Donkey Konga 1 & 2 (Import) Review

It seems like music games are becoming more and more popular, especially with the mainstream audience. Most people know only of dance Dance Revolutions, but there are many other music games out there like pop’n music, guitar freaks, beatmania, samba de amigo, etc. Of course, Nintendo, like everyone else, is in the videogame business to make money, and they’ve noticed that music games are popular and that they could make lots of money by releasing one too! That’s why they’ve asked Namco to do one for them using everyone’s favorite gorilla, Donkey Kong. Namco has released a very popular music game in Japan that looks similar to Donkey konga, and by that I mean that the intrument used to play the game nearly looks the same. That means Namco already had some background in doing that type of game, and it shows! If you are a Nintendo fanboy and only buy Nintendo consoles, then you might not have played a single music game in your life. If that’s the case, this one is a good place to start.

What I liked about this game is that it wasn’t difficult to learn, and that even at the highest difficulty level, the game was still rather easy. I succeeded on my first song and even though I didn’t understand a single japanese word, the game was so simple that I understood it immediately. Even my younger sister was able to play without any difficulty! This is the kind of game you’ll want to play at parties as it is simple, fun, and because even people that aren’t that much into gaming will like it. Controls are really simple: hit the left drum when you get a yellow circle, the right drum when you get a red one, both for a pink circle and clap your hands when you see a star. Of course, since this is a music game, you have to hit those at the right moment, but if you follow the rythm of the music then you’ll have no problem at all.

When the game starts, the first thing you’ll probably want to do will be to play the story mode. In this mode, you have to complete all of the songs on either easy or normal to earn money. With that money, you can buy the expert versions of all the songs and then be able to make even more money. Nothing too complicated here! This is what you’ll be doing for the most part as there is a lot of stuff to unlock, and it takes lots of money to unlock it all, which means you’ll spend a lot of hours playing this game. Like I said earlier, gameplay is really simple. Each time you hit the drums at the right moment, you will get a rating. If you hit it perfectly, you’ll get a GOOD, if it was average then you’ll get an OK, if you didn’t do it correctly you’ll get a BAD, and if you didn’t try at all you’ll get a MISS. The better you are, the more points you’ll get, and that means more money for you. You can also perform combos by getting either good or ok several times in a row. The bigger the combo, the more points you’ll get!

But that’s only the beginning as there is more to this game. So when you start spending your money, you’ll probably notice that you’ve unlocked some stuff and you’ll want to try it. There are a few mini-games that you might want to try, and even though they’re not spectacular, they can be fun, especially after you’ve played too much of story mode and are a little tired of playing the same songs over and over again. Those mini-games will test your skills, but not in the same way as the story mode. The mini-games are different from Donkey Konga 1 and 2, and I thought they were a little bit more difficult in the 2nd game. The games are varried and will keep some players interested for some time. One game is a Donkey Konga version of whack-a-mole; in another one you’ll be banana juggling; then you’ll be climbing vines. In the second game, there was also a game where you see circles appear one after the other at a certain speed and rythm, and then you had to hit them exactly the way you had seen them earlier, except they are invisible so you have to learn it by heart. It makes you practice some stuff related to the main mode which might help you get better. Of course, most of the stuff I’ve talked about can be played with friends as this is a multiplayer game.

Graphicaly, as you might have already guessed, this isn’t a game to show your buddies the new HDTV you just got. In fact, in the first game, you only get 2D backgrounds, and in the second game, you get lame 3D demos running in the background. They are all related to the Donkey Kong universe but since you are mostly looking at the circles, you probably won’t even notice them, so it’s not that big of a problem. This is a music game, so sound is what we are mostly interested in here, and it does the job well. You get some J-Pop, some Nintendo music, some classical music, some japanese commercials stuff and japanese anime songs. If you are not a big fan of japanese culture then you might not really like it and will probably wait for the US release, but there are a few songs that were memorable and that I enjoyed playing more than once. Who could resist playing the Pikmin commecial song, c’mon!

There is also some other neat stuff. For example, when you hit the drums, the game makes a noise depending on if you hit the left one, the right one, both or clapped. The default ones are drum sounds, but you can buy new ones in the Donkey Konga shop. That means you might hear some sound effects from classics like Super Mario Bros or Ice Climbers. It might get on your nerves after a few songs, but it’s fun at first and it’s a nice little addition, especially for us nostalgic gamers. I’d unlock some new sounds and I would try to guess from which game they were!

So since this game will hit US store shelves soon you might be better waiting a little, but if you’re like me and can’t, then the japanese version is a nice choice. Plus you can get both games with the taruconga controller in one bundle that is reasonably priced. You could then get the US version and have 2 sets of drums already! Since the songs will be different, it’s like a totally different game. So if you are into japanese music, do yourself a favor and buy it, you won’t be dissapointed.