Video Game / Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!

aka: Donkey Kong Country 3

Trekking on like Dixie Kong!

Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! is a platform game made by Rare for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, originally released in 1996. A remake (minus the subtitle) was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2005.

After the events of Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, the Kong clan goes on vacation to the Northern Kremisphere to celebrate their victory over K. Rool and the Kremlings. Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong decide to go exploring together, leaving Dixie to nap alone on the beach. But the pair has not returned by the next morning and Dixie suspects there's evil afoot. Along with her enormous baby cousin Kiddy, she ventures into the wilds of the Kremisphere and discovers that the Kremlings are up to no good once again, this time under the rule of an unseen, mysterious leader named KAOS.

The game featured better graphics than its predecessors, but also made several changes. It had a broad, cartoon-like art style and instead of a piratical/nautical theme, it featured motifs from the industrial revolution. It even took some musical and aesthetic cues from James Bond (Rare was also working on GoldenEye (1997) at the time).

It has the distinction of being the final 2D Donkey Kong game produced by Rare, as well as the final game in the original trilogy. Rare would go on to make one more game in the series, Donkey Kong 64, a 3D outing released in 1999. A back-to-basics follow-up, Donkey Kong Country Returns, was released by Retro Studios 14 years later, in 2010.

Like the first two games in the Country series, the game received a follow-up in the form of Donkey Kong Land III, the third and (to date) final game in the Land series, for the original Game Boy. In 2000, a Japan-only Updated Re-release was issued for the Game Boy Color, making this the only game in the Land series to be released exclusively for the updated console.

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Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! provides examples of:

• 100% Completion: The 103% Completion ending. K. Rool had cast a magic spell to trap the Mother Banana Bird, who lives in the clouds. The only way to visit her is to get all of the DK coins, which makes Funky pay out on his bet and gives the Kongs his Gyrocopter. This lets you travel to the clouds, where the Mother Banana Bird tasks you with finding all of the Banana Birds, at which point the Banana Birds magically free her and she drops a giant egg on K. Rool as he tries to escape on your Hovercraft.
• Action Bomb: Klasps are Kremlings that hide in TNT Barrels, and behave similarly to Kabooms from the previous DKC game; however, some move in a specific pattern while others are static until Dixie and/or Kiddy approach them.
• Advancing Boss of Doom: Belcha, the first world's boss, is a giant living barrel which cannot harm the Kongs by touching them directly; instead, he jumps forward and bumps into Dixie and Kiddy until pushing off the platform and into a pit.
• Advancing Wall of Doom: The giant bandsaw in "Ripsaw Rage" cuts upwards through the giant trees that make up the level. The Kongs must elude it by climbing upwards, as landing on it will automatically lose the Kong in lead.
• Airborne Mook: Knik-Knaks are beetle-like enemies, of which only the red ones are seen flying (yellow ones remain in the ground), and remain static in one spot.
• Alliterative Name: Many levels, such as Lakeside Limbo, Riverside Race, Springin' Spiders and Fish Food Frenzy, only to name a few.
• Ambient: The first minute of the "Jungle Jitter" theme for GBA is just ambient jungle noises, unless you come back from a bonus round.
• Aquatic Mook: Bounty Basses (plump-cheeked fish), Kocos (clown-faced fish), Lurchins (yellow-spiked green urchins) and Nibblas (wrinkly carnivorous fish). Bounty Basses carry an item within them, be it a banana, a bear coin or even a KONG letter, and Enguarde can defeat them to claim whatever object they had; Kocos colored green either remain stationary or swim forward, while red ones swim back and forth; Lurchins either remain static or move up and down in a set path, and extend and retract their sides (exposing the pink flesh that serves as their weak point); and Nibblas act similarly to Snapjaws from Donkey Kong Country 2, in that they cannot be defeated and swim quickly to chase the Kongs and hurt them.
• Art Evolution: This game has a much broader, cartoonier art style than its predecessors. Retro Studios took this style up to eleven in Donkey Kong Country Returns.
• Ascended Extra: Dixie Kong, the sidekick to the ascended sidekick in the previous game, is thrust into the starring role for this game.
• Auto-Scrolling Level: "Ripsaw Rage" and "Kong-Fused Cliffs" have, respectively, a giant saw and the rope you're climbing burning as Advancing Walls of Doom.
• Babysitting Episode: The game's plot not only focuses on Dixie trying to look for Donkey and Diddy in the Northern Kremisphere, but she is stuck babysitting her cousin Kiddy while doing it.
• Background Boss: Squirt's Showdown, Bleak's House, and the Knautilus. Squirt rests behind a waterfall, Bleak flings snowballs at you from atop a hill, and in the Knautilus, K. Rool alternates between hovering back and forth in the background and coming up front.
• Badass in Distress: Donkey Kong like in the second game, but also Diddy Kong. Now it's up to Dixie and Kiddy to rescue them and defeat K. Rool once again.
• Balance Buff: As stated over here and here: in comparison to the previous game, Dixie now walks as fast as Diddy (although her running speed is unchanged). Kiddy, on the other hand, walks and runs as fast as Dixie in the previous game.
• Balloon-Bursting Bird: Parry the Parallel bird serves this function, flying a little bit over head the Kongs.
• Bamboo Technology: All of Funky's inventions. For example, the Gyrocopter somehow flies despite being made of entirely wood and barrels, plus one propeller.
• Battle Theme Music: While the original SNES game keeps the tradition from its predecessors in giving a standard battle theme to main bosses and a special one to K. Rool, the GBA version has a really strange variation: Arich and Kroctopus (two random bosses) got a different theme, yet all the others, including K. Rool, didn't. No reason was given for it.
• Beary Friendly: The Brothers Bear are a group of bear brothers who help out and assist Dixie and Kiddy on their journey. They are kind and friendly and give out tips and sell items to the Kongs. (Except for Brash.)
• Beary Funny: The Brothers Bear are completely friendly and assist Dixie and Kiddy in their quest. They can somehow speak English, and each one has a specific theming.
• Bee Afraid: The game replaces Zingers with Buzzes and features a level in which the player must outrun a swarm of miniature bees. Completing it within one minute and fifteen seconds unlocks a bonus area.
• Big Storm Episode: Lightning Look-out, which combines this with The Lost Woods. Dixie and Kiddy have to dodge the lightning as it strikes, and it's also a bad idea to swim underwater in this level, as you'll be shocked regardless if the actual lightning bolt hits you while underwater.
• Blackout Basement:
  • The stage Floodlit Fish. It's a dark coral reef stage, and all illumination comes from bio-luminescent fish, which Enguarde can poke to light the whole screen for a limited time.
  • In Murky Mill, you are forced to transform into Ellie, an elephant calf that is afraid of rat-like Sneeks. The mill is, as implied by the name, somewhat lacking in lighting, but there are a few lamps here and there, and if Ellie gets close enough to a Sneek lit by one such lamp (in the dark she doesn't react to them), she'll freak out, drop everything she's doing^note even if that something is jumping on the Sneek when it's dark – being spooked removes Ellie's Goomba Stomp ability until she regains control, to the point where she will take damage when landing on an enemy and run back. Most of the level revolves around puzzles of taking out Sneeks under lamps, often involving a precise barrel throw.
• Bleak Level: Mekanos as a whole is a massive case of Mood Whiplash in a game that appreciates the beauty of nature in its first three worlds, only to suddenly throw Dixie and Kiddy into a bunch of dark factories, toxic pipelines and a pursuit from a giant ripsaw rampaging through a whole forest.
• Bombardier Mook: Karbines are owls armed with cannons. They appear only in the level Fireball Frenzy, where they hover in the background and periodically launch fireballs. They cannot be defeated and are found in large numbers, forcing the Kongs to constantly keep moving to avoid them.
• Bonus Stage Collectibles: Like in the previous game, you get bonus coins for completing the bonus stages, and these are required to get into the Lost World.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy:
  • Belcha could never be defeated if there weren't a hole on the right side of the platform.
  • Barbos could never be defeated if there wasn't an Enguarde Barrel at the entrance to her lair.
  • If Baron K. Roolstein hadn't installed levers in the ceiling that drop barrels, the Kongs would have no way to hurt him. In addition, the Kong's attacks will often force him into the lightning traps in his boss area, shocking him.
• Boundareefs: The game features these in a few early places. The game has you traverse the overworld map in a variety of seafaring vessels, and the beginning motorboat can't cross the reefs. After obtaining a Plot Coupon in the form of a giant bandaid, you gain the hovercraft and you can skip these. But the hovercraft is of course stopped by yet another barrier it can't cross, etc. etc.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: During the reveal that Donkey Kong and Diddy were Living Batteries for KAOS, DK mentions that he had the strangest dream that he was a "crazed madman".
• Brutal Bonus Level: Krematoa. Kremkoins (obtained by completing bonus minigames in levels) are necessary to unlock its levels, and these provide a formidable challenge.
• The Bus Came Back: Steel kegs return for this game after being absent from Diddy's Kong Quest, making them one of the few gameplay elements to appear in the first game and this one but not Diddy's Kong Quest.
• Cash Gate: You need to pay Boomer with Bonus Coins in order to access the levels in Krematoa. As with the previous game, these levels are not required to beat the main story.
• Cave Behind the Falls: One of the overworld waterfalls turn into one if you enter the "WATER" cheat. It holds a "repeat the sequence" mini-game that's normally reserved for Banana Birds, and if you complete it, you get all 85 Bonus Coins immediately.
• Checkpoint Starvation: If you input the "TUFST" cheat, you can eliminate checkpoints entirely, forcing you to beat every stage in one go.
• Christmas Episode: There's a unique code that made all the bonus levels Christmas-themed. After finding the Cheat menu, type in MERRY and suddenly the bonus levels will have Christmas music replacing the normal music, Christmas ornaments instead of stars, and presents instead of green bananas.
• Claiming Via Flag: The Level Flag appears in every non-boss stage which the Kongs must reach and jump at to raise a flag to complete the level. In the overworld map, completed levels are indicated with a colored flag matching the Kong who completed it while uncompleted levels have a Krem Flag.
• Company Cameo: The backs of the cards in Donkey Kong Land 3's memory match minigame have Rareware's R on them.
• Company Cross References: Bazaar will tell you about a kid named Link who tried to buy something from his store. The kid didn't have any bear coins, but Bazaar liked him and let him pay in "Rupees" instead. He then left, muttering that his seashells weren't the right shape.
• Computer Equals Tapedrive: Kaos, a major antagonist in the game, is a robot with a tape drive prominently featured in his design.
• Console Cameo: Wrinkly can sometimes be seen playing the Nintendo 64 in her Save Cave in the original. If she does, Peach's castle's theme from Super Mario 64 can be heard.
• Crazy-Prepared: K. Rool certainly pulls-out all the stops this time around. He uses KAOS as a Heavy to hide behind; abducts Donkey and Diddy as a precaution, as well as to get Living Batteries for KAOS; seals away the Banana Bird Queen to prevent her interference; and scatters her fellow Banana Birds, the only ones who can free her, all over the place via hidden caves with complex security sequences.
• Creative Closing Credits: There are credits in the form of "Dixie Kong's Photo Album", showing each character in its natural habitat and then snapping a photo of it. Enemies, the Kongs, and the Animal Buddies all get their own skits. The Brothers Bear and bosses simply have a picture instead. It's a rather long sequence, at almost nine minutes.
• Credits Medley: In the GBA remake, the credits music is a mix of other songs in the new soundtrack.
• Crosshair Aware: Krosshair, an unseen enemy that shoots fireballs at you in Krack-Shot Kroc, shows its aim with a fast crosshair. Luckily, the crosshairs stay still for a second right before each shot is fired.
• Cutting the Knot: Fish Food Frenzy's gimmick of feeding Nibbla with the correct food on pain of being attacked by him can be skipped simply by swimming at full speed and never stopping at any point, since he'll be too busy eating enemies to catch up.
• Cycle of Hurting: What makes Koindozer a hassle is that if he runs into you, or you don't land perfectly on top of him, he'll lock you into a cycle of getting bounced off his shield repeatedly until you fall into a Bottomless Pit.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Rocket Rush. In the original SNES version of the game, the Left and Right buttons control the thrusters of the rocket rather than its actual horizontal movement, so pressing left will actually make you move right and vice versa. It takes some getting used to...and then you go from the SNES version to the GBA version, where the directions do correspond directly to movement (so pressing left moves the rocket left), and you have to get used to the controls all over again.
• Deadly Walls: There's a variation the very last non-boss level, "Rocket Rush". The player must control a rocket all the way down a canyon and then back up on another direction while avoiding running out of fuel. In the second half, there are no fuel pickups whatsoever, and the tolerance is so tight in certain versions that, even if it doesn't damage you directly, hitting a ceiling even once wastes enough fuel that you're guaranteed to run out, fall back down and die instantly.
• Death Mountain: Razor Ridge is a steep mountain, full of cavernous and mountain-climbing levels. Features include horizontal tightropes surrounded by Buzzes, vertical tightropes that are burning from below and must be climbed by going upward constantly before the fire catches them, and Kuchukas that toss several bombs at the same time. Dixie and Kiddy need to use cable cars to climb up the overworld.
• Denser and Wackier: This game has much more wacky moments in comparison to the first two titles, thanks to the funny enemy design and Kiddy Kong himself.
• Developer's Foresight: It's not normally possible to obtain all 85 Bonus Coins before giving at least some to Boomer, as some are found in the levels he unlocks with said Bonus Coins. If you use the cheat code "WATER" to get all of them at once before visiting him, he'll be surprised, saying he doesn't know how you got all of them and doesn't want to know, either.
• Difficulty Levels: Accessible by entering cheat codes before starting a new game. "HARDR" removes about a fifth of the DK barrels throughout the game and allows obtaining 104% completion (as opposed to 103% in a normal game). "TUFST" reduces the number of DK barrels available to four and removes all Star Barrels too, with the highest possible percentage in this game being 105%.
• A Dog Named "Dog": One of the Brothers Bear is named Björn, which is Swedish for "bear".
• Door-Closes Ending: The Game Over sequence has this. Dixie and Kiddy are in a baby's crib, and the music ends with it going to black as a door slam is heard.
• Down the Drain: The pipe levels provide quite a bit of variation. "Dingy Drainpipe" is your standard "swim through the sewers" level, but "Demolition Drainpipe" and "Surf's Up" remove the water and combine the sewer levels with Minecart Madness, having you speed through the pipeline in a metal toboggan. "Low-G Labyrinth", another water-free level, adds Gravity Screw to a drainpipe level, while the ironically misleading "Poisonous Pipeline" adds the water element back which reverses your left-right controls instead of harming you.
• Dr. Fakenstein: K. Rool, now acting as a scientist, goes by the alias Baron K. Roolenstein.
• Drop the Cow: In the 100% ending, the Queen Banana Bird catches K. Rool by dropping a enormous egg on top of him.
• Easter Egg: On SNES, every vehicle has a horn that you can honk with X. But did you know that they each have a special horn that you can honk by holding X and pressing both triggers together? The motor boat has "La cucaracha," the hovercraft has the Gangplank Galleon theme (also heard when you reveal Krematoa), and the turbo ski has the Hawaii Five-O theme! Sadly, the Gyrocopter does not get a horn.
• Easy-Mode Mockery: If you use cheat codes LIVES^note Start with 50 lives or ASAVE^note The game saves after each level, you are labeled as a Cheatin' Chump upon beating the game.
• Elephants Are Scared of Mice: Ellie the elephant will rapidly run away from any Sneeks (large rats) that she sees. Murky Mill requires the player to either dispatch the Sneeks from a distance or in the dark (apparently, she doesn't mind if she can only barely see them), and Stampede Sprint features her running madly away from a trio of Sneeks, with the player only able to control her jumping until she settles down.
• Elite Mooks: Krumple, this iteration's "strong" Kremling. Dixie is completely powerless against him; Kiddy can trounce him with a Goomba Stomp.
• Enemy Posturing: Bleak the snowman will sometimes stop launching snowballs from his hat cannon to laugh at you, providing a brief window to throw a snowball at the flashing weakspot on his chest.
• Escort Mission: The game introduces Parry the Parallel Bird, a bird which hovers parallel above you, picking up any items he touches. If he hits an enemy, he will die. You can clear the stage without him in all cases, but keeping him alive to the end of a couple levels is required for 100% Completion.
• Eternal Engine: Mekanos, the third or fourth world (its order is interchangeable with Cotton Top Cove), is an industrialized island in the middle of a lake. Features present in its levels include pools of molten metal, owl-like enemies (Karbines) that shoot fireballs from the background, bazooka-armed Kremlings (Bazukas) that shoot barrels from their positions, and pipelines that have to be either traversed with speedy rail cars or explored on foot with the presence of a gravity-lowering mist.
• Evil Laugh: Bleak, the snowman boss. Oddly, he laughs even when you hit him, probably meant as sarcastically congratulating you on your hit. In fact, once hit often enough, he laughs so hard he explodes.
• Extendo Boxing Glove: Kaos is fitted with two of these, and will attempt to punch the Kongs with them if they try to climb his body during his Boss Fight.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Northern Kremisphere hub world is mostly based on Canada, but it also has some Eastern Norway vibes to it.
• Fastball Special: Like in the second game, you can use one character to grab the other and throw them to reach high ledges.
• Feathered Fiend: The bird enemies in this game are Booty Bird (a fat Piñata Enemy that typically flies in place and can't attack), Swoopy (a woodpecker that charges at the Kongs, usually getting pinned to a wall afterward) and Karbine (an owl holding a cannon that shoots balls of molten metal).
• Feed It a Bomb: The first boss is Belcha, a giant barrel. He is defeated by throwing the beetles he spawns into his open "mouth", causing him to crunch them up and then belch so hard he is blown backwards and ultimately falls into a pit on the right-hand side of the screen.
• Freaky Electronic Music: The game uses a new song named "Nuts and Bolts" for its factory levels and is way scarier as it completely drops the ambient tones of the first game.
• Friendly Neighborhood Spider: Squitter makes a return from the previous game, retaining his web-controlling abilities to help the Kongs once again.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Funky Kong is portrayed like this. He'll use discarded items the Kongs pick up to create vehicles for them to travel around in, from a simple motorboat to a helicopter.
• Gainax Ending: The 103% Completion ending. So K. Rool, who in that game had been presented as a mad scientist, had actually cast a magic spell to trap the Mother Banana Bird, who lives in the clouds. The only way to visit her is to get all of the DK coins, which makes Funky pay out on his bet and gives the Kongs his Helicopter that you use to find the last of the Banana Birds trapped in the "Simon Caves", at which point the Banana Birds magically free her and she drops a giant egg on K. Rool as he tries to escape on your Hovercraft. This ending goes to show that it's possible to have a Gainax Ending in a game that's already pretty weird, so long as you include the necessary Gainax elements of introducing a bunch of weird new elements that hadn't been mentioned that really don't fit in with the game's already established weirdness.
• Gasshole: Belcha, the boss of Lake Orangatanga, and a gigantic living barrel. He spits out beetles and belches loudly when hit.
• Get on the Boat: You have to change vehicles four or five times over the course of the game. The overworld setting is a somewhat-vast lake. Your first vehicle is a boat. Then you switch to a hovercraft that can bypass rocks protruding from the water. After that is the Turbo Ski, which, in addition to the hovercraft's ability, can jump up waterfalls, somehow. After you collect all of the DK coins, you get a fancy helicopter that allows you to travel over any and every obstacle, including the land itself, and is required for 100% Completion.
• Giant Spider: Arich the Arachnid. Being the second boss (third in Donkey Kong Land 3), he shoots green orbs and hops around the boss arena. There's also a friendly giant spider named Squitter, who appears in both that game and its predecessor. He lets the Kongs ride on his back and can create web projectiles that can either form platforms or attack enemies.
• Gimmick Level: By the time this game came out, the traditional levels began being in the minority. Some of DKC3's more memorable examples include a mostly swimming level where your left/right controls are reversed while in the water, a level with significantly decreased gravity, a level where through the entire thing an offscreen enemy is shooting at you, a difficult level where lightning is constantly trying to strike you, and a level where a hungry fish is constantly following you and have to feed normal fish enemies to him to keep him from attacking. Even the "normal" platform levels in DKC3 usually feature some sort of one-off gimmicky enemy seen nowhere else in the game.
• Global Airship: The game starts you off with a boat, then a hovercraft that can travel across rocks, then jet ski which may travel up rapids. The ultimate craft, however, is a helicopter which lets you travel anywhere in the entire map. While unlocking it requires enough coins that it can be considered strictly a Bragging Rights Reward, it is the only way to reach the secret ending.
• Global Currency: Like in the previous game, there are coins for general payment and the special coins earned in bonus minigames to unlock the special world's levels (though the latter ones are Bear Coins, replacing the Kremcoins from the second game).
• Goomba Stomp: Squitter can defeat enemies by jumping on them, unlike the previous game. Dixie, Kiddy, and Ellie can do this to enemies, too.
• Gravity Screw: The game has the level "Low-G Labyrinth". It's a Down the Drain level with the gimmick of a decreased gravitational pull due to the strange gasses the Kremlings supposedly ran through the pipeline.
• Grimy Water: The game puts a twist on the formula with toxic water with no effect other than the player's directional pad is reversed, so you must press left to swim right.
• Guide Dang It!: Unlike the previous game, where all you needed to do was access and beat the secret world and beat K. Rool there in order to get the best ending, in this game, you need to get to the secret world, beat K. Rool, and get a 100% completion rating. ^note This means all 41 DK Coins, which itself requires finding all Golden Bonus Coins, because Boomer Bear accepts no other payment to open the way to the remaining levels in Krematoa. It also requires all Banana Birds, which is itself quite a headache due to the many different ways they can be obtained, though most are simply from the Simon Caves. The game doesn't tell you this unless you actively look for secret conversations, and if you beat K. Rool without getting absolutely everything in the game, you'll just get kicked back to the map screen when you beat him in the secret world, without any hint of what you did wrong.
• Gusty Glade: The game has a couple of levels with ocean current. In some sections, the player has to try to swim against the current, and in others, the player has to swim with the current and avoid being pushed into enemies.
• Harder Than Hard: Available via the "TUFST" secret cheat code. It removes all checkpoint barrels and almost all DK barrels from the game (whereas "HARDR" only removes about 20% of the DK barrels), but allows you to attain up to 105% completion, the title of Immortal Monkey, and a Cranky Kong trophy on your stats screen.
• The Heavy: KAOS is initially portrayed as the new Big Bad and fights the Kongs a few times at its factories, but he's really just a Kong-powered decoy for Baron K. Roolenstein, who only shows himself once KAOS is scrapped.
• Helpful Mook:
  • Koins are Kremlings who appear once in every level and guard that level's DK Coin (a collectible needed to 100% the game) by concealing it within their shield. A Koin cannot harm the Kongs directly, as they remain stationary and will only knock the Kongs back two feet should they bump into one. A Koin's shield makes him immune to frontal attacks, and he always faces the Kongs, who must find a way to hit him from behind. In most cases, this involves tossing a keg over Koin's head and letting it ricochet off a nearby wall, so that it comes back and crashes into Koin's backside, defeating him and causing him to drop his DK Coin. In a sense, Koins function more as a puzzle than an actual enemy.^note Koins do not appear in Donkey Kong Land III's water levels; the DK Coins for those levels are unguarded. This is averted with the Koindozers, the cousins of the Koins, which appear only in the level "Koindozer Klamber". While they also cannot damage the Kongs directly, Koindozers will chase after the Kongs and attempt to knock them into pits with their shields.
  • Nibbla is a fish with a voracious appetite who appears in a few levels, and will attempt to eat the Kongs should they get too close to the surface of the water. However, in "Fish Food Frenzy", which is situated underwater, he will instead go after other aquatic enemies. However, he will target the Kongs if he gets angry, either by going too long without eating another enemy, or by eating a Lurchin.
• Henpecked Husband: Implied: after the Kongs defeat KAOS, Baron K. Roolenstein yells at them for doing so, saying that his wife will kill him because he used "all her best pots and pans" to make it.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Baron K. Roolenstein turns out to be the one behind KAOS and kidnapping both Donkey and Diddy Kong.
• Hitbox Dissonance: In the GBA version, the collision of the stars in Swanky's Dash are significantly wider than they seem. If you want to have any hope of getting all the stars in a given tube, you're going to have to abuse this as hard as you can, effectively going beside them to get them, or else you'll never be able to reach them all.
• Holiday Mode: The "MERRY" cheat, exclusive to the SNES original. Inputting this cheat makes all of the bonuses have Christmas themes, with green bananas replaced by little presents, stars replaced by ornaments, and the regular bonus music replaced by a composition called "Jangle Bells" that sounds like an Expy of Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree".
• Homing Projectile: Barbos's shellfish flunkies home in on Enguarde, and and must be manipulated to knock out his barriers.
• Human Cannonball: Returns from the previous game, but only Kiddy can pick up the barrels.
• Hyperactive Sprite: In the SNES version, the inactive Kong always does this. Unfortunately, this also causes a glitch where pressing Select will do nothing unless you are moving.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Not quite a full blown level, but anything named after KAOS. KAOS Kore and Kastle KAOS are bad, but KAOS Karnage takes the cake for 'scary level name'.
• Improvised Platform: One level requires the Kongs to throw barrels in the water as platforms, since the water is occupied by a Nibbla.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The gyrocopter. It's a cool ride that allows you to explore anywhere on the map; unfortunately, by the time you acquire it, the only things left to find are a couple of "Simon Caves" and the game's Golden Ending.
• Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: The first level in KAOS Core, "Konveyor Rope Klash", has Dixie and Diddy traverse a forest with several ropes that flow towards a specific direction, transporting the Kongs forward (though a few of them flow backwards). The high number of enemies along these ropes, especially Buzzes, makes navigation difficult, especially due to the speed of the ropes' flow. Reflexes are vital to dodge any enemy or hazard whenever required.
• Interface Screw: Poisonous Pipeline, the final stage before you get to Kastle KAOS, is filled with not-actually-poisonous-but-moreso-annoying water that merely reverses your controls while swimming in it instead of harming you.
• Invincible Minor Minion: In the "Fish Food Frenzy" underwater stage, a snook-like Nibbla follows you around, and it has a gimmick. It starts out blue, then as it gets hungrier, it will turn purple, pink, then red (which it then attacks you). It would stay full as long as you manipulated it to eat the clownfish in the level, and not the urchins. If it ate an urchin, it would suddenly get a level hungrier. Not that making it eat urchins is a completely bad idea, one blocks the route to a bonus stage.
• It's a Wonderful Failure: Upon the loss of all lives, a door creaks open to show Dixie and Kiddy locked away in a baby crib in a dark room made even worse with its Ominous Music Box Tune, with the words: GAME OVER in colorful, jumping letter blocks. Kiddy grasps the edge of the crib, as if pleading for whoever opened the door to let them out, while Dixie sits grumpily in the back corner. At the tune's end, the door closes.
• Jungle Japes: There are three levels with a jungle setting in this game, the first two being located in KAOS Kore (itself an industrialized jungle), and the last one being in Krematoa (a Bonus Dungeon). These levels are: Konveyor Rope Klash (which, true to its name, features ropes that flow forward or backwards, thus acting as hangable conveyor belts), Koindozer Klamber (which features armored Kremlings that will aggressively push the Kongs into pits), and Stampede Sprint (where Ellie, who is afraid of mice, freaks out after seeing three of them together and rushes rapidly through the level, requiring good reflexes to dodge all hazards and enemies along the way).
• King Mook: Barbos, the boss of Razor Ridge. She's a giant version of the smaller Lurchin (urchin) enemies, and is likewise defeated by exposing and attacking her soft body.
• Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Kuff 'n' Klout are immune to all melee attacks (even attempting one will just hurt the player) and can only be taken down with TNT Barrels or Squitter's web.
• The Leader: Dixie Kong, whose name is in the subtitle this time, has to take on the role of stopping KAOS after Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong go missing.
• Lead the Target: One of the stages has frequent lightning strikes aimed in this way. When you see the lightning flash, slow down or Take Cover!!
• Ledge Bats: The pink Koindozers are mooks who all carry large shields with which to ram you off cliffs. The good news is, they only appear in one level in the game. The bad news is, they're all over That One Level. You can't kill them, just avoid them (and it gets pretty difficult to time your jumps properly so that you land safely on top of their shield rather than right in front of it at perfect bulldozering range), suggest that the good people at Rare do something physically and anatomically impossible with their mothers, and never play the level again. According to one walkthrough:
  Dixie's helicopter spin is invaluable in this level. If you lose her, you might as well save yourself the trouble and simply commit suicide.
• Level Goal: Each main level ends with a hoistable flag that can be pulled upward from a rope attached to it.
• Lighter and Softer: After Diddy's Kong Quest took place in the grimy, unkempt Crocodile Isle with the Kremling Krew at their strongest, Dixie Kong's Double Trouble returns to lush countrysides and has a goofier, calmer feeling to it. Most of the darker moods are reserved for the factory, jungle, and pipeline levels in Mekanos and KAOS Kore.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: At Lightning Look-Out, if any of the kongs are submerged during the storm, they'll be shocked regardless if the actual lightning bolt strikes while underwater.
• Live Item: The collectible required to reach the Golden Ending is Banana Birds, found by freeing them from the secret caves and as gifts from the Brothers Bear. Once collected, they stay in Wrinkly's Save Cave until you have enough to free the Queen Banana Bird.
• Living Battery: K. Rool uses Donkey Kong and Diddy as such, forcing them to fuel the robotic KAOS.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: The GBA version has noticeable load times. Every time you enter a level, you have to wait for it to load. While the load times aren't terrible (about 5 seconds at most), it's notable because this is a cartridge. And the SNES version didn't suffer from this problem, and that came out 9 years earlier.
• Logo Joke: When the game boots, Dixie and Kiddy Kong bounce into frame riding on the Rareware logo.
• Long Song, Short Scene: The music for the riverside levels in the GBA version ("Enchanted Riverbank") is played in all three levels that have that theme, but there are actually two different versions of it depending on whether you are underwater or not, with a percussive rhythm and environmental noises for when the Kongs are on land and a more intricate and flowing melody for when they are underwater. You won't be spending much time in the water in any of the three levels in question, so this "fuller" version of the track will most likely be heard for only a few seconds at a time at most.
• The Lost Woods: Kremwood Forest, the second world, is a woodland region, containing forested levels and a few Tree Trunk Tour stages. One of the levels is notable for featuring a clear record by Brash, who gets upset if the Kongs beat it (it's easier said than done, due to the presence of bee swarms); another level has Ellie use her trunk to put barrels into water moats to cross them and avoid the predatory Nibblas who swim in them. The boss is Arich, a malicious Giant Spider who hangs around tall trees and can only be hit in the face.
• Lost World: Like the previous game, this one has a lost world hidden in an island that is underwater and rises when you reveal it. However, the environment is nothing more than a mountainside with barren forests and a lake.
• Maniac Monkeys: The game has Minky Kong, who throws nuts at you when you climb up ropes.
• Mechanical Insects: Buzzes are robotic bees created by Baron K. Roolenstein that replace the organic Zingers from the previous two games. They come in two colors; green and red. The green Buzzes can be defeated by regular barrels and certain animal buddies, but the red Buzzes can only be defeated by TNT barrels or the invincibility barrel.
• Misguided Missile: One of the steps to beating Barbos is redirecting seashell-shaped missiles to hit the Lurchins protecting her body.
• Mook Maker: The game features several levels where parts of the stage will spawn an infinite number of enemies.
• Mook-Themed Level: The game has too many to count, as most of the stages are Gimmick Levels. Some examples include:
  • In Murky Mill, you play as Ellie the elephant, who is afraid of the Sneeks crawling around the mill, so they have to be defeated from a distance so that Ellie doesn't panic and run away from them.
  • Barrel Shield Bust-Up, from the second world, sees the Kongs climbing ropes inside hollowed out trees while Minkies throw acorns at them. Fortunately, as the level's title implies, there are floating half-barrel shields that the Kongs can use as cover.
  • In Squeals on Wheels, the Kongs have to hunt down Sneeks that are in hamster wheels. Defeating all of them is necessary to open the door to the exit.
  • Bazza's Blockade is an underwater level where the eponymous predatory fish can be seen at many points swimming across the path that the Kongs need to take.
  • In Kreeping Klasps, the Kongs have to climb along ropes to cross a pier while Klasps, enemies hiding in TNT barrels, patrol the ropes.
  • Throughout Fire-Ball Frenzy, the Kongs have to contend with Karbines shooting fireballs at them from the background.
  • Blazing Bazukas is a factory area where a regiment of Bazukas can be found shooting barrels of various types at the Kongs. There are switches in the level that will change the ammo type they use between normal barrels, steel kegs, and TNT barrels, all of which are used by various obstacles in the level.
  • Lemguin Lunge is a snow area where penguins called Lemguins are sliding around and trying to attack the Kongs with their pointy beaks.
  • Koindozer Klamber is a jungle area where Koindozers abound. Unlike Koin, their passive green counterparts that are found in every level, Koindozers will aggressively try to shove the Kongs into a pit.
• Musical Nod: "Rockface Rumble" contains a melodic callback to "Mining Melancholy" from Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest.
• Named After Somebody Famous: The twin bears of Razor Ridge are named Benny and Bjorn, after ABBA songwriters Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus.
• Nerf: In previous games, the wooden barrel only breaks after hitting a wall. In this game, however, it breaks after hitting an enemy.
• Never Trust a Trailer: This commercial for the game clearly states that it stars Kiddy Kong while making him look like Dixie's Badass Biker boyfriend. In the real game, Dixie's the star and Kiddy is a baby that she's sitting for.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Villainous example. The Banana Bird Queen offhandedly mentions K. Rool using a magic spell to lock her up behind an "evil barrier". This despite K. Rool's in-game persona revolving entirely around science and machinery, with no hint whatsoever of sorcery in any of his boss fights.
• Nightmare Face: All the boss levels, save for Squirt's Showdown in Cotton-Top Cove and the two final boss fights (Kastle KAOS in KAOS Kore and Knautilus in Krematoa), are marked on the world map by a spooky face made up by part of the landscape.
• Nintendo Hard: It wouldn't be Donkey Kong Country if it didn't make you want to pull your hair out. And there are cheat codes to make the game even harder.
• No Cutscene Inventory Inertia: In the GBA remake, if you defeat the final boss with just Kiddy Kong, Dixie will speak whether she's present or not. She will also get all the praise.
• No Fair Cheating:
  • In Riverside Race, if you use the Warp Barrel to skip to the end, the stopwatch will max out, preventing you from beating Brash's record time (or your personal record if you've beaten his time).
  • Starting a file with the "LIVES" (50 lives) and/or "ASAVE" (save after every level) cheats will only allow you to earn the "Cheatin' Chump" rank.
  • Inverted with the HARDR and TUFST cheats, which make the game harder, but allow you to get completion percentages and ranks that can't be earned on a normal file.
• No Hero Discount: Zigzagged in Donkey Kong Land III with the various bear cabins. They'll let you play a matching game to win prizes for free simply for finding Bonus Coins, but it's only free the first time. Win or lose, each subsequent play they charge 5 Bear Coins, pointing out that they are running a business:
  Bear: Five coins to play again! Hey, I gotta make a living too!
• Noob Bridge:
  • People commonly have trouble figuring out how to beat Squirt when playing for the first time. It turns out that as Ellie the elephant, you can suck water by pressing L (or Down+R in the GBA version) while standing next to a waterfall. Next, you can squirt the water back at Squirt's eyes by pressing R. Once you figure that out, the boss becomes easy.
  • There's also the probability that the player doesn't know that Kiddy can skip on water surfaces briefly by rolling from a ledge, which is the only way to reach some of the bonus rounds in some of the river stages. It's in the manual but nowadays many people wouldn't own one. In terms of just completing the levels, however, this technique isn't vital.
• No OSHA Compliance: The industrial levels in Mekanos have open vats of what seems like liquid metal, and in a later world there's an industrial level having a freaking off-screen sniper aiming at anyone trying to enter.
• Not-So-Forgotten Birthday: Blue Bear of the Brothers Bear is blue not only literally, but figuratively, because he thinks the rest of the brothers forgot his birthday. Blizzard Bear did actually remember and already bought a present for Blue, but he's been preparing to summit the snowy mountain of K3 and couldn't get to Blue's house in time, so he asks the Kongs to deliver the present for him. Blue finds the bowling ball inside the present too heavy for himself and gives it to the Kongs, but he's happy that he received a present anyway and cheers up on subsequent visits.
• One-Hit Kill: In the level "Rocket Rush" if you impact the ground too quickly due to lack of fuel or simply neglecting to slow down your ship, then you instantly die even if you have both your Kong characters active. It's also the only instance in the DKC trilogy where you can see both Kongs' "death" animations at the same time.
• One-Person Birthday Party: Blue hosts one of these for himself. He's depressed that nobody remembered his birthday until the Kongs relay a gift to him from Blizzard (who did remember, but couldn't attend due to being stuck on K3).
• One-Steve Limit: There's Bazooka, one of the Brothers Bear, as well as Bazuka, a species of Kremling that carries, well... a bazooka.
• Over 100% Completion: The game tops out at 105% (which is only possible by using the "TUFST" cheat code that removes all checkpoints and almost all DK Barrels). The one Donkey Kong Land game that does this, 3, goes to 103%^note The main game tops out at 97%; the twelve post-game time-attack stages from the clocks given to you by K. Rool in addition to the ones from Baffle's minigames are .5% each.
• Palette Swap:
  • In the SNES version, there is a hidden code to give Kiddy and Dixie Kong different colored clothing (purple for Dixie and light green for Kiddy). It doesn't affect the game, but the alternate colors look cooler than the regular colors.
  • Koindozers are similar to Klobbers from the second game, but are a palette swap of Koin (a Kremling that uses a DK Coin as a shield).
• Patchwork Map: There are some weird quirks in the geography of the Northern Kremsphere:
  • Lake Orangatanga, which has sunny lake beaches and a ski resort not very far from them.
  • Razor Ridge somehow features a deep water coral reef somewhere in its mountains and cliffs.
  • Kastle Kaos is surrounded by a jungle in a game where the settings should be entirely based on northern geography (with said world being at the northernmost point in the map even, ironically enough).
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Dixie and Kiddy respectively wear a pink shirt and hat and blue pajamas.
• Piranha Problem: There's a piranha-like fish called Nibbla appears in two levels; "Bobbing Barrel Brawl" and "Kreeping Klasps". In these levels, he patrols the waters and serves much of the same function as Snapjaw from the previous game.
• Pivotal Boss: Squirt is a rare 2D example, as he sits in the middle of the screen and spins vertically as he shoots water to try to knock you (as Ellie) off the screen.
• Polar Penguins: Lemguin Lunge is a snow area where penguins called Lemguins are sliding around and trying to attack the Kongs with their pointy beaks.
• Port Town: Lake Orangatanga, the first world, is a temperate biome next to a pine forest and surrounded by wooden piers and rural mills, in which the levels take place (though one is located within the snowy border leading to the mountains, thus being Slippy-Slidey Ice World). The boss is Belcha, a large living barrel that has to be defeated in Ring-Out Boss form.
• Power Pincers: Kroctopus from the GBA version has pincers upon Combat Tentacles at its tips.
• Power Up Mount: Enguarde, Squawks, and Squitter return from the last game, and retain their abilities to provide better mobility for the Kongs. There's also newcomer Ellie the Elephant, who can shoot water as a projectile and reach barrels from a distance.
• Pushy Mooks: Koindozers will use their shields to push you into hazards.
• Puzzle Boss: A tactic involving Deadly Dodging will defeat Barbos — protected by two invincible spiny shields, the player must trick homing torpedos into hitting the shields.
• Recursive Canon: Wrinkly Kong has a Nintendo 64 in her house and sometimes she is playing Super Mario 64, Peach's Castle theme can be heard.
• Reforged into a Minion: The robotic KAOS has Donkey and Diddy Kong inside of it as Living Batteries.
• Regional Bonus: Donkey Kong Land III for the Game Boy was released as Donkey Kong GB: Dinky Kong & Dixie Kong for the Game Boy Color in Japan, with color graphics and reduced lag. Unfortunately, animated world map tiles and the Bear shopkeeper became static sprites, and your most recent time was no longer displayed at the bottom of the screen during Time Trials (and the Game Boy version had Super Game Boy support, so you could get color anyway, albeit inferior color).
• Re-Release Soundtrack: The GBA remake doesn't use any of the music by Eveline Novakovic, containing an entirely new score by David Wise.
• Ring-Out Boss:
  • Belcha is defeated by knocking him into a hole; he belches himself backwards whenever he eats a Knik-Knak, but advances forward if you flub the throw, and there's a pit on your side of the arena as well.
  • Squirt is an inversion: he cannot damage Ellie, but instead tries to ring her out by spitting a stream of water.
• Rise to the Challenge:
  • There's Ripsaw Rage, which has a saw. Cutting vertically up two standing trees at once. At a certain altitude, it continues moving back and forth but stops ascending.
  • "Kong-Fused Cliffs", where the player must climb up ropes that have been lit on fire beneath them.
• Roaring Rapids: The Game Boy Advance remake added an extra world to the game, and one of the levels in that world is called Ripcurl Reef. It focuses entirely on underwater currents.
• Robo Speak: This is exactly how KAOS speaks in the game. "Bzzzzt... Click... Kongs enemy. You must be... DESTROYED!!!"
• Sea Hurtchin: The Lurchin enemies, sea urchins that can open up to reveal the creature's grotesque, angry face. They are harmful on contact and can only be defeated by Enguarde (only when their shells are open) or the Nibbla (which can eat them but will be pretty pissed off about it).
• Secret Level: Like in the second game, there's a "secret" world that allows access to a better ending, and certain items you collect are focused around gaining access to these levels.
• Shooting Gallery: Swanky Kong provides one in his tent that comes in three modes: Head To Head (use balls to hit more targets than Cranky does during a time limit), Road to 25 (score 25 points before Cranky does), and Endurance (the Kong who misses a shot first loses, and the other wins). Winning the minigame grants juicy rewards like banana bunches and coins, and also serves as practice for the boss fight against Bleak in K3 (as his fight plays under very similar rules).
• Shout-Out:
  • The K3 boss, Bleak, is a large snowman, decked out in the usual carrot nose and top hat, but also sporting a long scarf and shirt cuffs. Yes, the battle is only a snowball fight, but the wintry boss himself is quite an angry-looking fellow. Rare kept to the punny level-naming by calling this one "Bleak's House".
  • K. Rool states he would've gotten away with it, if it wasn't for those meddling kids.
  • The Chairlift operators in Razor Ridge are named Benny and Björn. Lampshaded by Benny when he tells you to "take a chance on me".
  • The Re-Koil enemy resembles a crocodilian version of Tigger, being orange and bouncing on his tail.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: K3 is a ski resort, full of snow that Kiddy and Dixie slip on while walking, though it also has relatively warm levels (like one where they have to climb a waterfall by hopping between barrels that are sliding down through it); in one level, they have to use a wooden vehicle to ski through a steep snowy descent. The game also has a snow level in the first world (Lake Orangatanga), which is more conventional gameplay-wise and features some wooden houses covered in snow.
• Snowball Fight: Dixie and Kiddy battle Bleak, an evil snowman, by throwing snowballs at him.
• Sore Loser: Whenever Cranky loses a ball game, he either throws a ball at Dixie/Kiddy or chases them out of the tent.
• Sorting Algorithm of Threatening Geography: Compared to the second game, this one dials down to a more conventional lineup, but still features an escalatingly dangerous geography, featuring Port Town, The Lost Woods, Under the Sea + Palmtree Panic, Eternal Engine, Slippy-Slidey Ice World, Death Mountain and, ironically enough, Jungle Japes (with an ominous Big Fancy Castle).
• Sound Test: There's a password that enables this feature, preventing the issue from the second game that required a vacant save file to get it.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Ripsaw Rage contains a giant saw slowly creeping up a treehouse level as calm music plays. The new happy-go-lucky music in the GBA version is even more dissonant.
• The Spiny: Bristles, a hedgehog mook that can also curl up into a ball and roll into you. They can only be defeated by rolling onto them because their spiky backs are immune to stomps.
• Spring Coil: The game has the Re-Koil enemy, an orange crocodile who bounces on his springy tail, not unlike Tigger.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: None of the original Kremlings or animal mooks from the first two games make a reappearance here. In their place is an entirely new army of baddies, a handful of whom share more than a few of their predecessors' characteristics. Some examples:
  • Kremlings
    • Kobble (Kritter / Klomp)
    • Re-Koil (Kaboing)
    • Bazuka (Kannon)
    • Krumple (Krusha / Kruncha)
    • Knocka and Koindozer (Klobber)
    • Klasp (Kaboom)
    • Krimp (Klaptrap / Klampon)
  • Animal baddies
    • Buzz (Zinger)
    • Bristles (Spiny)
    • Sneek (Neek)
    • Nibbla (Snapjaw)
  • The only exception is Kopter — he's Kutlass from Donkey Kong Country 2, wearing a helmet instead of a pirate hat and carrying helicopter blades instead of cutlasses (keeping the Industrial Revolution motif). This is hard to catch on to because his walking and attacking animations, which showed him using his blades like the swords from the previous game, went unused. In the finished game, he's only ever seen flying. It's much easier to see in the official art of the game, including his picture in the manual.
• Tactical Suicide Boss:
  • Belcha spits out barrels containing Knik-Knaks (beetle enemies) at the Kongs. Tossing Knik-Knaks into Belcha's mouth causes him to burp so heavily he pushes himself back towards the edge of the platform. If he didn't spit barrels, Belcha would inevitably push the Kongs off their side of the platform.
  • KAOS has blades spinning out from its body that do nothing except provide platforms to reach the weak point — its head.
  • If Barbos didn't send out minions or launch homing missiles at you, you'd have no way to damage her shield.
  • K. Rool gets even dumber than before, as his battle overlaps with Boss-Arena Idiocy: you can only damage him with barrels, which are dropped into the arena from levers which become available as he attacks. Twice in the same game.
• Technicolor Toxin: "Poisonous Pipeline" features this as its gimmick purple/pink liquid that ironically isn't actually poisonous, but instead inverts the left and right D-pad commands. A first for the series, since poisoned water in previous games is depicted as green.
• Temporary Platform: One Gimmick Level has appearing/disappearing cannon barrels, most of them pointing at bees or in a random direction every time they reappear.
• Ten-Second Flashlight: Gleamin' Bream is an enemy fish; once Enguarde pokes it, it will give off enough light for you to see for some 20 odd seconds before it goes back out. It's usually enough time for the player to reach the next Gleamin' Bream.
• Throw a Barrel at It: Throwing barrels is used to damage mooks, break open chests, and in this game, get DK coins from aptly named Koins.
• Toxic, Inc.: Several areas (especially the heavily industrialized Mekanos) have been contaminated by the villainous reptiles, with the main toxins being able to cause Interface Screw.
• Trap Door: The Mill levels feature trapdoors which buckle open when jumped upon. Sometimes these are locked and the monkeys have to unlock them first before proceeding trough them.
• Tree Trunk Tour: The tree levels (Barrel Shield Bust-Up, Springin' Spiders, Ripsaw Rage and Swoopy Salvo) take place between and inside a lot of tall, mostly hollow trees. Notably, one of them has the Kong scale the trunks to escape from a gigantic ripsaw cutting through them.
• Trick Shot Puzzle: Some clever planning and carefully timed steel barrel throws will be needed to separate Koin from a DK Coin. ^note The Kremling's shield will always prevent the usual direct assault. He can almost immediately turn around or raise the shield overhead, in order to defend from any direction; i.e., he will always face the nearby Kong. He does not move from his spot in each level. Sometimes it's necessary to throw the steel barrel and then sucker Koin into facing away from the advancing weapon. Barrel Cannons and walls will occasionally play parts in the solutions to these puzzles, and bananas will mark a few of the correct positions.
• True Final Boss: Like in the second game, there's a second boss fight with K. Rool after unlocking and completing all of the Lost World levels (which requires collecting everything in the game).
• Unexpected Gameplay Change:
  • Rocket Rush, the final stage of the game, contains next to zero platforming. Instead, you control a faulty old rocket as it rises to the top of the volcano Krematoa. You have extremely limited fuel, so a single mistake usually means death.
  • Swanky Kong's mini-games involve moving back and forth to hit targets in some carnival game. It can be considered practice for the K3 boss, Bleak, whom you engage with in a snowball fight. In the GBA remake, the shooting gallery mini-game is replaced by a "half pipe" game reminiscent of the bonus levels from Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
  • In Krack Shot Kroc, one of the bonus levels has you control Krosshair, the mook who's been shooting fireballs at you from offscreen throughout the level. This briefly turns the game from a platformer into a first-person shooter as you attack Kremlings to get the Bonus Coin.
  • The "Simon Caves," thirteen secret areas (found by exploring unmarked areas on the map) where you have to play a memory game to free a Banana Bird from its crystal prison. The more Banana Birds you rescue, the longer the sequence of button presses you need to memorize to rescue the next one.
• Under the Sea: Cotton-Top Cove is set in a coral reef, and is full of lakes and waterfalls. Some levels take place underwater (one of which is notable for having the Kongs feed a predatory fish with other enemies so it doesn't chew them instead), while others are in front of the waterfalls and are climbed by using special blast barrels (rocket-style barrels with jets in one case, and Kong-guided barrels in another). The boss is Squirt, a monster in a rocky wall behind a waterfall that attacks by spitting a stream of water that aims to push Ellie into the pits below.
• Unique Enemy: Loads of them. Some Mooks have entire stages dedicated to them, only to not appear elsewhere afterwards (however, most of these enemies are seen more than once in the Game Boy game Donkey Kong Land III, which is based off of this one):
  • Bazza the barracuda shows up in only one of the game's many underwater levels, serving more as barricades to bypass than enemies. The Game Boy Advance remake includes them in some bonus levels, however.
  • The bird enemy Swoopy serves a similar purpose in one of the game's later levels, Swoopy Salvo. However, you can find just one other Swoopy in one of the earlier tree-themed levels.
  • Lemguins appear only in the last level of K3, popping out of holes and sliding towards you.
  • Karbines serve as indestructible enemies in the first factory level, hiding in the background while shooting fireballs at you. Similarly, Kroc from Krack Shot Kroc does this, except from the fourth-wall side of the screen. Although you play as Kroc in one of that level's bonus stages.
  • Kuchuka is a purple barrel that chucks bombs at you, appearing only in the level Pot Hole Panic.
  • Pink versions of the enemy Koin known as Koindozers show up in one of the levels in the last world, attempting to push you off ledges with their trash-can lid shields.
  • Minkeys—little monkeys that chuck acorns at you from behind barrel-shields—are only seen in one of the second world's levels, though they made an additional appearance in one of the remake's extra levels.
  • Gleamin' Bream, whose only purpose is to light up dark areas, in "Floodlit Fish".
  • Finally, the remake adds in a ground-based version of the TNT barrel Klasp to one of the new levels, named Kracka which acts similarly to the Knocka enemy.
• Unrobotic Reveal: KAOS is being powered by an unwitting Donkey and Diddy Kong.
• Variable Mix: In the GBA version, which has a new soundtrack, the riverside levels have this, with the ambient+bongo track when out of the river, and an aquatic theme for when you're in the river. Of course, with most of the river levels eventually hurting you if you end up in the river...
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Unlike its two predecessors, which toyed with the trope in different ways, this game plays it straight with KAOS Kore, a large Bavarian-inspired castle located in a deep jungle at the north of Northern Kremisphere (this once again doesn't count the secret Krematoa, which serves as this game's Lost World). Once Dixie and Kiddy arrive to the jungle, they can see the castle from afar and something... sinister happening within, judging from the purple light leaking from the topmost window.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: If you don't give Björn his wrench back when he first asks for it, then he'll charge two Bear Coins for every use of the chairlift when you inevitably return it.
• Villainous Badland, Heroic Arcadia: The areas thematically tied to the Mad Scientist villain — the Eternal Engine Mekanos and the Uberwald-like Kaos Kore — are full of pollution and rusty pipes, and even the forest areas are uninviting and sinister, while the rest of the game resembles a Bavarian idyll.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: The basic plot is Dixie Kong fighting through the Kremling army to rescue her missing boyfriend Diddy Kong.
• Volcano Lair: Krematoa, the secret hideout of KAOS and K. Rool, is a giant volcano.
• Walk on Water: Kiddy Kong can roll onto bodies of water and skip like a rock two times consecutively.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Ellie the elephant hates mice and will run away from them if she sees them. One level has her navigating a dark, mouse-infested lumber mill, trying to avoid seeing them.
• Wicked Wasps: A robotic Suspiciously Similar Substitute os the Zinger called Buzz. Aside from being robotic wasps with buzzsaws on their abdomen, they are mechanically identical to their predecessors.
• X-Ray Sparks: Baron K. Roolenstein has several electrical traps in his boss area, and the Kongs' attacks will often force him into them, electrocuting him and making his skeleton briefly visible.
• Yodel Land: The game is set mostly in this kind of setting, with aspects of Überwald in the more sinister regions, and some Steampunk trappings around as well.
• You Meddling Kids: Said by K. Rool himself, an obvious Shout-Out to Scooby-Doo.
• You Wouldn't Hit a Guy with Glasses: In the standard ending, Cranky Kong insults the protagonists' performance, and they surround him, apparently to beat him up. As they close in, Cranky puts on a pair of glasses and says the line.

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