Donkey Kong Land III

Donkey Kong Land III (or Donkey Kong Land 3) is a video game for the Game Boy released by Nintendo in 1997. Loosely based on the Super Nintendo game, Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, it is the third and final entry in the Donkey Kong Land series. Like previous games in the series, it features enhancements for the Super Game Boy and is housed in a yellow cartridge. The original Game Boy game was never released in Japan; however, it was eventually ported to the Game Boy Color and released in Japan on January 28, 2000, as Donkey Kong GB: Dinky Kong & Dixie Kong (ドンキーコングGB・ディンキーコング＆ディクシーコング).

Story
The game's story takes place after the events of Donkey Kong Land 2, where it is said that the laid-back place, Donkey Kong Country, has had a hive of activity in the recent days. During the story, announcements of a contest to find the fabled Lost World, which was said to have dominated legends for centuries, attracted "would-be" explorers all over the world to seize the long awaited chance of fame and fortune. Of these explorers were Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong, who had left Dixie Kong holding the toddler, Kiddy. Wanting to become part of the competition herself, she and Kiddy decided to show the other competitors that they were just as good as they are. The story's description ends with Kiddy, not knowing much about what was going on, following Dixie into the jungle.

Levels
The game features over thirty levels, each with a similar theme to the levels in Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble. Each non-boss level also contains two Bonus Levels, which must all be completed to unlock Time Attack mode.

Time Attack mode
A Time Attack mode can be accessed once the game is fully completed with all seventy-seven Bonus Coins and every DK Coin. Once this is done, the Kongs must defeat Baron K. Roolenstein to earn the mode from him.

During Time Attack Mode, the player is shown a list of several levels, one of each of the twelve level types. Each level is listed with a time to beat. These times must be beat in order for the player to finish Donkey Kong Land III 103%. As soon as the level is chosen on the list, the players must quickly begin the level. A timer is displayed as they run to keep track of how long they have been traveling. When the level is complete, the player's time is recorded, unless a higher score was made before. If the game's time has been beaten, an exclamation point will appear next to the level's name. Noticeably, the levels in this mode are not under their normal names, but instead under the name of their theme, such as "Machine" or "Tube".

Time Attack mode is accessed as soon as the player chooses their file. After the "Re-Enter Game" icon is hit, the mode can only by played again once the game is reset.

In the Game Boy version of the game, the most recent time is displayed on the bottom of the screen (unless the player exits a level with + or loses a life). For reasons unknown, this was removed in the Game Boy Color version.

Time Attack times
Below shows the times needed to beat certain Time Attack levels.

Version differences
A Japanese Game Boy Color version of the game was released in 2000 as "Donkey Kong GB: Dinky Kong and Dixie Kong" (Dinky Kong being Kiddy Kong's name in Japan). The game was not released outside of Japan. Among the notable features and changes:


 * The game is now exclusively for the Game Boy Color, and no longer compatible with the Game Boy or Super Game Boy. It was housed in a transparent Game Boy Color cartridge.
 * The game is in full color.
 * The splash screen and title screen are slightly redesigned.
 * The world maps are no longer animated. Water is now stagnant, Wrinkly Refuge and Sheepy Shop no longer have lights flashing inside, mills don't turn anymore, and smoke stays still.
 * When there is text on screen, it appears one character at a time, like a typewriter, as opposed to the entire text showing up instantly.
 * In the Time Attack screen, the player's most recent time is no longer displayed.
 * Bear has only one frame of animation now.
 * There is less slowdown during gameplay. This eliminates unfair deaths where the screen would lag with many sprites on the screen.

Reception
Donkey Kong Land III received an 81% at GameRankings.

According to Rareware's website, 600.000 copies of Donkey Kong Land III had been produced as of 1999.

Trivia

 * Initially, Donkey Kong Land III had a subtitle called "The Race Against Time", which was later removed.
 * Donkey Kong Land III is the only Rare Donkey Kong game in which Donkey Kong does not appear.
 * The game's soundtrack consists of 8-bit re-orchestrations of the music from Donkey Kong Country 3. However, the tracks "Frosty Frolics" and "Pokey Pipes" do not appear; the snow and pipe levels use "Cascade Capers" and "Cavern Caprice" instead, respectively. In addition, "Rocket Run" is programmed into the game; however, it is unused and can only be accessed by ROM hacking.
 * Several elements from Donkey Kong Land III were later used for the Game Boy Advance port of Donkey Kong Country 3, such as the DK coin automatically being collected when defeating Koin.
 * In Wrinkly Kong's speech, "Kremlings" is misspelled as "Kremlins".