Donkey Kong Land III

Donkey Kong Land III (also formatted as Donkey Kong Land 3) is a platform game for the Game Boy developed by Rareware and published by Nintendo in 1997. It is closely based on the SNES game Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, as it repurposes that game's graphical assets and thus features the same characters, enemies, and level environments. It also stars Dixie Kong and Kiddy Kong. Donkey Kong Land III is the third and final entry of the Donkey Kong Land series. Like its two predecessors, Donkey Kong Land III is housed on a yellow cartridge and has specific Super Game Boy enhancements, including a unique border of pocket watches.

The original Game Boy version was never released in Japan, and it instead received a Game Boy Color port in 2000. It is not dual-compatible with original Game Boy units, as evident from the transparent cartridge where it is contained. However, on September 9, 2020, a Japanese prototype of the Game Boy version was leaked. The Game Boy Color port was never released outside Japan.

Like its two predecessors, Donkey Kong Land III was released on the Nintendo 3DS's Virtual Console. The Game Boy Color port was released in Japan on May 7, 2014, while the original Game Boy version was released in Europe and Australia in October 2014 and North America in February 2015.

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. Dixie wants to prove herself just as worthy as the other participants, so she decides to participate in the contest and takes Kiddy along with her. Kiddy is not that aware about what is going on and decides to follow Dixie into the jungle.

After traveling through the worlds, Dixie and Kiddy are confronted by Baron K. Roolenstein at the end of Tin Can Valley. To access the Lost World, Dixie and Kiddy must collect every DK Coin and Watch. Within the Lost World itself, the Kongs must collect all the DK Coins and the final Watch to engage in the final boss battle against Baron K. Roolenstein. When the Kongs defeat him, they are crowned as the victors of the contest. Baron K. Roolenstein then concedes the remaining six Watches and allows the Kongs to try out the Time Attack mode.

Gameplay
Donkey Kong Land III plays very similarly to Donkey Kong Land 2. The player controls two different characters, Dixie and Kiddy, and only one Kong appears on-screen at a time. Dixie and Kiddy retain most of their abilities from Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! Dixie can use her Helicopter Spin to whirl her ponytail on the ground or glide in midair. Kiddy is heavier and stronger and can defeat strong enemies such as Krumples by jumping on them, whereas Dixie cannot. In each world, the Kongs must complete the levels in order until reaching the world boss, whom the Kongs must defeat to unlock the next world.

As the Kongs explore a level, they must avoid enemies along the way and collect items such as bananas and bear coins along the way. Every Bonus Level is accessed from a Bonus Barrel, and the reward for completing a Bonus Level's objective is a Bonus Coin. Some levels have an Animal Barrel, which transform the Kongs into the pictured Animal Friend, whose abilities are often required to complete a level or to reach hidden areas. Each Animal Friend has their own set of abilities.

Each world has a Wrinkly Refuge, where Wrinkly Kong saves the player's progress, and a Sheepy Shop, which is run by a Bear. If Dixie and Kiddy have enough Bonus Coins, the Bar allows them to play the cards memorization minigame if they have at least a number of Bonus Coins. The Kongs are rewarded a Watch for the first time they complete a challenge in a world. In most levels, there is a Koin guarding the DK Coin, except for underwater levels, where the DK Coin appears by itself like in Donkey Kong Land 2. The Kongs are required to obtain every DK Coin and Watch to access the final World, the Lost World.

Animal Friends
All four Animal Friends in the game have previously appeared in Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!

Levels
There are six worlds in Donkey Kong Land III, and each of them have six levels and a boss level. Each level has a similar theme to those from Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! There are two Bonus Levels in every regular level.

Time Attack mode
The player can unlock the Time Attack mode by completing the game with every Bonus Coin, every DK Coin, and by defeating Baron K. Roolenstein in the Lost World. This earns them a 97% completion score, and from the file select screen, the player always starts on the Time Attack menu from the save file in which they unlocked it. The player can select the "RE-ENTER GAME" option at the bottom to play the main game.

Time Attack lists twelve levels on a wooden dashboard. Each of these levels do not appear under their usual name but rather named after their theme, such as "Cave" or "Machine". The objective of Time Attack is for Dixie Kong or Kiddy Kong to complete a level within a time limit. Once this is done in every level, the player completes the game entirely, with a 103% ranking.

When the player starts the level, an on-screen timer appears at the bottom of the screen, keeping track of their time as move through the level. If the player completes the level under the default time or their previous time, it overwrites the previous time. If the player finishes a level below the default time, an exclamation mark appears next to the level's name.

In the Game Boy version, the most recent time is displayed on the bottom of the screen (unless the player exits a level with + or loses a life). This was removed from the Game Boy Color version, a holdover from the Japanese prototype, which did not have enough ROM space to include this feature, and wasn't restored in the final release despite more available ROM space.

Version differences
While the Game Boy Color version of Donkey Kong Land III is a direct colored port of the original Game Boy release, it features a few differences.

General changes: Graphical changes:
 * The player's latest time is no longer displayed on Time Attack.
 * Since the Game Boy Color has a faster CPU than the original Game Boy, the game has less slowdown. An example is in Clifftop Critters, where less lag eliminates the possibility of the Kongs losing a life from falling too far down.
 * Additionally, the title screen's Jetty Jitters demo is not synchronized, and the Kongs cannot reach the end of the level. This is because of timing differences between the Game Boy and Game Boy Color, which has a faster CPU.
 * In the original version, there was a bug where Dixie and Kiddy could enter the Lost World without enough DK Coins; this was fixed for the Game Boy Color version.
 * The splash screen and title screen were slightly redesigned.
 * The world maps are no longer animated: the water and smoke no longer move, the mills no longer turn, and lights no longer flash from the interior of Wrinkly Refuge and Sheepy Shop. This is a holdover from the Japanese prototype, which did not have enough ROM space to include coding for the map animations, and wasn't restored in the final release despite more available ROM space.
 * Bear does not have any animation frames.
 * The text appears on-screen one character at a time, unlike the original version, which displays all the text at once.
 * The screen no longer darkens when paused, making it less clear for when the game is paused.

Revision differences
Two versions of this game are known to exist for the North American release. They can be distinguished from their two title screens.

In both v1.1 and the Japanese version, a pit was added at the very end of Tundra Blunda. This was likely done to fix a minor bug that prevents the Steel Barrel from getting stuck if Kiddy goes to the very end and throws it.

Cheat codes
Like its predecessor, Donkey Kong Land 2, Donkey Kong Land III has cheat codes that the player can input from the title screen by entering a certain button combination. When the player enters a cheat, a sound effect. The game uses the D-Pad for its button combination unlike Donkey Kong Land 2, which uses the and  buttons. Both versions of Donkey Kong Land III feature the same cheat codes:
 * Pressing, , , , grants Dixie and Kiddy fifty extra lives.
 * Pressing, , , , allows the player to play cards after exiting from the title screen.
 * Pressing, , , , , , unlocks every area, except for the Lost World initially. The Watches, Bonus Coins, and DK Coins are not unlocked. Once the Lost World is reachable, every level in this world is unlocked.
 * Pressing either, , , or changes the level shown in the title screen's gameplay demo (which plays after the title screen's music ends). The Kongs eventually die in every gameplay demo, except for the default Jetty Jitters demo in the original Game Boy version. The demo changes based on the number of times that the player presses the buttons:
 * First time: Rickety Rapids
 * Second time: Whiplash Dash
 * Third time: Deep Reef Grief
 * Fourth time: Resets to Jetty Jitters

Sales
According to Rareware's website, 600,000 copies of Donkey Kong Land III had been produced as of 1998.

Trivia

 * Despite his name being featured in the title, Donkey Kong does not appear in Donkey Kong Land III. However, he is mentioned in the manual's story. Aside from Diddy Kong Racing and its DS remake, this game is the only title of the Donkey Kong series that he does not appear in.
 * 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.