Red Balloon

Extra Life Balloons (also known as Extra-Life Balloons) are items in Donkey Kong Country and the series that give the Kongs extra lives. As stated in the manual: "Earn extra lives by collecting balloons. Red balloons are worth one extra life, green are worth two, and blue will give you three."

The Red Balloons are more common than the other two types of Balloons. Balloons are often given out as prizes for completing a task (such as Swanky Kong's quizzes and Bonus Levels) successfully.

The balloons are shown differently depending on the game. In Donkey Kong Country, they had Donkey Kong's face on them. In Donkey Kong Country 2, they had Diddy's, and in Donkey Kong Country 3, they had Dixie's. The first two Donkey Kong Land games had the same balloon designs as their DKC counterparts; although Donkey Kong Land III (which mainly recycled sprites from Donkey Kong Land 2) features Diddy's face on the balloons, although he doesn't appear in the game. Donkey Kong Country Returns also has a red variety but without the character's face.

In all three Donkey Kong Land games, balloons pop upon being collected, but in the Donkey Kong Country games, they just float to the life counter on the upper right of the screen (upper left in Donkey Kong Country Returns).

Unlike the Donkey Kong Country series, the Donkey Kong Land series only features the red variety of balloons, most likely due to lack of color.

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