With Donkey Kong Country and its pre-rendered 3D taking the world by storm during 1994's holiday season, it was only natural developer Rare would get to work on a sequel, this time starring Donkey Kong's breakout sidekick: Diddy Kong. Fittingly, the game was dubbed Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, a notorious pun that slipped by young gamers and resulted in shock and awe upon sudden realization years later. Having been one of these unfortunate children, it's never ceased in irking the hell out of me, so perhaps we should not call attention to it at all? Yes, that's what we'll do.
Anyway, Donkey Kong Country 2 is often lauded as the apex of not just the Donkey Kong name but of 16-bit platforming and the Super Nintendo console, cited alongside the likes of Super Mario World and Sonic 3 & Knuckles as being the very finest the genre and/or console has to offer. This claim is not without merit: the level design is no longer basic and constructs itself around depth rather than just cheap thrills, the setting breaks free of ordinary tropes and plunges headfirst into full-on creativity, and David Wise's music is as delicious as ever, if not more so. No longer was Rare's re-imagining of Nintendo's first true gaming star a freshman effort, but a full-fledged video game that vindicated the British game developer's rise into stardom.
