Video Game / Donkey Kong Country

"He's coming out of hibernation. It's the BODACIOUS BEAST, the PRIME PRIMATE, DONKEY KONG. Introducing DONKEY KONG COUNTRY, the first fully rendered video game EVER. Featuring his sidekick DIDDY KONG."

— The original commercial for the game

Released in 1994 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Donkey Kong Country introduced the groundbreaking technique of using pre-rendered 3D graphics in a 2D console game and marked the final decisive milestone in the early-to-mid '90s console war between the Sega Genesis and SNES, with the latter emerging in the lead in the west.

While the original Donkey Kong helped establish Nintendo as the video game company it is today, the series was pushed out of importance by Super Mario Bros. and faded into history after a few sequels. Nintendo contracted the British video game developer Rare (known at the time as Rareware) to create a reimagining of the original arcade game, which would bring the titular gorilla back into the limelight after nearly a decade of absence (though canonically, the Donkey Kong you play as is different from the original, and the original Donkey Kong is the older and aptly named Cranky Kong). Rare's version of the Donkey Kong universe became a huge success and eventually overshadowed the original Nintendo version.

In the first game in the series, the original Donkey Kong Country, Donkey Kong and his sidekick Diddy Kong travel across Donkey Kong Island to get back their stolen banana hoard from the Kremlings, an army of anthropomorphic crocodiles led by King K. Rool. In Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, released a year later, Kaptain K. Rool kidnaps Donkey Kong and takes him to the Kremlings' homeland, Crocodile Isle, forcing Diddy Kong and his girlfriend Dixie Kong to travel into enemy territory and rescue their friend. A year after that, Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! has Dixie and her baby cousin Kiddy Kong search for Donkey and Diddy, who have mysteriously gone missing while on vacation in the Northern Kremisphere, battling Baron K. Roolenstein, as well as the Kremling cyborg KAOS.

Donkey Kong 64, from 1999, brought the series into the third dimension. In it, King K. Rool returns with a vengeance. Figuring that if he and his people can't have Donkey Kong's island, nobody can, he steers an enormous high-tech warship next to it and plans to blast it right off the face of the Earth with his secret weapon, the Blast-O-Matic. This game unites a team of Kongs (Donkey, Diddy, Dixie's sister Tiny, Kiddy's brother Chunky, and odd-man-out Lanky, while other familiar faces such as Cranky and Funky lend a hand along the way) who set out to find a series of 200 solid-gold giant bananas and the missing blueprints to the Blast-O-Matic in an effort to trounce the Kremlings for the final time.

Supporting NPCs in the series include:

• Cranky Kong, who reminisces about the old days of video games and gives advice in the first and second games. In Donkey Kong 64, he provides power-ups to the Kongs to help them progress.
• Funky Kong, whose jet barrels allow the Kongs to exit the current world and travel to different ones without beating its boss. In DK64, he instead provides the Kongs' weapons.
• Candy Kong, who acted as a save point in the first game. In DK64, she supplies the Kongs with instruments that help solve puzzles.
• Wrinkly Kong, Cranky's wife, who in the second game ran a school called Kong College which gave players tips about how to play the game, and where players could also save their game in the second and third installments. Having passed away after the events of DKC3, Wrinkly appeared in spirit form starting with Donkey Kong 64, where she provided hints.
• Swanky Kong, who hosted a quiz game and a carnival attraction in the second and third games, respectively, allowing players to earn additional lives.

Also of note is that during the first game's heyday, the Blockbuster World Video Game Championships II were given an authorized romhack of the game called Donkey Kong Country Competition Cartridge, which basically turned the game into a competition to grab as many bananas as possible within a time limit of five minutes, with only a few levels available and several tweaks to encourage scoring. After the competition ended, Nintendo took back the carts and sold them to subscribers of Nintendo Power. Only 2,500 copies of the game are known to exist, and it has since become a highly valued collector's item.

The 2000 Game Boy Color remake of Donkey Kong Country (not to be confused with Donkey Kong Land, which we'll get to in a minute) has two extra mini-games: Funky Kong's Fishing Mini Game and Candy's Challenge, where you perform in luck-based tasks similar to the various Bonus Stages. Funky's Fishing Game is also seen in the 2003 Game Boy Advance remake, though Candy's Challenge is replaced by Candy's Dance Studio. Also in the GBA remake, the player can fill the Kongs' scrapbook by finding cameras and performing in-game feats of varying difficulty. The GBA remake of Donkey Kong Country 2 contains the mini-games Expresso Racing and Funky's Flight Challenges, in addition to bringing back the scrapbook feature. There is also a new boss, Kerozene, to fight. In both games, all the mini-games must be won each time they're encountered and the scrapbook must be completely filled in order to achieve the highest completion percentage. (In the GBA remake of 2, there is an additional mini-game at Klubba's Kiosk called Bag a Bug, but playing it is completely optional.) The GBA remake of Donkey Kong Country 3 contains the mini-games Funky's Rentals, Cranky's Dojo, and Swanky's Dash. There is no scrapbook feature this time around. All of Funky's challenges must be completed to achieve the highest percentage, but Cranky and Swanky's games need only to be won once. The game also adds a new boss, Kroctopus, and a new area, Pacifica, containing six additional levels.

Each SNES installment also had a Game Boy counterpart; Donkey Kong Land, Donkey Kong Land 2, and Donkey Kong Land III. The Land games translated the pre-rendered graphics of its sister series as well as it could to the Game Boy's small, monochrome screen and usually featured new levels.

A Racing Game Spin-Off appeared as Diddy Kong Racing. There was to be a sequel to Diddy Kong Racing called Donkey Kong Racing (go figure), but Rare's contract with Nintendo for usage of the Donkey Kong franchise ran out. Then Rare got bought out by Microsoft, demolishing any remaining hope that the contract might be renewed. However, Nintendo did toy with the franchise for a while, producing the Donkey Konga trilogy of rhythm games with Namco as well as Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, an action-platformer that is not set in the DKC continuity, but is nevertheless very reminiscent of its style. Following this, they handed the character over to Paon, a company that produced DK: King of Swing for the Game Boy Advance, Donkey Kong Barrel Blast for the Wii, and DK: Jungle Climber for the DS.

Donkey Kong Country also had a short-lived French CGI-animated series based off it; several elements from this show ended up in Donkey Kong 64. Information on the series can be found here.

In 2010, Nintendo and Retro Studios of Metroid Prime fame released Donkey Kong Country Returns, a revival of the series with 2.5D graphics for the Wii, with a later remake to the Nintendo 3DS. A sequel called Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze was released in early 2014 on the Wii U and received a port for the Nintendo Switch in 2018.

The characters in this series can be found here.

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Game-specific pages:

• Rare-developed games

• Donkey Kong Country (Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance)
• Donkey Kong Land (Game Boy)
• Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (SNES, GBA)
• Donkey Kong Land 2 (GB)
• Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! (SNES, GBA)
• Donkey Kong Land III (GB, GBC)
• Donkey Kong 64 (Nintendo 64)

• Retro Studios-developed games
  • Donkey Kong Country Returns (Nintendo Wii, Nintendo 3DS)
  • Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Wii U, Nintendo Switch)
• Spin-off games
  • Diddy Kong Racing (N64, Nintendo DS)
  • Donkey Konga trilogy (GameCube)
  • Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (GC, Wii)
  • DK: King of Swing (GBA)
  • Donkey Kong Barrel Blast (Wii)
  • DK: Jungle Climber (DS)

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Other tropes used:

• 2½D
  • Most notably Donkey Kong Country Returns, but the first three games were pioneers of this style, having prerendered 3D models to make the sprites and things in the background affecting the foreground.
  • Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze expands on what Returns did by adding curving paths and Camera Perspective Switch during segments like rocket barrel sequences.
• Abandoned Mine
  • Presumably, where the Minecart Madness takes place...
  • The entire second world, considering that it's named "Monkey Mines".
• Abnormal Ammo: The speckled eggs that Squawks the parrot fires from its mouth. And in 64, four out of six Kongs use food as ammo, another uses feathers, and one uses an almighty boot.
• Advanced Movement Technique: Throughout the entire series, speedrunners will constantly roll around or cartwheel instead of walking since this is faster than walking normally.
• Alliterative Name: Almost all the levels in the Donkey Kong Country series use either this trope or Sublime Rhyme for the level names ("Hot-head Hop", "Gusty Glades," etc) Most of the rest rely on puns. Every level in Donkey Kong 64 except DK Isles has an alliterative name.
• Adipose Rex: King K. Rool.
• Advertising Campaigns: Besides the many TV commercials, Nintendo sent a 15-minute behind the scenes VHS tape to most Nintendo Power subscribers. It featured interviews with the people who tested the game (in Redmond, Washington), a few game tips, and a teaser for Killer Instinct Gold for the Nintendo 64.
• Agitated Item Stomping: Diddy stomps on his hat whenever he loses a bonus game in the original game.
• Animated Adaptation: The French CGI cartoon Donkey Kong Country.
• Animals Not to Scale: Nobody really cares since the games aren't meant to be taken seriously, but there are countless cases of animals that are much bigger than their real life counterparts, most notably giant insects, beavers, and birds, and many that are much smaller, probably the most notable case being Rambi, who is about the same size as Donkey Kong, where real rhinos are the size of cars.
• The Artifact: The supporting cast consisting of Cranky, Funky, Candy, Wrinkly, and so on were initially created for purposes like saving the game and allowing the player to replay levels, common technical limitations at the time that nowadays are considered basic features. This means that many of those characters end up being Put on a Bus, unless the game is a multiplayer game that requires a large cast like Barrel Blast. This is likely what led to Cranky and Funky being Promoted to Playable in Tropical Freeze, to keep them from being underused.
• Artifact Title: The series is called Donkey Kong Country. This made sense for the first game where Donkey Kong was the main playable character (and also the "Country" part as the game takes place in his native DK Island), but not so much the second or third games where he's a non-playable Distressed Dude who only appears near the very end (and both games are set away from DK Island as well). Returns and Tropical Freeze both resolve this by bringing Donkey Kong back as the main character, and journeying DK Island again (the Kongs get blown off the island in Tropical Freeze, but make their way back eventually).
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • While wild monkeys and apes do enjoy fruit, bananas usually aren't a regular part of their diet, and they certainly don't hoard them, much less to the ludicrous degree Donkey Kong does. Wild monkeys born in the Americas and Africa (settings similar to where the Kongs live) didn't even have access to bananas for a while until the trees were planted there by humans. Amusingly, crocodilians (like K. Rool and his Kremlings) do enjoy sweet fruit as a snack in spite of being carnivores.
  • Ellie the Elephant in DKC3. Able to make truly impressive leaps and bounds, but real life elephants, famously, are not able to jump.
  • Apes can't swim, either. Especially not in icy or polluted water.^note This is mostly an instinct issue, though. Humans also lack this instinct, which is why we have to learn how to swim in the first place. Thus, it's possible to justify this trope by having DK and the other Kongs be intelligent enough to learn how to do it. This one is poked fun at in an ad for the GBA remake of the first game, which shows a real-life gorilla underwater with the caption "Only in Donkey Kong Country".
  • Wasps and hornets don't store honey like bees.
  • Glimmer the Anglerfish is large and has a lure, despite being male. Glimmer also lacks teeth.
• Ascended Extra: In an unusual non-character example, the Gangplank Galleon. In the first game, it was briefly seen as the setting of the final boss battle. In Diddy's Kong Quest, not only has it been expanded into a full 5-level world, but the entire game is pirate-themed, meaning lots of pirate outfits for the Kremlings and scattered pirate ship-themed levels.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Funky's Barrel Plane in DKC1, the lack of DK Coins or other collectibles in order to beat the game makes revisiting past areas absolutely useless. Unless, of course, you want to achieve 100%, but even that doesn't give you a special ending.
• Back That Light Up: Even though they all were released after the GBA SP, the ports for GBA were extremely brightened up from the originals. In particular, this makes Glimmer's Galleon in 2 and Floodlit Fish in 3 much easier due to the brighter lights.
• Badass in Distress: Donkey Kong in DKC2 and 3; Diddy Kong in 3.
• Balloonacy: Returns introduces the idea that the Red Balloons that represent extra lives are used to lift the Kongs back to the nearest checkpoint after they lose all their health. Green Balloons (introduced in Returns 3D) also lift Kongs, but rather than doing so if they lose all of their health, they lift them out of any pits they happen to fall into.
• Bash Brothers: Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong.
• Battle Theme Music: Each game in the series has one score used for normal boss battles and another for K. Rool.
  • Except for GBA DKC3, which has a separate theme for Arich, but NOT for K. Rool! It seems they ran out of time when making the game's completely new soundtrack.
• Behind the Black: This concept's used in force to make 100% Completion damn near impossible, especially given how many collectible items are in the GBA remakes. Fortunately, Rare was merciful enough to give occasional hints of secrets: that banana is visible through those tree leaves / half-off-screen / in that "bottomless" pit for a reason, and the field of view might gradually pan down / up / ahead, in preparation for a Leap of Faith. Slow down a bit and watch for it carefully.
• BFS: Kleever from DKC2. Kutlasses from the same game carries two cutlasses larger than himself. Koshas from DK64 carry spiked clubs larger than themselves.
• Big Bad: King K. Rool. The leader of the Kremling Krew and Donkey Kong's answer to Bowser. He returns as the bad guy in the sequels with a new persona and gimmick (Kaptain K. Rool and Baron K. Roolstein), even hijacking the plot in Donkey Kong Country 3. He is supplanted by Tiki Tong in Donkey Kong Country Returns, and Lord Frederick in Tropical Freeze, however.
• Big Boo's Haunt: DKC2's Gloomy Gulch. A spooky and depressing region with dead forests, wailing ghost ropes, and even a haunted house filled with Kremling ghosts. You even fight the ghost of a previous boss at the end of it.
• Blackout Basement: The first game has Stop & Go Station, Torchlight Trouble, the Trope Namer, and Loopy Lights in that order.
• Bonus Stage: The 2D games are absolutely loaded with hidden bonus areas of varying kinds. Finding them (and in DKC2 and 3, winning them) is often necessary for achieving 100% Completion. In order to do this for DKC or DKC2, you'll have to find a bonus stage hidden inside another bonus stage. Not funny, Rare!
• Border-Occupying Decorations: The Donkey Kong Land games feature their own custom borders when playing the games on a Super Game Boy, done in the pre-rendered pseudo-CG style of the SNES games. The first game features a row of palm trees, the second game features a wall of bananas, and the third game features a wall of stopwatches (which serve as the game's main collectible).
• Boss-Arena Idiocy:
  • The first game:
    • You have to twice fight Necky, a boss that only can be hurt by jumping on its head. Unfortunately, its head is too high for Donkey or even Diddy to reach. Good luck that someone inexplicably left a tire wheel lying around, right?
    • Boss Dumb Drum. He is an animated iron barrel that floats around and spits Mooks relentlessly. Once on a while, he descends to try to squash Donkey and Diddy down. All that they have to do to win is move out of the way when Drum does that, because he eventually breaks down. If he only spat enemies out and kept himself in the air, they would be unable to win. In the Game Boy Advance version, Drum cannot damage himself this way. TNT barrels appear after you defeat a wave of mooks, which you must pick up and throw at him.
  • In Donkey Kong Country 2, you would be unable to pass beyond the first Boss, Krow, if he did not throw his own eggs at you, allowing you to pick them up and throw them back at him.
  • Baron K. Roolenstein in Donkey Kong Country 3. If he hadn't installed levers in the ceiling that drop barrels, the Kongs would have no way to hurt him.
  • Most of the boss battles in Donkey Kong 64 have a random, convenient, COMPLETELY unnecessary TNT barrel in the middle of the room that, if removed, would make even the first boss impossible to defeat.
  • The bosses in Donkey Kong Country Returns were generally good about choosing locations that weren't potentially lethal towards them if utilized properly by Donkey and Diddy. The one glaringly obvious exception was Mangoruby, whose boss chamber contained three wheels with switches on them that, when pounded, would de-electrify Mangoruby's body and allow Donkey to Goomba Stomp her.
• Boss-Only Level: Every boss.
• Bootstrapped Theme:
  • Jungle Japes is without a doubt the most popular music from the series, and is essentially used as the series' main theme.
  • DKC1’s bonus theme was remixed and made into DKC3's main theme.
  • Aquatic Ambiance (the water theme from the original DKC) was remixed in the GBA remake of DKC3 as the title screen music, arranged in Donkey Kong Country Returns and also arranged in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, with it notably also being used as a Bootstrapped Leitmotif in the latter.
• Brainy Pig: Professor Chops, debuting in Donkey Kong Country Returns, is an anthropomorphic pig with Nerd Glasses that assists the Kongs by explaining the game mechanics and marking the checkpoints.
• Breakout Character: When Diddy proved more popular than Donkey Kong in DKC, he was promoted to main character status in DKC2, only to see his sidekick Dixie overshadow him and get promoted to main character in DKC3.
• Brutal Bonus Level: The Lost World levels in DKC2 and DKC3, along with the boss fights at the end.
• Bubblegloop Swamp: This series was the previous Trope Namer. Granted, "Krem Quay" wasn't the most understandable choice.
• The Caligula: King K. Rool.
• Canon Foreigner: Bluster Kong, Eddie the Mean Old Yeti, and Polly Roger in the CGI cartoon.
• Chest Monster: In Donkey Kong Country 2, "Klobbers" are Kremlings disguised as barrels until you come close. Ordinary Klobbers merely knock you around non-lethally, but yellow Klobbers knock bananas off of you, and black Klobbers (with their Red Eyes, Take Warning) knock extra life balloons off of you (still non-lethally). And then there's the Kabooms. DKC3 have Knocka, who replaces Klobber. Kracka and Klasp replace Kaboom, while Kuchuka is the only unique one. Kuchuka is a Mad Bomber.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
  • Chunky and Kiddy Kong haven't been showing up in any subsequent games, not even a Mario game. This is despite Kiddy Kong being announced to return in Donkey Kong Racing (which never came to be in the end).
  • Rattly the Rattlesnake. Winky and Expresso at least got a Shout-Out here and there...
  • Most notably, King K. Rool and the Kremlings have completely vanished after DK: Jungle Climber. While K. Rool does reappear in some Mario spin-offs and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, he and his minions have yet to return to their home series.
• Circling Birdies: The player death animations in the SNES trilogy. Donkey Kong scratches his head, Diddy Kong gets circling stars, Dixie Kong covers her eyes and sobs, and Kiddy Kong (being a toddler) cries.
• Company Cameo: A particular staple of Rare's era of the franchise was referencing both themselves and Nintendo in the games outside of the introduction.
  • Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest:
    • The renders for this game are where Diddy Kong's red cap first gained the Nintendo logo that became its trademark.
    • The title screen shows Diddy and Dixie opening a chest full of loot. Among that loot is the golden R that was part of Rare's logo at the time (long before it eventually returned to an update of that logo).
    • Cranky's Monkey Museum contains the logos of both Nintendo and Rare among the various objects in the background.
  • The backs of the cards in Donkey Kong Land 3's memory match minigame have Rareware's R on them.
  • Donkey Kong 64:
    • The small arches leading to Tiny Kong's racing mission in Frantic Factory have Rareware's golden R in the middle of them.
    • The secret 201st Golden Banana, hidden in a room next to the Banana Fairy Queen's throne room, has a Rareware sticker on it. (The other 200 Golden Bananas spread throughout the game instead have stickers with the Nintendo 64 logo on them.)
    • Two major collectibles that are required to reach the Final Boss are the Nintendo Coin, which has the N64 logo on it, and the Rareware Coin, emblazoned with the company's golden "R" logo (unlike the Rareware Golden Banana, it doesn't have the blue box surrounding it). Both items are hidden in Embedded Precursors of games made by the companies earlier; Nintendo's is rewarded for completing round 2 of Donkey Kong, while Rare's randomly spawns as a pickup when you earn 5000 or more points in Jetpac, a game made by Rare back when they were known as Ultimate Play The Game.
    • The final boss battle is a boxing match stated to be "brought to you this evening by Rare and Nintendo in association with K.Rool Enterprises."
• Completion Meter: The game keeps track of bonus rooms and K-O-N-G letters the player finds in each level. The Game Boy Advance remake also has a virtual scrapbook for special pictures found in-game.
• Conspicuously Light Patch: Particularly egregiously on the Donkey Kong Land games on the Game Boy Color; ANYTHING that wasn't the background was usually a completely different colour to the stage itself, making it blindingly obvious where everything was.
• Convenient Weakness Placement: Many of the bosses in the games have barrels or cannonballs that appear in the Boss Room for no reason, which you then use to damage the otherwise invincible boss. Some of the bosses may even hand you a barrel or cannonball, usually at the end of their attack cycle (after which they would just stand there and wait for you to hit them with it).
• Cool Old Guy: Cranky Kong. He makes potions that help you in DK64, and is capable of platforming even better than his son in Tropical Freeze, courtesy of his cane.
• Cool Old Lady: Wrinkly Kong. She saves your game in DKC2 and DKC3. She later provides hints in DK64 and later games.
• Cutscene Incompetence: Averted, narrowly. The GBA remake of DKC adds an opening cutscene where Diddy's captured by a Krusha and stuffed into a barrel. Diddy can't hurt Krushas on his own.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • Haven't played the game in a decade or so? Just for fun, try replaying some of the bonus levels, especially the ones in the treetop worlds that involve the Kongs having to aim for a moving barrel offscreen. That's right. You can still do it. ... Now try messing up on purpose in these levels, say, to avoid the annoying animal bonus runs. You can't.
  • In the original trilogy, rolling/cartwheeling/ponytail spinning into an enemy would give you a burst of momentum, allowing you to easily take out whole rows of enemies with just one attack. In Donkey Kong Country Returns, the roll goes farther and faster, but does not have this property. In the very first level, almost right away, you'll encounter three basic enemies in a row. If you try to roll through them all like in the old days, your roll will end just in time for you to slam into the third enemy and get hurt.
  • That damned rocket barrel from Rocket Rush! Left fires the left rocket, which pushes you right, and vice versa...
• Death Throws: In Returns and Tropical Freeze.
• Digitized Sprites: The original trilogy were some of the earliest pioneers of this concept. Using a Silicon Graphics workstation, Rare was able to create fully-rendered 3D models of the Kongs, Kremlings, and their environments, which they then downscaled into detailed 2D sprites to fit onto the SNES.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first game is starkly pared down compared to the latter two. In addition to having the animal-buddy-token bonuses unseen in any other installments, the first DKC game lacked hero coins and a secret world. Also, unlike the latter two games (and Donkey Kong 64), which forced you to win each bonus challenge to win every bonus prize, the first game simply expected you to find all the bonuses in order to get 100% Completion.
• Enemy Roll Call: The ending to each of the original DKC games has every enemy in the game run across the bottom of the screen before the credits roll.
• Everyone Loves Blondes: Donkey Kong for Candy Kong, and Diddy Kong for Dixie Kong. It's a Tertiary Sexual Characteristic, though there are exceptions, too. Wrinkly Kong, being an old lady, doesn't have blonde hair.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Subverted in a rather interesting fashion. There are enemies trying to kill you for no obvious reason (Zingers, Armys, and Neckies), but there are also numerous small animals that can be seen crawling, hopping, flying, or swimming around the levels. The latter have no effect on you; they're just scenery.
• Exploding Barrels: TNT Barrels. Kabooms, Klasps, and Krackas hide in these barrels, and they will blow up upon being touched.
• Faceship: The Gangplank Galleon has K. Rool's head built at the front. The Flying Krock in DKC2 has a Kremling head-shaped front. DK Isles in DKC and DK64 is shaped like DK's head.
• Fat Bastard: K. Rool. Among Mooks, Klump and Kannon.
• Flunky Boss: Dumb Drum. Notably, you don't even harm the boss itself in the original SNES version and its Game Boy Color remake. Just kill all the enemies it produces and it'll destroy itself.
• Follow the Money: Aside from the usual hints of bonuses, the bananas remind players how or when to use advanced moves in the early levels, and can be a last-second warning on how to avoid a death. It's subverted in a couple of Bonus Stages in DKC2 — they're mazes, and the bananas indicate dead ends.
• For the Evulz: It seems the only reason K. Rool had his troops steal DK's banana hoard, aside from possibly food, was simply to steal it. DK: Jungle Climber showed that K. Rool doesn't even like bananas.
• Gangplank Galleon: The Trope Namer is where you fight King K. Rool in the first game. It is also the first world in the second game.
• Gimmick Level: Lots of them, especially in the later games. Apparently, adding new enemies along with the obviously different level maps just wasn't enough. At least half the levels in the SNES series had unique or very rare gimmicks. A few examples:
  • Rise to the Challenge: Toxic Tower and Slime Climb in #2; Ripsaw Rage and Kong-Fused Cliffs in #3.
  • Gravity Screw: Low-G Labyrinth
  • Interface Screw: Poisonous Pipeline
  • Timed Mission: Haunted Hall and Riverside Race (and Doorstop Dash, to a lesser extent)
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: In DKC, you don't have to collect a darn thing if you don't want, and the only difference in the ending is that a single line of dialogue from Cranky will be changed very slightly if you found everything. In DKC2, you have to collect all the Kremcoins in order to access all the levels, but the DK Coins are merely an extra challenge for the player, not necessary in any way. Things started getting out of hand with DKC3, where you really did have to collect all of the Bonus Coins and DK coins to get the best ending, including finding all of the Banana Birds in the overworld. And then DK64 took things up to eleven, with 500 bananas, twenty-five golden bananas, five blueprints, one battle crown and 2 banana fairies in each level, including the overworld^note the overworld doesn't have any non-golden bananas to collect, but makes up for it by having an unaccounted-for sixth banana for Tiny Kong to find as well as two extra banana fairies and one extra battle crown.
• Green Aesop: Done in a subtle fashion. The Kremlings own grim and polluted factory areas like Kremkroc Industries and Mekanos, and have ruined Crocodile Isle with oil, toxic waste, and trash, while the Kongs live happily on Donkey Kong Isle, in harmony with nature. In addition, Frantic Factory is shown as being a dreary and depressing place, with spooky music and a dark atmosphere.
• Green Gators: Zig-zagged with the Kremlings'; while King K. Rool himself has green scales, his henchmen have varying colors; Klumps have brown scales in the original game, pink scales in Donkey Kong 64, and lime green scales in the animated series, Krushas have blue scales for the weaker variants and grey for the stronger ones, Kritters have a variety of different scale colors, including green, grey, pink, and blue, and Klaptraps have light blue and purple scales.
• Grumpy Old Man: Cranky Kong is a grumpy old man who regularly belittles his son, the games he's in, the people who make them, and the people who play them.
• Guide Dang It!: The locations of some of the bonus rooms.
  • One memorable example: In DKC, the entrance to one of the bonus rooms is hidden within ANOTHER bonus room! AND you are required to go against your own common sense to get to it, with virtually no hints to do so! ^note To elaborate, the first level of Kremkroc Industries Inc. (Oil Drum Alley) has a bonus room with a slot-machine style mini-game with prize choices of a 1up, an animal token and a banana. Choosing the banana in a normal bonus room of this type gives you exactly that; a single banana worth exactly 1/100th of a 1up, normally intended as a booby prize. Choosing it here, however, gives you a barrel instead. Why? So you can use that barrel to break the wall opposite the way you came in, of course! It doesn't help that the only hints to do this are that the aforementioned wall normally has a completely cosmetic exit that is easily ignored, and two arrow signs pointing to the right, towards the wall, which are also easily overlooked, as they are part of the normal stage background. But there's one final screw-you from all this. Even if you figure all that out, if you simply throw the barrel at the wall, the barrel will break and the mini-game you are currently in will end without going into the second one, since you just "spent" your "prize". Rather, you have to lunge yourself at the wall, while holding the barrel (which means you have to be Diddy, and you have to jump rather than run), so that when the wall breaks, your momentum will carry you into bonus room #2 before bonus room #1 ends. Whew!
• Hailfire Peaks: Sunken Spruce from the GBA remake of DKC3 combines a tree level with Under the Sea.
  • Demolition Drain-Pipe, also from 3, combines Down the Drain with Mine Cart Madness.
  • Donkey Kong Land 2, due to cartridge space reasons, combined both Crocodile Cauldron and Krem Quay into Krem Cauldron.
• Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: The first game, for the most part, with the exception of K. Rool himself. And even he can be pretty easy if you're careful.
• Heli-Critter/Helicopter Hair: Dixie Kong and her sister Tiny Kong, who use their ponytails as propellers to slow their descent.
• Hooks and Crooks: The Krook enemy throws boomeranging hooks at you.
• Huge Rider, Tiny Mount: Donkey Kong and Winky and Expresso, later Kiddy and Squawks and Squitter. Rattly and Ellie got off easy...
• Humanoid Female Animal: Of the Kongs from DKC, Candy is the most human-looking; the next Kong to get this treatment is Tiny after her age up in Diddy Kong Racing DS.
• Hyperactive Sprite: Whichever Kong's following you in DKC3. Probably the code to make them stand still got removed to make space in a 32-megabit cartridge.
• Idle Animation: In the first game, Donkey Kong will beat his chest and whoop, Diddy will take off his cap and scratch his head. In the second game, Diddy will start juggling, and Dixie will blow bubblegum and drink a soda as she does in the third game, while Kiddy will pull at a loose thread in his romper suit and eventually pull too hard and fall over. In the hive levels, Dixie will eat the honey off the walls she can cling on to.
• Improvised Platform: Squitter can create spiderwebs in the air as platforms.
  • One level of DKC3 requires throwing barrels in the water as platforms, as the water is guarded by a Nibbla.
• Infinite Flashlight: Squawks in the first game and Glimmer in the second.
• Insect Queen: Queen B., queen of the Zingers. The sequel introduced her apparent mate, King Zing, boss of an area full of Hornet Holes.
• Invincibility Power-Up: The exclamation point barrel.
• Invincible Minor Minion: Croctopus and Clambos in DKC, Red Zingers in DKC2, and Red Buzzes, Kopters, and Kuchukas in DKC3, to name a few.
• It's a Wonderful Failure: In DKC, you are treated to a depressing screen of Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong in bandages when you get a game over. In DKC2, Diddy and Dixie are locked away in a prison cell and then the screen turns red... suggesting that a terrible fate was brought about by your failure. In DKC3, players are treated to a somewhat disturbing scene of Dixie and Kiddy locked away in a baby's crib inside a dark room. And then DK64 features King K. Rool laughing maniacally and activating the Blast-O-Matic...
• Justified Extra Lives: In the original trilogy, the Extra Life Balloons are just there for you to collect. In Returns, they play a more involving role by carrying Donkey and/or Diddy back into the stage after dying, and during co-op, if one player dies but the other is still active, one of your balloons will eventually carry in a new DK Barrel for you to break and get the other player back in the game.
• Kaizo Trap:
  • King K.Rool loves this. There's fake credits in the middle of the final fight in the first game, and his last attack can kill you after you beat him in the second game.
  • In the GBA version of DKC2, it is possible to die right as you beat Kerozene.
  • Many levels have a single weak enemy on the home stretch after the difficult platforming, just to check whether you're still paying attention.
• King Mook:
  • Every boss in DKC, including K. Rool; Krow and King Zing in DKC2, Barbos in DKC3.
  • Lampshaded in DK64 in the manual by Cranky Kong. As well, there's a giant beaver near the end of the first level, but it's not the boss.
• Lampshade Hanging: Cranky Kong does this a lot by complaining about the generally silly tone amongst other things. See also Meta Guy below.
• Last Note Nightmare: The series' Nightmare Fuel page cites the death-against-K-Rool music to have been cut (from a game with so much Nightmare Fuel, no less) because it was too scary. ^note That's not actually the case. The track is in the game's file, but it doesn't play in-game because of a programming error. It'll be unlikely to remove a "scary" track from a game that sets itself up to be creepier than the original in the first place. The Last Note Nightmare trope is the exact reason behind that.
• Later-Installment Weirdness: In the original trilogy, collecting all of the KONG letters in a level merely gave you an extra life. In Returns and Tropical Freeze, collecting all of them in a world gives you access to bonus levels.
• Law of 100: You get an extra life for every 100 bananas you collect in the Donkey Kong Country games.
• Lead the Target: It's not done by a gunman, but rather, bolts of lightning in the Lightning Lookout level of DKC3. The bolts of lightning will always hit you if you constantly hold forward.
• Legacy Character: Cranky Kong is the DK from the early 1980s arcade games. Along those lines, it's mentioned in various sources that the main character of these games was Donkey Kong, Jr. from the game of the same name.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! in comparison to the second game. After the very gloomy setting in Donkey Kong Country 2 (Which was Darker and Edgier than its own predecessor), the Kremlings have dropped the whole Pirate Motif, they don't carry weapons anymore, the enemy lineup is much goofier (Kremlings slip on ice, and there are cannon-wielding Owls as well as a crosshair), and you spend much of the game exploring beautiful lakesides, lush green forests, clear waterfalls and swimming in beautiful blue waters. The game in general has a brighter and much more friendly and ambient visual and audio aesthetic this time around.
  • The Retro Studios-developed games in general are more lighthearted than the original Rare-developed games. As opposed to Rare's semi-realistic art style, Retro instead goes for a smoother, stylized look similar to that of CGI animated movies. Retro's games in general also emphasize more explicit action as opposed to Rare's more subdued ambiance. And finally, although Rare's Kremlings certainly had their share of cartoony antics, the villains in Retro's games emphasize these antics much more and tone down the menacing aspect compared to the Kremlings.
• Live Item: The Banana Birds and the Banana Fairies.
• Lost Food Grievance: Several of the adventures involve Donkey Kong's bananas being stolen. But it's not one banana; it's the Kongs' entire food supply, making this a lot more justifiable than how the trope is usually presented.
• The Lost Woods: Vine Valley in DKC, Gloomy Gulch in DKC2, and Kremwood Forest in DKC3.
• Mad Scientist: K. Rool(enstein) in DKC3. Cranky is depicted this way in Donkey Kong 64, providing abilities in the form of potions.
• Make My Monster Grow: King K. Rool at the end of DK: Jungle Climber.
• Mascot Mook: While many would be tempted to just say the Kremlings, the enemy who's the most qualified are the Zingers. Not just because they appear in so many games, but they tend to have the most minimal changes between games compared to the other enemies.
• Mascot with Attitude: Donkey Kong.
• Meaningful Name:
  • K. Rool (sounds like "Cruel").
  • Also Diddy, whose name means "short".
  • Tiny Kong was this in DK64, prior to her Fanservice Pack in Diddy Kong Racing DS.
• Medium Awareness: Cranky Kong is constantly complaining about the game's graphics, recalling the "good old days" (he was the original Donkey Kong from the arcade games).
• Meta Guy: Cranky Kong is aware that he is in a game and complains of the newer superior graphics as opposed to the single-screen gameplay of back in his day.
• Mine Cart Madness: In the first game, there is Mine Cart Carnage and the Trope Namer. In the second game, there is Target Terror, Rickety Race, and Haunted Hall (see Rule of Three below).
• Monogender Monsters: The Kremlings, though finally subverted in Donkey Kong: Barrel Blast/Jet Race, when Kass and Kalypso were introduced.
• Mook Maker: Oil Drums in DKC, and the little holes that spawn Bazzas and Lemguins in DKC3.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Many enemies qualify, but Klaptrap, Klampon, Krimp, Lockjaw, Snapjaw, and Nibbla in particular.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: King K. Rool (Cruel AND a Hard K sound in the name), and every single villain in the entire series. It helps that K. Rool is kind of a bumbler, though. With homicidal — er, apecidal intent, but still a bumbler.
• No Fourth Wall: The original series derived a lot of humor from this, although it was toned down as the series progressed. Perhaps the most extreme example was Donkey Kong Land's instruction manual story, where Cranky argued with DK and Diddy that Donkey Kong Country was only successful because of its graphics, and dared them to defeat K. Rool again on the inferior Game Boy. Most game manuals back then had a "notes" page for players to scribble in. Cranky lampshades "Does anyone actually use these pages? Waste of paper if you ask me."
• Non-Indicative Name: Poison Pond. An underwater level where you swim around in water that is colored green but, strangely enough, does not harm you at all.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: Any time you lose a life, they go flying, followed by a short animation of them getting knocked out before being sent back to the map screen.
• Non-Mammal Mammaries: Kalypso.
• Non-Standard Game Over: In the first [DKC], there are certain mine levels where you had to ride a moving platform. Destroying this platform (i.e. no fuel left) caused Donkey Kong/Diddy Kong to go through the animation when they lose a bonus round (balloon pop at the end), and you return to the Overworld map.
• Official Couple: Diddy and Dixie are canonically boyfriend and girlfriend. As are DK and Candy.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: In all three DKC] games. In Donkey Kong 64, the characters start off with four hit points, with Candy Kong giving them an extra four on two occasions for a total of twelve. DKC Returns allows the characters to take two hits before going down.
• 1-Up: In the original trilogy, red Donkey Kong balloons. There are also green ones which act as 2-ups and blue ones which are 3-ups.
• Orphaned Series: After Rare went to Microsoft, the series had to live with its "absentee uncle" Nintendo^note who owns the rights to the characters and franchise, since it was a Nintendo creation to begin with for a while and was eventually adopted by Paon, then later Retro Studios. Rare lost custody, but still gets to visit the series on handhelds, as Microsoft doesn't have its own.
• Over 100% Completion: DKC goes up to 101%, DKC2 goes up to 102%, and DKC3 goes up to 103%, or 105% by using a special cheat code which makes the game harder. Donkey Kong Land III also goes up to 103%, and Returns and Tropical Freeze go up to 200%.
• Palette Swap: Klubba and Kudgel in DKC2, as well as numerous minor enemies which, much like the Koopa Troopas, often indicate their behavior. Lampshaded by Cranky Kong in the GBA remake of DKC (which itself had two pairs of palette-swapped bosses: Very Gnawty / Really Gnawty and Master Necky / Master Necky Snr.).
  Cranky: It's just like the old days, reusing the boss, changing its color, and pretending it's completely new.
• Periphery Demographic: Invoked with Wrinkly playing on a cutting-edge game system.
• Pickup Hierarchy:
  • Primary: Nothing (if you're just beating the game normally)
  • Secondary: Kremkoins/Bonus Coins, DK Coins and Banana Birds (required for 100% Completion and the Golden Ending in 2 and 3), K-O-N-G Letters (4 in each level that give a 1-up upon collecting them all), Animal Tokens (getting 3 of a kind takes you to a bonus stage loaded with bananas) and 1-up balloons.
  • Tertiary: Banana Coins and Bear Coins (respawning currency), Bananas.
  • Extra: Cogs (only found in 3's extra world) and Brothers Bear items (used for 3's Chain of Deals.)
• Piranha Problem: Lockjaw and Snapjaw from DKC2, Nibbla from DKC3.
• Pirates: The Kremlings become pirates for no particular reason (besides the Rule of Cool) in Donkey Kong Country 2. Then again, K. Rool's original lair was a pirate ship...
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: They do lots of evil things, but no actual pirating other than stealing bananas.
• Power-Up Mount: Most of the Animal Buddies you meet throughout the games; Rambi the Rhino is particularly iconic of the series. Enguarde and Squawks are the only Animal Buddies to appear in ALL of the first three games, though Enguarde is the only one who's rideable in every appearance.
• Prehensile Hair: Dixie Kong uses her ponytail to pick up barrels, and as a helicopter blade, which makes her a Game-Breaker. The player's guide flat out tells you to use her in "Parrot Chute Panic" as opposed to Quawks, who can only slow your fall.
• Previous Player-Character Cameo: Cranky Kong.
• The Psycho Rangers: Except for one secret character, Barrel Blast paired a Kremling with identical stats against each Kong; some of them were Ascended Mooks, while others were completely new characters.
• Recurring Boss: Obviously K. Rool, but Krow from the second game is fought twice. Once at its nest, and once as a ghost.
• Recycled Soundtrack: The Game Boy Color remake of DKC lifted songs from Donkey Kong Land and DKL III.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Kloak and Kackle from the second game. The robotic Kritters from DK64.
• Regional Bonus: The Japanese version of Donkey Kong Land III was for the Game Boy Color. Unfortunately, it was missing animation frames and your last time displayed at the bottom of the screen during time trials over the Game Boy version.
• Remember the New Guy?: Cranky Kong's wife Wrinkly appeared out of nowhere in DKC2. So did Swanky Kong.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Kremlings are both the main reptiles and the main villains in most of the series, and most of them are evil. Averted with Rattly the snake, though.
• Retired Badass: It's easy to forget that Cranky was the original Donkey Kong.
• Rhino Rampage: Rambi
• Rhyming Title: Levels that don't use Alliterative Title may use rhymes instead. Examples include "Sawmill Thrill" and "Blurry Flurry".
• Rolling Attack: Donkey Kong and Kiddy Kong have a rolling attack, while Diddy Kong has a cartwheel attack. Armies also do this.
• Rule of Three: In Donkey Kong Country 2, each "habitat" has three levels dedicated to it (not counting boss stages). For instance, Lockjaw's Locker, Lava Lagoon, Glimmer's Galleon are the three sunken ships levels, while Target Terror, Rickety Race, and (the admittedly background-swapped) Haunted Hall make up the roller coaster triad.
• Running Gag: K. Rool can never quite stick to the theme of his evil lairs when it comes to costume. A king on a pirate ship, a pirate captain in a laboratory, and a scientist in a castle.
  • The gag also counts for the Kremlings in general for the first two games: They largely had a modern, military aesthetic in DKC with the Gangplank Galleon sticking out like a sore thumb. In DKC2, the Kremlings are largely pirate-themed—yet the Flying Krock would have fit in better with the army theme they had in DKC.
• Save-Game Limits: The first game suffers from a major dearth of save points, with a save point popping up every four or five levels on average. That doesn't sound too bad, but keep in mind, this game is Nintendo Hard. You didn't necessarily have to reach a save point before you could save; technically you could use Funky Kong to fly back to save points in previous levels, but it still made saving more of a hassle than it should have been. This became even worse in DKC2, which not only has the same problem as DKC, but saving your game after saving for the first time at Wrinkly's Kong College costs 2 Banana coins. This may not sound so bad, but the coin total will reset to 0 after you have saved and turned off the console. This was finally fixed in DKC3, which has a save point that can be accessed at any time, and saving the game no longer costs any coins. Firmly averted in the GBA versions where you can save from the map at any point and the save points have been repurposed for other mechanics (e.g. Candy's Save Studio becoming a Dance Studio).
• Scavengers Are Scum: Neckies and Mini-Neckies, the vultures, are villainous enemies.
• Scenery Porn: The Rare games are chock full of it.
• Schmuck Bait: Yes, some of those bunches of bananas can be grabbed... if you don't mind redoing the level. Inverted with lone bananas, invariably a bottomless pit with a single banana (or sometimes no bananas!) will lead to a Bonus Stage or something. However, in DKC2 and DKC3, you can have your partner mount your shoulders by tapping the A button and throw him/her at the banana hovering at the bottomless pit. Don't worry. He/she'll come back.
• Sequel Snark: In the GBA remake, after the Kongs jump overboard and King K. Rool sails off, Cranky remarks, "Call that an ending? Looks like a cheap stunt setting up the story for the sequel!" In the Hero Mode ending, he tells Diddy, "You have really surpassed yourself! Who knows? Maybe you'll make the sequel."
• Sequence Breaking: Not so much in DKC3, but in DKC2 several jumping puzzles can be avoided by using Dixie's helicopter spin to glide over them.
• Serious Business: The Donkey Kong Universe, originally. Though nowadays they just poke fun at their crazy theories and attempts to expain discrepancies, such as the Kongs having extra fingers in Mario sports titles, two Enguardes in Coral Capers, and changes to the story in the remakes.
• Shout-Out:
  • Some of the levels were named after music references. "Vulture Culture" is also the name of an album by The Alan Parsons Project, and "Fear Factory" is the same name of a metal band that popped up at the time of the game's release.
  • The level "Manic Mincers" in the first game is a reference to classic ZX Spectrum game Manic Miner.
  • In DKC2, Cranky mentions wanting to play Killer Instinct (and he actually has an arcade cabinet of the game in the background, as well as a poster of Chief Thunder), yet also gripes that it must be a bad game simply because he is not in it. Donkey Kong Land III also features a mill level called "Miller Instinct".
  • DKC3 has Wrinkly occasionally playing her Nintendo 64 when you go to save... when that's the case, you can clearly hear a rearrangement of the Super Mario 64 castle theme.
  • Also, when you start a bonus stage in DKC3, the music starts by going "BAH-BAH doo, BAH-BAH doo"... quite similar to the main theme to a popular spy movie series, the latest of which was being adapted to a video game by Rare at the time DKC3 came out...
  • After you destroy KAOS in 3, K. Rool says "He was my ticket to world domination... and I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you meddling kids!"
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: There's one of these in practically every game. In DKC3, there are enemies in these areas called Skidda, who literally skid and slide around the area trying to run into you (though you yourself do not slide).
• The Smurfette Principle: Candy Kong is the only female Kong in the first game, and the closest thing to a female enemy being Queen B. Later games included a few more female characters, such as Dixie and Wrinkly in the second and third games (with Candy not appearing in those) and Tiny Kong in DK64. Even bird characters who could lay/spit eggs were male, if gender was specified at all. Ellie is the only female animal buddy in the whole series, if Donkey Kong Jungle Beat is ignored. Kass and Kalypso in Barrel Blastare the only female Kremlings to currently exist.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Ripsaw Rage from DKC3 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.
• Spelling Bonus: Though what they do varies form game to game, every game in the series grants some sort of bonus if you collect panels labeled K-O-N-G.
• Spikes of Doom: They aren't that common in the sprite-based games outside of a particular environment type in DKC 2, but for some reason Retro Studios saw fit to employ them en masse in Returns and Tropical Freeze. In Tropical Freeze in particular, Cranky Kong can use his cane to harmlessly off of them, and Funky Kong in the Switch release can safely land on top of them with his surfboard, but he won't be able to move except by jumping.
• The Spiny: Zingers and Buzzes. Beating them typically requires a thrown barrel, an animal ally, or invincibility.
  • Red Zingers and Buzzes are completely invulnerable except to TNT barrels or invincibility.
  • DKC2 has an enemy actually called Spiny, and it fits the trope, while DKC3 has an enemy called Bristles. The only way to kill them is to roll into them head on or just throw a barrel at them.
• Strange Secret Entrance: Some secret levels are accessed by unintuitively jumping down "bottomless" pits into off-screen barrel cannons.
• Super Drowning Skills: In Donkey Kong Land III, there is at least one section where the Kongs transform into Squitter and must travel through water-filled caves. Touching the water causes Squitter to lose one of his two hit points.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: Played straight in the N64 and in the Country/Land trilogy. The Kongs can stay underwater indefinitely without needing air. Averted in Donkey Kong Country Returns, where both Donkey and Diddy Kong drown the moment they fall into water. Also averted in the Gyrocopter missions in the GBA version of DKC2, which have an air meter.
• Super Title 64 Advance: In Japan, the series is called Super Donkey Kong.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Most enemies introduced in the original game don't appear in the two sequels, but have obvious analogues. In Donkey Kong 64, most of the original enemies from the first game returned, leaving their substitutes high and dry (Klobber and Kaboom from DKC2 also appeared, but they had no analogue in the first game).
• Tactical Suicide Boss: King K. Rool himself. You can only hurt him by jumping on his head. But he wears a spiked crown, so you can not jump on his head without hurting yourself. His main method of attack is to take off his crown and throw it at you.
• Tag Team: In the original trilogy, the Kongs can tag out if both are available. Averted in the Land trilogy due to limitations.
• Take That!:
  • "Where YOU gonna find it? NOT on Sega. NOT on 32X adaptors. NOT on CD-ROM. It's only for SUPER NES."invoked
  • In Donkey Kong Country 2, Cranky Kong opens a museum for (Nintendo) Video Game Heroes. Earthworm Jim's gun and ''Sonic the Hedgehog's shoes can be seen tossed next to a trash can with a sign that says "NO HOPERS" on it.
• Ten-Second Flashlight: Gleamin' Bream in the third game. Poking him with Enguarde will get him to light the area around him for a few seconds. Also applies to the barrels that temporarily lights up the screen in Glimmer's Galleon in Donkey Kong Land 2, as Glimmer does not appear in that game.
  • There's also both Stop And Go Station and Loopy Lights in the first, both featuring the Rock Krocs.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Except for Wrinkly Kong, the female Kongs have long blonde hair. And Dixie used to have pink toenails. Tiny Kong has both pink toenails and fingernails.
  • Of course you'd be forgetting that Candy has, and always had, a decent pair of, ahem, secondaries.
• Theme Naming: Damn near every species of Kremling has a name which includes "K", usually as the initial. The name sums up either its appearance or its behavior. Just a few of dozens of examples:
  • Kutlass wildly swings 2 long blades.
  • Klasp hangs from horizontal ropes or vines; Klinger climbs vertical ropes and chains.
  • Kloak wears a huge jacket that conceals his face when he attacks.
  • Kackle makes an evil laugh when one of your characters dies in his level.
  • Kopter drifts high and low with his blade-spinning.
  • Rekoil bounces very high, and very quickly.
  • Bazuka fires barrels across chasms; some as stepping stones, others as lethal obstacles, using a giant cannon.
  • Both Klobber and Knocka are strong enough to bump the Kongs off ledges!
  • Krackshot is (apparently) the enemy who shoots from offscreen in DKC3's level bearing his name.
  • Krusha, Kruncha, and Krumple are far too muscular to be harmed by certain basic attacks. If you forget, Krusha and Krumple will remind you with a mocking chuckle, while Kruncha will turn red with anger, roaring as he does and starts to walk faster.
• Title Confusion: Between the official soundtrack and the GBA version. Which one's "DK Island Swing" and which one's "Simian Segue"?
• Totally Radical: Funky, natch.
• Trademark Favorite Food: What else? Bananas!
• Tree Top Town: Two such levels in the first game, one of which is the Trope Namer.
• Tropical Island Adventure: All of the games in the series take place on tropical islands, except for DKC3. DKC1 and Returns are set on Donkey Kong Island with DK64 and Tropical Freeze also being set on it and the nearby islands, while DKC2 is set on Crocodile Island, the home of the Kremlings.
• Turns Red: Some of the bosses. Also the Kruncha enemies in DKC2, if you jump on them. They also get faster, but after a while they get back to their usual blue (or pink) tone.
• Underground Monkey: The GBA remake of the first game was particularly plagued with them, although they do show up elsewhere.
• Under the Sea: The coral reef levels in the first and third games, the ship hold and melting ice cavern levels in the second.
• Unique Enemy: Numerous times, especially in DKC3; see trope article for examples.
• Updated Re-release:
  • The trilogy for the SNES was remade for the Game Boy Advance with some additional content and some improved sound effects. The first one also was remade on the Game Boy Color with one new level.
  • Donkey Kong Country Returns received an updated version for the Nintendo 3DS, which contains more levels and a new easy mode, which (among other changes) gives the Kongs an extra heart and adds new items to Cranky's store.
• Video Game Flight: Squawks and Quawks lends wings to the Kongs in certain levels, which tend to be aerial mazes. Also, in Donkey Kong 64, Diddy Kong can fly with Rocketbarrels—a jetpack made out of barrels fueled by magical coconut-shaped crystals.
• Vile Vulture: Necky and Mini-Necky are vultures that serve as an Airborne Mook against the Kongs. Master Necky and Master Necky Snr. are bosses in the first game while Krow is a boss twice in Diddy's Kong Quest.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Queen B. from the first game, Kudgel from the second game, and Barbos from the third game. Kleever from the second game as the second boss in both Country and Land (where his name is misspelled as Kleaver) also fits.
• When I Was Your Age...: Cranky Kong, in spades. A typical criticism:
  Cranky: We never had any of this fancy 3D stuff in my day. Oh no, we had to survive on what we had! And what little we did have, we were happy with!
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Donkey Kong Island (and subsequently, its surroundings) is one good example of this. There are, however, some inversions:
  • An infamous one in the DKC cartoon, where the island is assumed to be located east of Australia, as shown in a globe in Cranky's hut.
  • The German Club Nintendo comic "Donkey Kong in: Banana Day 24", which implies that the Kongs live in continental Africa.
• Wicked Wasps: The Zinger enemies in the first two Country games. In DKC3, they are replaced with the Buzzes, who are also part Mecha-Mook.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: Everything related to the Kremlings replaces any hard C with a K, à la Mortal Kombat. Also appears in the form of including "krem" in other words, such as in the name of DKC3's hidden final area, the inactive volcano Krematoa. Completing its 5 levels forces the appearance of the Optional Boss in his docked submarine, the Knautilus!.
• You Wouldn't Hit a Guy with Glasses: In the standard ending of 3, Cranky 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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Cranky Kong: You kids have it easy with all these wikis and trope catalogs! Back in my day, if you wanted to find out information about your favorite video games, you'd have to wait every month for gaming magazines to come in the mail to read developer interviews and trivia collections. And by golly, we'd never develop any of these silly editing addictions back then!

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