List of Donkey Kong Country pre-release and unused content

This is a list of pre-release and unused content for the game Donkey Kong Country.

Early iteration

 * During September 2015, Donkey Kong Country designer Gregg Mayles posted many pieces of concept art and early pitches for the game, including a binder named Donkey Kong vs. Super Wario. No other media of the pitch was posted and when asked about its content, Mayles responded "Didn't get much beyond Wario and some kind of time machine as I recall."
 * Mayles posted another pitch titled Donkey Kong and the Golden Bananas, which is more similar to the final game. From the four pages posted on his Twitter, the storyline in the pitch shows Donkey Kong guarding the Golden Banana while relaxing. A lanky blue Kremling named Korporal Krizzle defeats DK and steals the Golden Banana. Grandpa Kong (an early version of Cranky Kong resembling a white-furred DK) finds Donkey Kong and urges him to get back the artifact. Donkey then calls Donkey Kong Junior, whose design is nearly identical to Diddy Kong, albeit without a tail.
 * Mayles revealed on August 10th, 2018, that a working title for Donkey Kong Country was Monkey Madness around March 1994.

Early concepts

 * The SNES version was planned to have an introduction cutscene, showing Diddy being stomped by Krusha while patrolling. Krusha then smashed the wall leading to the Banana Hoard and Kremlings loaded the bananas in carts, followed by Donkey Kong waking up and Cranky explaining to him the bananas have been stolen.
 * Donkey Kong Jr. was originally meant to be Donkey Kong's sidekick during the concept phase, but Nintendo felt that Rare's redesign was too different and mandated them to either revert to Donkey Kong Jr.'s original appearance or change the name of the character. Rare felt that the design fit Donkey Kong Country's new aesthetic more, leading to Diddy becoming a separate character.
 * Several names were then considered for Diddy during Donkey Kong Country's production, including "Diet DK", "DK Lite" and "Titchy Kong". Rare had originally settled on "Dinky Kong", but the name was later dropped due to legal considerations. It would later become Kiddy Kong's Japanese name.
 * Donkey Kong originally had a helmet light for mine stages, which could be seen on many of the marketing materials. In the final game, Squawks the Parrot replaces the helmet’s intended functionality.
 * The concept for the King K. Rool battle is largely similar to that of the final game, except that K. Rool was planned to only endure three hits for each phase of the battle. Additionally, he was originally named “Krudd”.
 * Early during the preproduction phase, it was considered to have the Animal Friends trapped in cages, with the player being required to find a Key item to free them.
 * Some animal helpers that didn’t make the final cut included a dolphin, an owl (named Hooter ) that would give players information, a fox that would reveal secrets, snakes that could be used as vines, a giraffe whose long neck would help the Kongs reach high areas, a flying pig, and a mole named Miney. The giraffe was revealed to a fan that happened to ask about a giraffe in a new game in an old Scribes page on the Rareware website, where it was mentioned that he would allow Donkey Kong to crawl up his neck and reach high items and secrets. The flying pig may have been repurposed into a similar-sounding enemy in Donkey Kong Land.
 * Cut enemies include a magician Kremling named Kloak (potentially the enemy of the same name which later appears in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest), a statue Kremling named Krumble, a green Kremling named Klanger, and a robot Kremling named Krocbot. Graphics for a robotic Kremling can be found in the game's data, which may be Krocbot.
 * Rockkroc was originally known as "Krocrock," keeping with the "K" theme.

Early builds
The preview video, Donkey Kong Country Exposed, also contains a few elements that never made it into the final game, such as a 3-Up Balloon at Snow Barrel Blast and a nighttime version of Jungle Hijinxs. There were also a few instances where binary digits were seen underneath the lives counter, which may have been a debug menu of some sort. Also, in this build, it was possible to exceed one hundred bananas, whereas in the final game, the banana counter would reset once it reaches that number. Lastly, Donkey Kong was unable to defeat the regular blue Krusha enemy by jumping on him. Unlike the final, Krusha will laugh after Donkey Kong does so, as he would if Diddy had done that. This also applies to Klump, hinting there might have not been character differences in the early game.

Unused Data
There are many unused sprites in this game, such as a Puftup from Donkey Kong Country 2, a jungle plant, various poses and animations for Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong (including a pushing sprite, an action not performable in the final game), and a few enemy palette swaps. Also of note is an early Necky that is roughly the size of the Mini-Neckies in the final game, but colored like the adult ones; its animations indicate that it would attack like the ground-based adults in the final, and as such, this may be an early design that both were derived from.

The ROM includes a partial English script, which seems to be from an earlier period of development. Differences include Cranky Kong's dialogue being much friendlier than he is in the final game and the Slippa enemy being named "Hister."