3/5 ★ – Manic_Zucc's review of Donkey Kong Land.

Donkey Kong December is in full swing baby. Full disclosure the only classic DK platformer I’ve played is the first Donkey Kong Country. I plan to play the others in the trilogy soon but since DK Land was just added to NSO I figured I’d check it out first. I have to say it’s honestly impressive how well they were able to transfer the look and feel of DKC to the Gameboy, which was already getting up there in age at this point. The game honestly controls well and the models are recognizable enough (though I imagine playing this on original hardware may yield a different result). I also appreciate that this isn’t a copy and paste of DKC, instead it takes inspiration from it while also inserting some ideas of its own. It isn’t superior to its SNES counterpart but I appreciate the effort. Ultimately what drags the game down is screen crunch and repetition. The game too often requires leaps of faith with little indication as to where a safe landing spot is. While the game isn’t too long by any means too many of the levels feel the same and it starts to feel repetitive pretty quick. At the end of the day Donkey Kong Land isn’t much to write home about, but at the same time it shouldn’t be written off entirely. It’s a decent retro game that’s worth putting an hour or two into.