Donkey Kong Barrel Blast

Donkey Kong Barrel Blast (known as Donkey Kong Jet Race in Europe and Australia) is the third game released in the Donkey Kong racing series, after Diddy Kong Racing and its DS remake. It was released for the Wii in mid-late 2007 in Japan and North America and early 2008 in Europe and Australia. Instead of cars, hovercrafts or planes, players utilize rocket-powered bongos. It's the first game in the Donkey Kong Racing series to not be developed by Rare Ltd., as it was developed by Paon, who previously developed DK: King of Swing and later it's sequel DK: Jungle Climber. The game was originally planned for the Nintendo GameCube for use with the DK Bongo Controller. The game incorporates Miis as indicators for records in Time Trials and Candy's Challenges mode.

Gameplay
The gameplay is similar to its predecessors, with some changes. Players pick a character with varying stats, strengths and weaknesses and race around an obstacle filled course in an attempt to finish in first place out of eight racers. During a race, players are able to pick up items from Item Balloons and can use them to mess up their rivals progress. Unlike Diddy Kong Racing and its remake, players do not get a specific item if they drive through a specific Item Balloon and items cannot be upgraded by racing through balloons of the same color. Instead, the item system is similar to that of the Mario Kart series prior to that series eighth installment. More powerful items are awarded the further behind a racer is. Players in first place are likely to get either Banana Bunches or Backward Barrels, while those near last place may get a Crystal Coconut, Mega TNT Barrel or Quawks. Players receive a certain amount of points depending on which position they finished a race in. The player with the most amount of points at the end is the winner.

Bananas are once again found on the racetracks but they serve a different purpose compared to Diddy Kong Racing. In this game, they are used to fill up a gauge that contains Wild Moves which give players a small speed boost when used that can be extended by repeatedly crashing into barrels, certain enemies like Zingers or other players, making them lose ten bananas. Players can carry up to six Wild Moves. Players are also able to attack obstacles and other players, which will also make them lose ten bananas. The vehicles present in Diddy Kong Racing and its remake are now absent and rocket-powered bongos take their place. The bongos share most of their characteristics with the plane, but they remain in the air at all times and as such are unaffected by the terrain. Players are also able to jump over obstacles with them but they cannot drift.

A new addition to this game is the ability to ride a Toboggan, a Minecart as well as Animal Buddies. The former two pits the player in a small bonus game were they can obtain more bananas and use the bonus area as a shortcut, while the latter allows a player to break through obstacles. Several types of barrels are also present, each with a varying purpose. Normal barrels are weak obstacles that are essential to Wild Move combos, Iron Barrels will significantly slow down a player who bumps into them while Launcher Barrels can be used as shortcuts. Players will also encounter some wooden panels with an !-mark on them. These are known as Surprise Panels, and they will summon a wide variety of things after being touched. Some examples are Golden Bananas, barrels and Launcher Barrels. Three difficulty levels not only control how difficult CPU players will be during a race, but how fast a player will move once they reach their top speed, with Rookie being the slowest, Pro being medium and Expert being the fastest.

Point spreads works identically to Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Mario Kart DS. If two or more human players are playing, only four racers will be present, but the point spread remains the same.

Jungle Grand Prix
The main mode in the game. It works just like the Mario Kart series, but some cups have fewer tracks to race on depending on their difficulty level. Also, like Mario Kart Arcade GP, more than one track will take place in a certain area. Three are from the DK Jungle course, three are from the Seaside course, three are from the Mt. Dynamite course, two are from the Desert course, two are from the Snowy Mountain course and two are from the Sky Temple course. Only one racetrack is in a course of its own, which is in outer space. Difficulty selection ranges from Rookie (Beginner in Europe and Australia), to Pro, to Expert, the latter two which must be unlocked before the player can use them. To unlock Pro Difficulty, the player needs to win the Sapphire Cup on Rookie difficulty. To unlock Expert difficulty, the player needs to win the Platinum Cup on Pro difficulty.

Selection Cup
The player selects two to five of any of the race courses, but one race course cannot be selected twice. This trophy will not be displayed on the selection screen no matter how many times it is beaten.

Random Cup
The computer randomly picks out five tracks for the player to race on. Like the Selection Cup, the trophy will not be displayed on the selection screen.

The trophies given during the award ceremony have differing designs and sizes, depending on which cup was beaten. Like the Mario Kart series, there will be an item displayed on top of the trophy, such as a Banana Fairy on top of the Diamond Cup.

Cup unlocking criteria
There is also the Training Course, which isn't used in any of the cups, but it is used in Cranky's Flight School, some of Candy's Challenges and during the credits.

Other Modes

 * Single Race: Players can choose one racetrack to play on.
 * Time Trial: Like the Mario Kart series, Diddy Kong Racing, and its remake, players can choose to race on a single track for the best time, and save ghost data.
 * Free Run: Players can choose a course and run it without other competitors, a time limit and a lap limit.
 * Cranky's Flight School: The informative part of the game where Cranky gives eight lessons on how to play the game, from accelerating, to using items and Wild Moves.
 * Candy's Challenges: In this mode, Candy Kong gives out four sets of eight challenges (a similarity to other games like Mario Kart DS, Mario Strikers Charged, and Super Smash Bros. Melee.) These challenges range from collecting a certain amount of bananas, to winning a race without getting hurt, to completing a race against the clock. Completing all of the challenges will unlock Ultra Barrel DK.
 * Records: This is where players can look at records and status in the courses, such as highest amount of bananas collected, highest Wild Move combo count and best time when clearing a cup.
 * Options: This is where players can turn the items in the game on or off in Single Race and Jungle Grand Prix, change the button settings, the dominant hand to play on (left or right), and check the controls.

Playable Characters
Including Ultra Barrel DK as a separate character, there are a total of 17 playable characters in Donkey Kong Barrel Blast (consisting of 9 Kong characters (when Ultra Barrel DK is included as a separate character from Donkey Kong) and 8 Kremling characters). Kip, Kass, Kalypso and Kludge make their first appearance in this game. Unlockable characters will appear during a race, but Wrinkly Kong, Cranky Kong and King K. Rool need to be unlocked before they can appear as CPU opponents. Ultra Barrel DK never appears as a CPU opponent even after being unlocked, as he can only be used by human players.

It is also not possible for one player to use Ultra Barrel DK while another player uses Donkey Kong or vice versa, due to them sharing the same character slot. If a character hasn't been unlocked yet, a black silhouette of Donkey Kong will take its place on their character slot, except for Ultra Barrel DK. Once he is unlocked, the player will see a small speech bubble when hovering over DK's character slot that explains the buttons that needs to be pressed in order to select him. In order to select Ultra Barrel DK on the character select screen, the player needs to highlight Donkey Kong, hold and press.

Each character have three stats, all of which are shown when highlighting them on the character select screen.
 * Boost: How fast a character can reach their top speed from a standstill start.
 * Speed: How high a character's top speed will be when they are going at full speed.
 * Agility: How tight a character can turn.

Animal Friends
In order to hitch a ride on either of them, the player must run into the box on the track with their picture. The box will either stay still or move back and forth in a line for players to catch. They cannot hurt another racer by touching them, but they are immune to being damaged by both racers using Wild Moves as well as all items, except for the reversed control effects of a Mega TNT Barrel.

Enemies
These characters act as obstacles and will try to attack racers. Racers will slow down when struck by their attack or by colliding with them directly. A defeated enemy will reward a racer with ten bananas. Defeated enemies will respawn after a while.

Bananas
The key to winning is collecting bananas to fill the Wild Move gauge. It takes 50 bananas to fill it and obtain a Wild Move.

Items
Items are obtained by getting "?" balloons on the racetracks. Each type of racer, Kong or Kremling, has their team's color, with the Kong balloons being red and the Kremling balloons being blue. When the racer grabs their team's color of balloon, the effect of what's inside may last longer than if the other team had gotten it. Some Item Ballons will change color after being picked up. What item from the Item Balloons a racer will receive is determined by their current race position.

Barrels
Donkey Kong Barrel Blast features a variety of Barrels. Some of them can be spawned by touching a Surprise Panel.

References to other games

 * Donkey Kong: The theme of Cranky's Flight School and parts of Cosmic Highway is a remix of this game's opening.
 * Donkey Kong Country: Several enemies from this game return. The theme that plays in Cranky's Flight School is a remix of the music that plays in Cranky's Cabin. When Kritter rides in a minecart, he resembles a Krash.
 * Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest: Lockjaw returns as an enemy.
 * Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble: Quawks returns and is named for the first time. Kopter also returns. Many Rocket Barrels are seen in the background of Cosmic Highway.
 * Donkey Kong 64: Lanky Kong and Tiny Kong return. Chunky Kong's Pineapple Launcher, Banana Fairies, Golden Bananas and Crystal Coconuts return as items.
 * Diddy Kong Racing DS: Tiny appears in her older teenage redesign which originated from this game.

References in later games

 * Mario Kart Wii: Some of Donkey Kong's and Funky Kong's voice clips from Donkey Kong Barrel Blast are reused for this game.
 * Super Smash Bros. Brawl: Artwork of Kalypso and a Banana Bunch appear as stickers. Kip, Kass, Kalypso and Kludge also appear as trophies. Additionally, the trophies of Funky Kong, Candy Kong, Lanky Kong, Tiny Kong, Cranky Kong and Kritter mention this game. The theme that plays on the DK Jungle course is available as a music track on Rumble Falls.
 * Super Smash Bros. for Wii U: Kritter's trophy description in the North American version mentions his appearance as a playable character in this game.

Reception
Donkey Kong Barrel Blast was met with mostly negative reviews for its slow racing, imprecise controls, a lack of online mode, and that the Bongo Controllers were left out of the game even though GameCube controllers are completely compatible with the Wii.

One of the game's positive reviews came from Wiiloveit.com, who gave the game a score of 23/30, a "Good" rating. They praised the wide selection of modes and playable characters, the balanced item system, the visuals being pleasing to look at, the controls feeling right for a game that used motion controls extensively and being easy to get used to, and the game's soundtrack, stating that almost every music track in the game fit the level they were in almost perfectly.

They gave the most praise to the usage of Wild Moves. They also stated that the game started slow on Rookie difficulty, but became fastpaced and very enjoyable on Expert. They did complain however, about framerate issues and a confined split-screen when 3 or 4 players are playing, the lack of an online mode and the fact that inexperienced players will not fare as easily against skilled ones when they played the game for the first time.

Trivia

 * Unlike Diddy Kong Racing, its remake and the Mario Kart series, the music that plays on a race course will not go into a higher tempo once a player reaches the final lap.
 * Donkey Kong Barrel Blast has gone through many working titles, such as "DK Bongo Blast" (when it was going to be a GameCube title), "Donkey Jet", and "Donkey Kong Jet".
 * While King K. Rool rides in a single barrel, he uses the same bongo controls as the other characters. He simply hits the sides of his rocket barrel with his hands.
 * In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the trophy descriptions for the newcomer Kremlings were adjusted in the PAL version so that they describe the characters in general, instead of describing their stats for this game.
 * In the official artwork, Dixie Kong is the only character who raises their left hand instead of their right hand.
 * This is the first Donkey Kong Racing game that contains the name of Donkey Kong in the title.
 * It is also the first to have Donkey Kong himself as a playable character.