3.5/5 ★ – philip_acquaro's review of Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!.

Started: April 10th 2025 Beaten: April 15th 2025 I’ve replayed dkc 1 and 2 countless times but always ignored this one for some reason. I think it’s because ever since I first tried this game, I’ve always thought that the first world was terrible. It starts out not challenging, nor fun, and doesn’t have very great music. Not only is there no goal set at the start, but the level design is just brainlessly moving one straight shot to the goal pole coupled with having to play the worst secondary character in the series known as Kiddy Kong. It’s VERY unfortunate that this is the case for the first world because everything after I would consider phenomenal. The level design becomes incredibly fun with the game just chucking new idea after new idea at you in which all compliment the super tight and polished move set established from the previous titles as soon as you get through that first world. It has beautiful sprite work in the backdrops and while it has a certain nature, wood, forest, and industrial/mechanical aesthetic in all of its levels it’s not afraid to mix it up with some really nice looking snow levels that change with weather conditions as well as water levels that look amazing with all of the new coral sprite work. While the music isn’t the best when looking at all the tracks as a whole (due to David Wise, composer of the first two games not contributing to this title), it still has a couple bangers here and there like in the mountain levels, snow levels, burning rope climb level, and factory level. My favorite level has to be that factory level where you play as a spider that is always being targeted by an aiming weapon that shoots fire balls every few seconds. Bosses are all pretty cool, and each have distinct designs based on their respective worlds as well as unique ways to take them down. Some of them like the Snow Man snow ball fight boss and K Rool gave me a hard time. Even though I don’t really like Kiddy Kong (the secondary character you play as), for being slow, heavy, and annoying in his death animation, I got used to him after a bit. Why they changed the gameplay from having two fast and light weight characters back to one fast and one slow/heavy character? I have no clue. I do like how all of the Kongs are all present here like how Funky has his own repair shop, Swanky bringing back his game show from the second game, and Cranky always proving he’s superior to you. Also like how you could see Wrinkly Kong playing Super Mario 64 on her sofa chair whenever you save your game, it’s a really cute reference. Sucks that she just straight up dies in Donkey Kong 64 a few years later. But anyway, the first two games are masterpieces to me and are among my favorites of all time, and while I can’t say the same overall for this game, by the end, I still loved what I played here and wouldn’t mind playing this sometime again in the future. Although I’d still probably replay either of the first two if I get the itch to come back to the series.