Donkey Konga 2 Review

Donkey Konga 2 offers the same gameplay you have on the 1st Donkey Konga. You hit the left bongo when you see the yellow circle, you hit the right bongo when the red circle appears and when you see the pinky purple circle you hit both bongos. You can also clap when you see a white spiky circle in which the sensor detects your clap very well. You will also have a drum roll when you see any circle and a long line of the same color of the circle that means that you have to keep hitting the drum until the line is over. When doing rolls with pinky circle you can hit both bongos together a lot or you can alternate between the two. Donkey Konga 2 offers a lot of modes one of them is the street performance where you must clear all the songs and the better you do the more money you will get to buy the same songs but more difficult in the gorilla difficulty (hard), new sound sets for the bongos or money to play minigames.

The songs are more difficult this time even in you put it on the easiest mode which is monkey but is good because they offer at least enough challenge. You have 3 modes of difficulty monkey (easy), chimp (normal), Gorilla (hard). But what is a cool addition to this mode is the beat-mix where you can play the same songs but the beats get shuffled around and every time you play it the notes will change making a re-mix. There is the phonograph Gauge that shows you how good your going there is going to be a time where it’s going to show you the word clear that means that you are clearing the song but do not stop or else the gauge will go down and you won’t clear the level if the gauge gets complete that means you perfectly finish the song. You will see words when you hit a beat it will say great, good or bad if you miss it won’t say anything but you will lose some phonograph gauge.

Another mode is called challenge where you must clear a set of 6 or 12 songs without stopping this time the gauge will be complete but each time you do a beat wrong or bad you will lose part of it you must keep it in the clear area so you can clear the set each time you clear one song the gauge will grow up a bit but if you fail you will just see the words o, no. The other mode is battle where you compete against another player with no money or gauge is all about points on this battle you will find a pow block that if you hit it (doesn’t matter which bongo you hit or if you clap) your opponent should lose points. If you get the word great it will make your opponent lose all of his points down to 0. There are also the slots of the legend of Zelda the wind waker that can give you some points in which a beat will have the word stop that means if you hit that beat you will stop the slot. Then there is the concert where 4 players can work together and make the songs sound better. You can share the bongos where a player hits them and the other one claps.

Then there is the music lab mode where you play 2 mini-games. One of the minigames and the crappiest is the rhythm keeper where you must keep the same rhythm that Cranky Kong shows you is crappy because it feels too possible to remember how exactly was the rhythm. Then there is the other minigames which is actually a lot of fun is the barrel race where you’re going to have lots of beats falling down and you have to hit the bongos or clap fast because you are competing against another person to see who can finish all the beats the fastest. You will have short, medium and long races is pretty fun and if you do very good you will have a match that badge which is finding the same picture of the same character to win that badge those badges are use for the scores instead of putting your name for best of that song you instead have those badges which are pretty cool because you have Mario, link sadly tingle too, Fox, friends of Donkey Kong and even pikmin is there as well.

Then there is the dumbest mode ever created that should never exist is the freestyle zone mode. Is simple you can put any music and go to any background you want you are just simply hitting the bongos or clapping crazy making your own rhythm pictures of donkey Kong characters will appear when your hitting or clapping is dumb because there is nothing really to do no point is pretty much just waste your time there or hit the bongos strong when your mad to see if it calms you that’s the only thing I find useful for it. Now finally the last mode of Donkey Konga 2 is the shopping mall no there is no videogame store there is just to buy songs in the gorilla difficulty and the sound sets for your bongos with the money you earn at the street performance. If you look at it even If the game has so many modes only the street performance is like the single player stuff what I just don’t like it’s that they don’t have a reason for you doing this songs just for fun. While Donkey Konga 2 offers totally new songs and more than the last game there are just not many songs you will like to replay or that you could say wow I love it.

Donkey Konga 2 offers a lot of improvements here this time you have 3-d backgrounds that is like a camera going through all this places like a town, where bees get their honey, a forest, snow town and more that was pretty cool. The menu is now more satisfying and has some more colors and is control better than the original game. Aside from that there is nothing else you can find on Donkey Konga 2. Is just like any other rhythm game with just backgrounds. This is not really important because you are most of the time looking at the beats o and by the way beats are the notes in the game. Great improvements make this one a good looking one.

The song selection on Donkey Konga 2 is pretty decent but none of these songs are really great enough to make you play them again that much. Some sound similar to others and some also sound a bit too soft or should I say silent. You will have lots of different types of songs which are: rock, pop, hip hop, R&B, Reggae only one tough, Latin only one too, game which is the theme song of Donkey Konga 2, classical, dance and electronic. You will have all the sound sets that where use on the 1st Donkey Konga along with the new ones at the shopping mall for you to buy. Some songs when you do them with the bongos don’t really sound like the song and some do but I felt more the rhythm on the 1st Donkey Konga then on this one and the 1st one actually had better songs, is also not fun to have one song of a special music category.

 

The controls are pretty simple as previous said yellow circle left bongo, red circle right bongo, pinky circle both bongos and spiky circle clap. The clapping sensor can feel clunky at 1st but you can fix that on the options menu. But the game is sometimes not responsive but is rare to happen. It is also difficult when you’re having so many notes at the same time making it impossible to do. But is easy to get into and not hard to do there is nothing else of controls.

When your playing alone the game is not that much replayable after a while simply because there is not a good enough mode that is not the street performance that can be quite fun and the songs are not really that great. The multiplayer is once again fun teaming up with other players and doing a concert. The battle mode is actually pretty cool too with the slots and stealing points with the POW. The only good minigames that offers quite replay is the barrel race which is doing all the beats 1st then your opponent. But freestyle is not fun even in the 1st time you play is not at all. They just need to work on their song list they need a lot of cool songs that are very replayable.

Donkey Konga 2 offers more to his prequel but in the end they are not enough big changes and the song list is not better than his prequel. Donkey Konga 2 is more of just a rent to play those songs or do just like me sell the 1st game and get this one since both are pretty much the same stuff. If you did not like the 1st Donkey Konga then there is no reason for you to play this one.

Gameplay 7/10
Graphics 8/10
Sound 7/10
Value 6/10
Tilt 7/10

Overall 7 out of 10