country is a 2000 Game Boy Color remake of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game of the same name. While its graphics and sounds are downgraded to fit the handheld system's more limited capabilities, several new elements are also added. It acts as a spiritual successor to the Donkey Kong Land series of Game Boy games. It would later be succeeded by another remake for the Game Boy Advance.

Story
The game's manual features an abridged version of the story from the original game's manual. During a stormy night, "hero-in-training" Diddy Kong is overpowered by the Kremlings, who proceed to trap him in a barrel, toss him into the jungle, and steal Donkey Kong's banana hoard. In the morning, Donkey Kong is woken up by a smug Cranky Kong, and vows to find Diddy, beat the Kremlings, and reclaim his bananas.

Gameplay
Unlike the original game but like the Donkey Kong Land series, only one Kong appears on screen at a time. If both Kongs are in the group, the one not in play is represented by a DK Barrel icon at the bottom-left corner. By pressing, the player can switch characters, which shows the Kong in play being moved to the DK Barrel icon while the other Kong moves out to appear on-screen. When one Kong in a pair gets hurt, he falls off the screen rather than running away like in the original. The main game only supports single-player, though multiplayer-supporting minigames are present. Otherwise, the basic gameplay is the same as the original.

The Kongs
There are a few Kongs who help Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong along their journey, and they each appear in one of the supporting locations.

The Good Guys
Aside from the supporting Kongs, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong are also assisted by Animal Friends during the game. Each Animal Friend is imprisoned within an animal crate depicting a silhouette of their face. The Animal Friends only appear in certain levels, and the Kongs cannot take them to other levels. Every Animal Friend has their own unique abilities.

Enemies and obstacles
Various types of enemies appear throughout the levels, attempting to get into Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong's way. The Kremlings are the main enemies of the game.

The Bosses
At the end of every world, the Kongs must fight a boss, each guarding a portion of the stolen bananas. Most of the bosses are a larger version of an enemy.

Supporting locations
During their adventure, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong are assisted by three other members of the Kong Family who operate their own location in every world.

Levels
Like Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country's levels and worlds are accessed from a world map. The main overworld is Donkey Kong Island, where the Kongs can travel between the worlds they have visited. Every world has a progression system where the Kongs must complete a level to unlock the next and so forth until reaching the boss level at the end. Every world has five to six levels. After the Kongs complete the boss level, they unlock the next world. The Kongs can return to the main Donkey Kong Island map by either defeating the world boss or by renting Funky's Jumbo Barrel.

A head of either Donkey Kong or Diddy Kong appear on the location of every world and level that either Kong has completed. A Kritter head appears only on the next level or world that the Kongs have not yet completed. In the Super Nintendo version, there is a glitch in single player mode where if Diddy completes a level and then Donkey Kong completes it afterward, his head does not appear on that level.

Most levels have Bonus Levels in them, two or three on average. They allow the Kongs to collect items and prizes. While it is optional for the Kongs to enter the Bonus Levels, entering every Bonus Level is required for 101% completion. Unlike the Super Mario series, the Kongs are not required to traverse a whole level to reach the end boss.

Bonus games
The remake features two bonus games, which can be played single-player or two-player.

Crosshair Cranky
Crosshair Cranky is a shooting game where the players need to hit Kremlings with coconuts.

Funky's Fishing
Funky's Fishing (or just Funky Fishing) is a minigame where players compete to catch fish while avoiding reeling in garbage. They can also use the fish to try sinking each other's boats.

Differences from original

 * The GBC version prompts the player to select a language before going to the title screen; in the SNES version the language select menu is found in the file select. Also unlike the SNES version, all of the text will be in the selected language instead of having menus still in English.
 * There are three different title screens.
 * There is no two-player option for adventure mode.
 * The mode selection menu is reminiscent of Donkey Kong 64's.
 * Much like the Donkey Kong Land games, only one Kong appears at time. A DK Barrel icon is shown if both Kongs are in a group.
 * In the German version, many levels' names were changed to ones that more closely resemble their English names.
 * DK Sticker Packs are newly collectible photographs hidden in a level of each world. They are viewable from the Sticker Book, and can even be printed from the Game Boy Printer.
 * Due to the graphical limitations, the stormy weather effects in the levels Ropey Rampage and Snow Barrel Blast are not present in this version. Also, the misty effect in Misty Mine is portrayed as a slow-pulsing lightening of the screen.
 * The light in Torchlight Trouble does not have a beam of light, but rather lights up the whole screen.
 * The level Winky's Walkway has been extended with some more enemies and a different layout.
 * In Millstone Mayhem, the Gnawties sit on top of the millstones rather than in the middle.
 * A new level called Necky Nutmare has been added in Chimp Caverns.
 * The Kongs do not ride the Animal Friends; rather, they transform into them when jumping on the animal crate. If an Animal Friend comes in contact with an enemy, it reverts to Donkey Kong or Diddy Kong, who cannot transform back into the Animal Friend unless they find another animal crate.
 * The Kongs do not travel between levels on the world map along dots in a straight line, but rather following paths, similar to Donkey Kong Land.
 * Two mini-games have been added: Funky hosts a fishing game known as Funky's Fishing (which would be later reprised in the GBA remake) and Cranky hosts a shooting game called Crosshair Cranky.
 * Two additional difficulties have been added: the first one removes DK Barrels and the other removes Star Barrels. After beating the game in the normal difficulty, the player has to replay the game with each new difficulty in the same file to achieve 101% completion.
 * Most of the music and sound effects were taken from Donkey Kong Land or downgraded for Game Boy Color. Most notably:
 * "Forest Frenzy" is an entirely new composition in this game.
 * "Misty Menace" was removed, with "Minecart Madness" being used in its place for the levels that used the theme.
 * Snow Barrel Blast and Ice Age Alley use "Ice Cave Chant", while Slipslide Ride uses the Kremlantis theme from Donkey Kong Land. "Northern Hemispheres" was removed.
 * DK's Tree House uses the Donkey Kong Land title screen theme.
 * The "bonus level loss" theme is similar to the ones used in Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3.
 * The warping Blast Barrel in Mine Cart Carnage was removed.
 * The game saves automatically after completing a level. As a result, Candy's Save Point was replaced by Candy's Challenge where Donkey Kong or Diddy must complete a challenge in each world.
 * The staff credits shows various screenshots instead of taking place in DK's Treehouse. The cast of characters no longer appears in the game.

Reception
The Game Boy Color remake was praised for taking a graphically-impressive title and putting it to the platform in a complete and technically competent form, in contrast to other unsuccessful attempts at directly porting or remaking home console games for handhelds.

References to other games

 * Donkey Kong 64: The Select Screen is a digitized version of the Donkey Kong 64 one.

List of pre-release and unused content
On September 9, 2020, a Game Boy Color prototype for Donkey Kong Country leaked to the internet. The file is timestamped July 17, 2000, four months before the retail release of the Game Boy Color version. The prototype has several differences from the retail version.

Differences

 * Only the Adventure and Option modes are accessible, suggesting that the Link-Up and Bonus modes were not yet or in the process of being implemented.
 * Like the original Super Nintendo version, accessing every bonus room in a level adds an exclamation mark after the level's name. In the retail Game Boy Color version, the level name is highlighted red instead.
 * Diddy's victory animation involves him throwing his cap up once rather than repeatedly.
 * In the prototype build, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong can roll through crawlspaces. This was fixed in the retail version.
 * Candy's Challenge is inaccessible.
 * In Very Gnawty's Lair, Very Gnawty's starting position is closer to the Kongs than in the retail version.
 * The moment that Very Gnawty is defeated, the Giant Banana and Kongs' victory animation is shown. In the retail version, this is only shown once Very Gnawty pants repeatedly and faints. After this, the game resets.
 * Even after resetting the game and reopening the game, Monkey Mines is inaccessible, but like the retail version, once Kongo Jungle is completed, Gangplank Galleon is shown from a distant view on the world map, and Kongo Jungle is marked by a Kong head instead of a Kremling head.

The message that is shown when booting the game in Game Boy mode is longer in the prototype than in the final version.

The prototype version has a Title option in the Options menu. Selecting it changes the option to Title 2, 3, 4, and lastly 5 before switching back to Title 1.

The sprite for a DK Sticker Pad is much smaller in the prototype. When either Kong collects a DK Sticker Pad, it is not added to the total, but instead floats up and offscreen.

In a Stop the Barrel! minigame, after the prize stops alternating between the barrels, the red question mark sprites do not appear on-screen.