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, and the Northern Kremisphere is at peace once more. 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. Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and Baron K. Roolenstein all hear of the contest, and the Kongs set out leaving Dixie Kong with her cousin, Kiddy Kong. Wanting to become part of the competition themselves, she and Kiddy decided to show the other competitors that they are just as good as the others. The story's description ends with Kiddy, not knowing much about what was going on, following Dixie into the jungle.

Dixie and Kiddy will confront Baron K. Roolenstein at the end of Tin Can Valley, and upon defeating him, he will retreat to the Lost World. In order to access the Lost World, the Kongs must collect all of the DK Coins and Stop Watches in the Northern Kremisphere. DK Coins are found within each level, and Stop Watches are obtained by finishing Bear's Memory mini-game in each world. In order to access the mini-game, the heroes need a certain amount of Bonus Coins, which are won from Bonus Areas within each level. Within the Lost World, the Kongs must collect all the DK Coins and the final Stop Watch to have a final showdown with Baron K. Roolenstein. Emerging victorious from the battle will crown Dixie and Kiddy as the victors of the contest. Baron K. Roolenstein will then concede the remaining six Stop Watches and allow the Kongs to try out the Time Attack mode.

Gameplay
Donkey Kong Land III continues the Donkey Kong Country-style gameplay. The player controls two different characters, Dixie Kong and Kiddy Kong, as they progress through levels. Along the way several minions of K. Rool and other obstacles hinder the two. Items, including Bananas and Bear Coins, are also scattered throughout levels. Dixie and Kiddy retain most of their abilities from Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! Dixie can use her ponytail as a whip or spin in it a helicopter-like fashion to slow her fall. Kiddy is a heavyweight, allowing him to hurt certain enemies Dixie can't (i.e. Krumple). However they both lost the ability to pick each other up and throw each other due to the limitations of the Game Boy; the Team-up ability has been removed. When exploring levels, the pair must avoid enemies and use their attributes to safely move on. In levels they can come across bonus rooms and items essential to finish the game. Also within each world is a Sheepy Shop run by Bear. If Dixie and Kiddy have enough Bonus Coins, Bear will allow them to play Memory, a memorization based mini-game.

Certain levels allow the usage of Animal Buddy companions. The Kongs can transform into these animals by using Animal Barrels. There are a variety of buddies in the game, and they can help progress through the levels they're featured in. Enguarde the Swordfish returns from the previous games, being an adept swimmer, and can use his bill stab attack to defeat aquatic adversaries. Enguarde lost the ability to do a charge stab, but is no longer needed because there are no bonus rooms found by breaking open a wall underwater. Ellie the Elephant returns and can now use her water spray attack without having to acquire more water. She also no longer has a Sneek phobia. Squawks the Parrot is playable, unchanged from previous games, he can freely fly around and use a nut-spitting attack to defeat enemies encountered, including Buzz enemies. Lastly, Squitter the Spider is the fourth playable animal buddy. He can use a web spit attack and create web platforms to get over abysses, or gain height.

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.

International Release
Two versions of this game are known to exist for the North American release. The easiest way to tell the difference are the two title screens.

Cheat codes
Inputting these codes in any version of the game while on the title screen will trigger certain effects.
 * Pressing Down, Down, Up, Left, Right grants Dixie and Kiddy fifty lives.
 * Pressing Up, Up, Down, Left, Right forces the player to play Memory as a mini-game after pressing "START" on the title screen.
 * Pressing Up, Down, Left, Left, Down, Up, Right unlocks every area except the Lost World. The Stop Watches, Bonus Coins, and DK Coins are not unlocked.
 * Pressing either of the following buttons: Left, Up, Down, or "SELECT", causes the demo (after waiting for the title screen music to end) to play a different level, depending on how many times any of these buttons are pressed:
 * One time: Rickety Rapids
 * Two times: Whiplash Dash
 * Three times: Deep Reef Grief
 * Pressing any of the buttons four times causes the game to cycles back to the default Jetty Jitters. The Kongs eventually die in every demo, except for the Jetty Jitters demo in the Game Boy version.

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.
 * This 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".