Talk:Donkey Kong 3

Enemy confusion
Some of the Donkey Kong 3 enemy names somehow got confused. To get the easy ones out of the way, Vine Eater, Moth, and Beetle are almost certainly conjectural (one description of the game on page 152 of the Animal Crossing Player's Guide of all things almost mentions the latter: "You are a gardener with bigger problems than beetles or weeds—Donkey Kong has invaded your Eden!"); "Buttifly" turned out to be Attacker according to the NES instruction booklet and Donkey Kong 3-e cards, and "Beebomb" turned out to be Super Bee according to an arcade instruction card. That leaves Buzzbee, Queen Buzzbee, and Beespy. According to arcade materials such as the flyers and instructions, at the time of writing, what we've had as the basic one-shot, dart-wielding "Beespy" should really be Buzzbee. The other two are a little more complicated. The aforementioned arcade materials indicate that Beespy is the bigger one that takes two hits and then explodes upon defeat. However, Queen Buzzbee is used once in the NES manual on page 5 to refer to the same two-shot enemy, despite later using Beespy with its arcade art on pages 6 and 7 with no mention of the former. What happened? With only access to a Virtual Console manual and not the original Famicom version, my theory is that it was mistranslated from Beespy's full Japanese name as seen in the Japanese flyer, 「親バチ・ベスピー」 (note that Buzzbee's is 「兵隊バチ・バズビー」 which is easily confused). So then, what we currently have as "Queen Buzzbee" should definitely be Beespy, right? I think so, but that leaves the question of what to do with the enemy we currently have as "Buzzbee". To make it more confusing, some later English sources attribute the name Queen Buzzbee randomly. Page 156 of The Official Nintendo Player's Guide: "Buzzbees, queen buzzbees, bee spies, and crafty snakes will attack you and go for the flowers." Cards 3 and 4 of the Donkey Kong 3 e-reader set list Queen Buzzbee and Beespy as separate enemies, with the former stating that Queen Buzzbee is worth 700 points (what the NES manual refers to as one "Guard") and with the latter suggesting that it is one of the starting enemies ("As the rounds advance, other pesky bugs will also appear." implied to be the likes of Moth and Beetle); Card 5 then describes the two-shot, stinger-exploding enemy as Queen Buzzbee instead of Beespy. I think we can safely treat Queen Buzzbee as a mistake, however. If we do that, that leaves the question of how to cover the enemy we currently name "Buzzbee". Unofficial Japanese sites like Wikipedia seem to treat it and Beetle as simple graphic swaps of actual Buzzbee and Attacker, respectively, so merging with those articles would be one way to handle it, though official sources imply they may be among the "other pesky bugs" that appear later. LinkTheLefty (talk) 11:42, October 27, 2021 (EDT)
 * I think until if and when we find other official names, merging the graphic swaps covers the most bases. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 11:51, October 27, 2021 (EDT)
 * Here's the Arcade Archive's manual if you need it.--Platform (talk) 12:22, October 27, 2021 (EDT)
 * The other issue with outright merging, I just realized, is that the points/characters screens of the arcade version and Dai Gyakushū both seem to treat them as distinct entities (and on that note, if someone can point me in the direction of manual scans of the latter, it might have more names). Knowing about Arcade Archives is helpful since it reconfirms that I'm looking at it correctly - it looks like Donkey Kong 3-e uses "Queen Buzzbee" to refer to a guarded/escorted Beespy, so that may be how the names were sometimes used together. LinkTheLefty (talk) 15:28, October 27, 2021 (EDT)
 * While waiting to see if there's more input on the harder variant of "Buzzbee" (and, very potentially, Beetle & Attacker), I've temporarily moved said article to the conjectural name "Beebuzz" for the time being in order to enact the rest of the known official names. On a related note, I also can't find the names "Blue Greenhouse", "Gray Greenhouse", and "Yellow Greenhouse" anywhere - would anyone be opposed to covering it as one "greenhouse" article, just noting the levels as sort-of color variants (this would also require moving the current "Greenhouse" article to "Green House", which is technically its proper name as the former seems to have only been a weird change made to the English version of Game & Watch Gallery 3)? LinkTheLefty (talk) 12:38, October 28, 2021 (EDT)
 * Moving Greenhouse is a problem. That title is also used in ads and .--Platform (talk) 14:45, October 28, 2021 (EDT)
 * I forgot how it is in the Super Smash Bros. games, though its latest release is spaced, but fair enough, I wasn't aware the Game & Watch game had a name history where it was unspaced. We can still possibly give precedence to that game since it predates Donkey Kong 3, and have the level type as one consolidated "Greenhouse (Donkey Kong 3)" article. LinkTheLefty (talk) 15:28, October 28, 2021 (EDT)
 * This website has the Japanese name for the Super Bee. Here is another view. You can find the Famicom manual in this site and do a search for "ドンキーコング３". This is a partial glimpse into the Dai Gyakushu manual.--Platform (talk) 08:36, October 29, 2021 (EDT)
 * Thank you! I've added some Japanese names and some missing artwork using those sites. That scan of the Famicom manual confirms my theory that Queen Buzzbee was the result of a mistranslation. The partial manual photo of Dai Gyakushū was pretty useful too. It mentions the "Beetle" as 「かぶと虫」 (Kabutomushi) and "Moth" as 「バタフライ」 (Butterfly), so it looks like we finally have official names for them! It mentions them in addition to the 「ハチたち」 (or "bees") and groups them and Creepy as 「ムシたち」 (or "bugs") if I'm reading it right. Unfortunately, that part of the manual does not mention the rest of their names individually (and it probably does if this ad also mentions Buzzbee and Beespy by name). However, if the scoring screen lists everything in the game (unlike the arcade original), then Vine Eater and Buzzbee's harder variant might not be in the game at all, so they'll probably remain conjectural. LinkTheLefty (talk) 13:46, October 29, 2021 (EDT)
 * On another note, I've recently noticed that, like Stanley, Buzzbee first appeared in Green House. It's unnamed and only serves as part of the game's alarm by "alarming" a cat, but the design is even more spot-on than the other Game & Watch game. Given this, should we consider the inchworm an early appearance of Creepy? It has its characteristic piano-teeth when it first appears and crawls along the overhead vine, but unlike Donkey Kong 3, it also attacks the flower. I was also planning on eventually making a "flower (Donkey Kong 3)" article, but since considering the elements taken from Green House, I wonder if that's still the best identifier. With the same basic idea of a bugman saving the flowers in a greenhouse from bugs, you can make the case that just about everything except the alarm cat and spider enemy is shared between Green House and Donkey Kong 3. Thoughts? LinkTheLefty (talk) 18:03, October 29, 2021 (EDT)
 * While I haven't seen the Japanese manual for Greenhouse, I have seen it's quick guide leaflet which calls the enemies 「シャクトリ虫」 (inchworms) and 「クモ」 (spiders). A blogger who has read the manual says the same. The Japanese manual for Game & Watch Collection also uses the same names. Unusually, I found another blog that uses hiragana instead of katakana for the inchworm. I consider the inchworm more as a precursor to the Creepy much like the Shellcreeper to the Koopa Troopa. Also, a Japanese flyer for the DK3 G&W simply calls the enemies bees (「ハチ」).--Platform (talk) 06:43, October 30, 2021 (EDT)
 * Buzzbees also appear in this for G&W DK3. Only two of these have been discovered so far.--Platform (talk) 08:40, October 30, 2021 (EDT)
 * Game & Watch manuals simplified the names of some arcade enemies, though. For example, Donkey Kong Jr. refers to Nitpickers as "birds" (Snapjaws are included as well). So although those games don't refer to the bee as Buzzbee, it has a very distinct design, holding a dart/arrow/spear as a stinger, not to mention one of them is named after the arcade game. Note also that the Japanese instruction doesn't seem to give the name Stanley to the Fumigator, who was determined to be the same character but otherwise looks pretty different too. That's why I believe it's possible the same applies to the inchworm, flower, and greenhouse itself, though I suppose I'm open to considering those predecessors instead of the same thing. LinkTheLefty (talk) 08:48, October 30, 2021 (EDT)
 * Unless someone else chimes in, I guess we will just consider Fumigator/Stanley, spray gun/Sprayer, and bee/Buzzbee returning, and inchworm/Creepy, flower, and greenhouse predecessors/successors for now. Back to Buzzbee, I overlooked some things earlier. First, the arcade screen only has two question marks. The points attributed to question marks in the original arcade game don't fully coincide with the remaining enemies: both Kabutomushi and Butterfly are worth 700 points while Creepy (via Super Sprayer) and Buzzbee's harder version are worth 300 points instead of the suggested 400 points. I could be mistaken, but the other values seem to be correct anyway. So there's not much to glean from this screen alone. Second, Dai Gyakushū does not include the harder version of Buzzbee. The enemies are as pictured, with top left ones being before they are hit once and the top right ones being after being hit once, with Butterfly and Kabutomushi only being one hit to defeat. Since Buzzbee becomes Super Bee and Beespy becomes a slightly off-model Attacker, this means that the harder version of Buzzbee does not appear in that game. Overall: because of Dai Gyakushū, I would not merge Kabutomushi with Attacker, but since Buzzbee's harder version doesn't appear together with it in that game, I would be okay with merging those two. Is that agreeable? LinkTheLefty (talk) 23:42, November 3, 2021 (EDT)
 * I agree that Buzzbee's harder variant should be merged with Buzzbee. Please update all enemy articles with information about their Dai Gyakushū appearance and behavior.--Platform (talk) 10:01, November 4, 2021 (EDT)

Difference between Japanese and English versions
I'm trying to find out what the gameplay differences between the two arcade versions that Hamster included in their Arcade Archives release. Is the Japanese version harder? Does DK throw coconuts faster and/or more frequently? Do certain enemies appear earlier?--Platform (talk) 12:43, October 31, 2021 (EDT)