Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (GCN)

[Speevy]

What a strange game for a strange time.

During the end of the Gamecube's life span, the well of releases was drying up pretty rapidly and no one was quite sure of Nintendo's future. All we knew is that there was a set of peripherals called the DK bongos. Previously these things had been used to control music games, but what else could they do? What else should they do? War drums? Nintendo had an idea.

Many of the creative geniuses who would later be responsible for the Super Mario Galaxy series got together and created a combo-based rhythm platformer. The point of this game, near as I remember it, was to create a perfect sequence of chained together bananas. You controlled the game by hitting the bongos. Hitting the right bongo made DK run right, hitting the left bongo made him run left, and I believe hitting both made him jump, or maybe you had to clap, it's been a while.

All I know is that my hands were fucking killing me.

After you scored as many points as you could, you took on one of these crazy Kongs in a king of rock em', sock em' battle using the same bongos. Then the game tallied up your score.

What I remember most fondly about this game was the creative character designs and just how batshit crazy it was to be controlling a game this way. I believe they rereleased this game on the Wii, but there was nothing like playing it for the first time on the Gamecube.

 

[Kamiyouni]

My favorite version of DK. Wish we had a sequel.

 

[TheMink]

I actually really enjoyed his game, liked both the platforming and the bosses.

I remember it being very satisfying to punch the bosses over and over haha.

 

[zephiethewisp]

the thought of replaying this on wii just sounds lame, red palms or go home

 

[Deleted member 1413]

Its really good. Made by the Galaxy team before they made Galaxy.
I prefer it to the country games

 

[Deleted member 15428]

Why is it called GCN?

 

[ASleepingMonkey]

I watched the Giant Bomb gang play this recently and was laughing my ass off at how obnoxious it was.

I remember my friend always busting out the bongos when we played it when we were little but I don't think I quite realized at how ridiculous and loud it was.

 

[Nocturnowl]

I can't believe no one is ripping off that delicious combo platforming action, not often you see jump and run platformers have a true arcade vibe to them.
Also DK was a monster in this game, you go from him sprinting off like his arse is on fire when bumping into a beaver to this beatdown heavy machine who yanks the tongues of puffer fish reptile things to their breaking point and releases it sending them into a whiplash induced death.

 

[Cybersai]

Play the Wii port. It's excellent and removes the bongos for a traditional platformer.

 

[Dyle]

Best Donkey Kong game and one of my favorite platformers. The boss battles are great and feel just as satisfying as the normal stages once you get good. I just wish you could play it without waking up the entire neighborhood

 

[Chalphy]

Amazing Donkey Kong game, frankly it's my favourite of the DK platformers.

 

[super moustique]

Why is it called GCN?

Click to shrink...

 

[Anastasis]

I loved this game so much I "platinumed" it.

 

[Deleted member 14002]

Richard Feynman's favourite game

 

[etiira]

This game is so, so rad. I saw a commercial and immediately headed to my local game store to check it out. It's addictive when you're first starting out, but then the advanced stuff starts to click and it's like a whole different game. This is definitely my favorite Donkey Kong.

 

[etiira]

sorry, double posted.

 

[Mariolee]

I loved this game so much. To be honest, I really liked the somewhat realistic backgrounds they were going for and wish we had something like this in the new Donkey Kong Country games, but at the same time I love the artstyle of the Country games too.

 

[David Sr.]

Jungle Beat was incredible; what I love most about it is the arcade vibe and the score system, based on playing with elegance, chaining combos linked to your different moves before touching the ground. I consider it to be unrepeatable and makes of the game an unique proposal besides the wacky controls. It's a shame that the game never got a sequel, because the idea was perfect but the mechanic and execution, while pretty good, could have used some tweaks and refinement.

I'm also a fan of the kingdom structure (pairing levels in packs with a boss at the end), that builds a great pace for each play sesion and turns Jungle Beat into one of the most replayable 2D platformers thanks to it.

On the other hand, Nintendo made a big mistake when they considered that the DK universe built by Rare wasn't good enough for the 21th century, and I'll never forgive the removal of Diddy and the infamous design of the bestiary. I'm glad they rectified a bit with Returns and Tropical Freeze.

 

[Deleted member 39374]

Very innovative game and I enjoyed playing it, even though it makes your palms get sore and pink after a while.

 

[Betelgeuse]

Its biggest fan? This woman right here:

 

[Superking]

I will never forgive this game for being the main reason we had to wait double the amount of time for SMG than we otherwise would have had to.

And even on its own, it's a pretty meh and forgettable game.

 

[falcondoc]

Amazing game.

 

[Cybersai]

I will never forgive this game for being the main reason we had to wait double the amount of time for SMG than we otherwise would have had to.

And even on its own, it's a pretty meh and forgettable game.

Click to shrink...

Game was fantastic and Galaxy would not have come any sooner.

 

[Deleted member 249]

I give it mad props for inventiveness, at least

 

[Porco Rosso]

I played this with a Gamecube controller. Am I a bad person?

 

[Superking]

Game was fantastic and Galaxy would not have come any sooner.

Click to shrink...

Says who?

Spoiler

directed at both statements

 

[Nintenleo]

Genius game for a console full of weird masterpieces. We had the most peculiar versions of the top Nintendo franchises, at least at the time (Wind Waker, Sunshine, Metroid Prime, Pokémon Colosseum, etc.), and Jungle Beat stands out as one of the most fun and polished of the bunch.

 

[Shig]

I can't believe no one is ripping off that delicious combo platforming action, not often you see jump and run platformers have a true arcade vibe to them.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, It's a real pity this game is more remembered as "that platformer you played with bongos" than "that platformer that actually made collecting things with style a consequential and rewarding gameplay hook, instead of an arbitrary suggestion with no real payoff."

The combo system multipliers and the medals you'd get for big banana tallies at the end of the stage were brilliant, and the game gets big props for gating off later levels behind medal counts and forcing you to pay attention to the scoring system at some point. I can see where some would argue that's not user-friendly, but fuck it, sometimes it's more rewarding when a game slaps you and forces you to play right rather than just letting you stumble along through the game unfettered. Platformers could use a lot less of that hand-holdy, credit-feeding mentality.

I still contend that NSMB2 could have been a brilliant followup to this game's arcade scoring ethos if it had only had the balls to make scores matter and force mastery like DKJB did. That game has some brilliantly designed stages with neat scoring lines with the coins, but rather than do anything consequential with it, they just did the same crap where the meter rolls over after 100 and they didn't place any real rewards on high scoring aside from that absolutely useless coin tally on the title screen. A game with good score design that you can just flop through without being made to pay attention to any of that underlying score design is a real waste.

 

[KillstealWolf]

This ones a fun one that I got all the Platinum Medals on the Gamecube. Admittingly in the Gamecube version it's impossible to die due to health being tied to score which... yeah even the bigger bosses aren't going to knock 500 points off you with 30 point damaging moves. But then again, at high level player, your goal is to not get hit in the first place as that breaks your combo. So I don't know if the 3 hits where necessary in the Wii remake? Espicially when the overall goal is just get the highest combo and score imaginable.

I don't know if this will be referenced again as it feels like we've just gone back to the Country Series now. Which is a shame, you could like, throw Hoofer into a future game as a background cameo or something.

 

[Cybersai]

Says who?

Spoiler

directed at both statements

Click to shrink...

Did you expect Galaxy in 2005 on the Gamecube or something?

 

[Giga Man]

This is the only game I received with the Bongos, and it was worth it. I wouldn't mind another game like it.

Click to shrink...

That's the early version of Dread Kong. Here's a pretty screenshot for the final version.

The Kong fights were what I looked forward to the most while playing.

 

[Superking]

Did you expect Galaxy in 2005 on the Gamecube or something?

Click to shrink...

If they weren't wasting their time on JB, yes. Why is this so hard to believe?

 

[DOT_mjo]

As a kid, the idea was so awesome to me. Don't think I ever beat the game but I remember having a blast playing it!

 

[Speevy]

If they weren't wasting their time on JB, yes. Why is this so hard to believe?

Click to shrink...

The Gamecube's discs hold 1.3 GB and it wasn't quite powerful enough to run the Super Mario Galaxy we got at a stable framerate.

 

[Superking]

The Gamecube's discs hold 1.3 GB and it wasn't quite powerful enough to run the Super Mario Galaxy we got at a stable framerate.

Click to shrink...

You do realize that theoretically this game would have started development long before any discussion of the Wii would have taken place and thus the game would be made to conform to the specs of the GC, right?

 

[shintoki]

This is the best platform of the gen. I keep my cube for it and like 3 other games

 

[Speevy]

You do realize that theoretically this game would have started development long before any discussion of the Wii would have taken place and thus the game would be made to conform to the specs of the GC, right?

Click to shrink...

And what a tragedy that would have been considering the difference in image quality, storage capacity, and effects between the two systems.

 

[Dark Ninja]

Love that game. Got into doing perfect stage runs for a bit but I couldn't handle the stress. I actually like the boss designs like the other kongs more than returns and tropical freeze.

 

[Oscarzx n]

Jungle Beat was incredible; what I love most about it is the arcade vibe and the score system, based on playing with elegance, chaining combos linked to your different moves before touching the ground. I consider it to be unrepeatable and makes of the game an unique proposal besides the wacky controls. It's a shame that the game never got a sequel, because the idea was perfect but the mechanic and execution, while pretty good, could have used some tweaks and refinement.

I'm also a fan of the kingdom structure (pairing levels in packs with a boss at the end), that builds a great pace for each play sesion and turns Jungle Beat into one of the most replayable 2D platformers thanks to it.

On the other hand, Nintendo made a big mistake when they considered that the DK universe built by Rare wasn't good enough for the 21th century, and I'll never forgive the removal of Diddy and the infamous design of the bestiary. I'm glad they rectified a bit with Returns and Tropical Freeze.

Click to shrink...

Well, almost at the same time of the release of this game DK King of Swing and the Konga games were also released, and those games had the Kong Family, so Returns and TF were not the first games to re use Rare characters, so it's even more strange that they made a new universe for this game. Also at the same time was released the first Mario vs. Donkey Kong, another game that also acts like the Rare games never happened but in a different way than Jungle Beat.

 

[Oscarzx n]

Really fun game and pretty unique. If it was longer and with more boss fight, it easily would be in my top 5 DK games, I also don't like that they didn't use the Rare charcters, should had been a new ip.

 

[Superking]

And what a tragedy that would have been considering the difference in image quality, storage capacity, and effects between the two systems.

Click to shrink...

And that I will agree with you on. But the issue here is the PRINCIPLE, my good man.

 

[David Sr.]

Well, almost at the same time of the release of this game DK King of Swing and the Konga games were also released, and those games had the Kong Family, so Returns and TF were not the first games to re use Rare characters, so it's even more strange that they made a new universe for this game. Also at the same time was released the first Mario vs. Donkey Kong, another game that also acts like the Rare games never happened but in a different way than Jungle Beat.

Click to shrink...

Yep. There even was an explicit statement of Yoshiaki Koizumi, who produced Jungle Beat, talking about how he felt that the western DK universe characters were old-fashioned by that time:

"All the characters outside of Donkey Kong and the banana are completely original. We don't really feel the past look of Donkey Kong was fresh enough for today. We really gave our new development team the chance to really create something unique and stylish."

They probably acknowledged that as a mistake and that would be why Paon games (King of Swing, Jungle Climber...) recovered them.

What I find odd enough is that almost 15 years later the same Koizumi has payed a huge tribute to those characters (K.Rool, Diddy, Dixie, the animal buddies...) naming after them the streets of New Donk in Super Mario Odyssey.

 

[Phil32]

I enjoyed the GameCube original as well as the Wii version. The Wii version I actually preferred because I could play it at any time of the day--even at night--and not worry about waking anyone up. :D

Why is it called GCN?

Click to shrink...

That's Nintendo's official acronym for the GameCube. I think NGC was taken with Neo Geo Color perhaps? Nintendo likes having its name in the acronym except for things like the Wii brand. Even the DS and 3DS were NDS and N3DS respectively.

 

[Mugy]

Why is it called GCN?

Click to shrink...

NGC was taken for Neo Geo Color.

 

[purseowner]

Masterpiece.

 

[azeke]

Best Donkey Kong game and one of my favorite platformers.

Click to shrink...

Donkey Kong 94 exists, so Jungle Beat is #2 but still a superb game design.

 

[Incite]

One of my favorite games, I've always wanted a sequel of sorts

 

[NuclearCake]

I don't like this game as much as any of the country games aside from DKC3 but it was a much better game than the toxic waste known as DK64. The Bongos were well made and the game is fun for a quick play through once in a while, so its sort of falls in the same place as something like Luigi's Mansion for me. One of the best things about this game is that it got rid of all the shit tier character designs from DK64.

I have not played the Wii version but i do hear it's significantly different from the GameCube version.

 

[Clov]

I never played the Gamecube original, but I played the Wii port of the game and loved it! It's a really underrated platformer, honestly. While I can understand how people were upset with how the game does away with a lot of the stuff that Rare brought to the franchise, it's incredibly fun to play in its own right. Definitely one of my favorite DK platformers!

 

[HardTimesFamilyPride]

I never got to play this game. Didn't even know much about it until recently; I think I was heavy into PS2 at the time.

Really interested in playing it at some point. I wonder if anyone I know has those bongos.....