Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is a
platform game starring
Donkey Kong, made by
Nintendo for the
Nintendo GameCube (and later released on the
Wii). Although superficially similar to the
Donkey Kong Country series, the game has little to do with
Rare's stint with the character, notable in that it features none of the characters introduced in
the nineties. Be that as it may, some elements from
Donkey Kong Country, such as riding animals and collecting scattered coins and bananas, do feature in the game.
The storyline is
minimal: A kingdom of small monkeys living in the jungle have had their bananas stolen by a group of evil kings, so they call on the big ape to retrieve them and teach the baddies a lesson on their behalf. Collecting scattered bananas increases Donkey Kong's stamina; as an interesting feature, the more elaborate the acrobatics he uses to reach them, the more stamina they're worth. The stamina comes in handy at the end of every other stage, as Donkey Kong faces off with one of the evil kings.
The original GameCube release had Donkey Kong's moves controlled via a set of bongo peripherals normally used to play the
Donkey Konga rhythm games. Said control scheme works
much better than it sounds. Meanwhile, the Wii release used more traditional platforming controls, making use of actual buttons and the control stick, but also mimicking the bongo controls to some degree. All of this naturally makes for a very interesting and unusual gaming experience.
Due to its unusually high amount of brutal (albeit
bloodless) violence, it became the first game to be rated E10+.
Tropes:
- Animal Mecha: Turret Tusk
- Ass Kicking Pose
- Badass Grandpa: Karate Kong.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: Asteroid Belt, the second level of the Star Fruit Kingdom (and the last regular level in the game), and the following Sumo Kong battle, which take on place in various planetoids.
- Battle in the Rain: The fight with Ninja Kong.
- Big Bad: The Cactus / Ghastly King.
- Big Boo's Haunt
- Boisterous Bruiser: The warthogs, Sumo Kong, and Donkey Kong himself.
- Boss Rush: Kong of the Mountain from the New Play Control! version.
- Bragging Rights Reward: Donkey Kong's gold crown after 100% completion in the New Play Control! version, new menu music in all versions.
- Bubbly Clouds: Cloudy Heights, where it is possible to rack up a combo of over 3000 beats!
- Captain Ersatz: Many, which is odd, since Nintendo owns all Donkey Kong Country characters.
- Companion Cube: Apparently, the director considers the banana a character
. - Cutscene Drop: Blatantly.
- Dumb Muscle: Donkey Kong.
- Electric Jellyfish: But the game also has regular, non electrifying jellyfish.
- Floating Water: one levels has bodies of water that hover in the air and you have to swim through.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The Cactus King and Ghastly King.
- Green Hill Zone: Dawn Savannah. Heck, the Banana Kingdom in general.
- Hailfire Peaks: The kingdoms in general, most notably the Cherry Kingdom.
- Huge Rider, Tiny Mount: DK and the Helibirds, although the birds do tire out.
- Infinite 1-Ups: Pristine Sea, the ocean stage right before the Karate Kong fight, offers the opportunity for pulling off what's likely the most magnificent instance of Infinite 1-Ups in Donkey Kong history, short of the rope trick in "Misty Mine" from the original Donkey Kong Country. After reaching the water's edge near the start, don't collect any bananas. swim until you get to the small island, and perform as many aerial combos off the right shore before falling into the ocean without touching the ground. After that, perform a wall-jump off the eastern wall. Go back to the start (but don't step on dry land!) and collect all the bananas for about six beats apiece. The barrel blast and Orco sections will increase your banana numbers exponentially. When you finally touch dry land, you will have attained well over three thousand bananas!
- Lethal Lava Land
- Level Ate: Sweet Paradise
- Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: The Chopperbird◊ is the only human character in the game.
- Minecart Madness: The Hoofer stages.
- Power-Up Mount: Hoofer and Orco.
- Rapid Fire Fisticuffs
- Recurring Riff / Leitmotif
- Shock and Awe: The hog bosses.
- Slippy Slidey Ice World: You even ice skate through them instead of running.
- Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom: Unlike many other games, being smashed isn't instantly fatal, Donkey Kong's strong enough to push the walls back apart at the cost of some beats.
- Story Breadcrumbs: In the New Play Control! version.
- Super Strength: Donkey Kong shows it more than in previous games where you played as him
- Theme Naming: The boss kongs are all named for their fighting style, except for Dread Kong.
- Updated Rerelease: The New Play Control! version.
- Use Your Head: How Donkey Kong defeats the Rocs.
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