Playing Donkey Kong Country online: A brief character guide

For the purpose of any readers coming to the Donkey Kong franchise with fresh eyes, here is a small reference guide for some of the most memorable characters in the Kong universe. I have only included those who appear in the original Donkey Kong Country, as the Kong family tree has continued to grow bigger with each installment, reaching a ridiculous point with that bloated fart that is Donkey Kong 64. But that is another story!

Here are our main guys:

Cranky Kong

Donkey Kong’s grandad and the Kong originale. He is the chimp Mario battled in the first DK arcade game, so long ago that he has now become a pensioner who idles his old age away musing about the terrible state of current video games and berating the new generations for not being as skilled and competent as his.

You encounter him in every world but he is not the most helpful of chaps as he just provides very general hints about the bonus stages in the game. He is, however, absolutely hilarious in his relentless disdain about everything and everyone and by far my favourite character.

You can tell Rareware had a lot of fun writing him, as they even made him pop up in the instruction booklet taking the piss out of everything (British humour ♥). Some selected quotes:

and my personal favourite:

How can you not love this guy.

Donkey Kong

The star of the show and a surprisingly underwritten character. He does not talk throughout the game so we have to rely on his grunts and mannerisms to give him a personality. I would say something close to “big enthusiastic baby easily prone to disappointment” based on that (love him).

I do not think Rare has given him an official age but considering Cranky is his grandad and he battled Mario in 1981… he is probably quite young, despite appearances. Rememeber, he hangs out with Diddy, who behaves like a 13 year spoilt brat at times, so he cannot be much older (am I giving this too much thought?).

Donkey is the bigger, stronger part of team Kong, but also slightly slower and not as responsive as Diddy. True to his name, he stupidly carries barrels over his head, making it more difficult to aim and hit enemies / open secret doors with him. The character choice for Donkey Kong Country experts (that would be moi).

Diddy Kong

Just look at him. So much swagger. Diddy Kong is apparently Donkey Kong’s nephew even though they look like monkeys from DIFFERENT SPECIES (he has a tail for a start). I do not have a gay agenda but this smells like another Mario and Luigi cover up… just saying. These two look particularly chummy, especially after watching their bizarrely flirtatious mock punch-up in the end credits of the game. Maybe they are the original bros…

In any case, Diddy is smaller, faster and generally perkier than Donkey. He also lifts barrels in front of his face rather than over his head like a certain silly ape, so he comes in handy in many stages. Diddy was an original creation for Donkey Kong Country and Rare hit the jackpot with him, as he clearly connected with the audiences enough to star in his own Mario Kart clone called Diddy Kong Racing. Love the little guy.

Funky Kong

Another example of the maelstrom of bad taste that were the 90’s, Funky is Donkey Kong’s permanently stoned chilled-out relative who enjoys a surfing board too much and has a penchant for words like ‘dude’ and ‘yo guys!’. He wears a bandana, sunglasses, flip-flops and a gold chain. This is what passed for cool twenty years ago, kids.

Funky’s only redeeming feature (besides helping Donkey and Diddy out by allowing them to revisit past worlds) is a completely deranged and frankly catchy as herpes theme tune that plays whenever you enter his cabin. Chimp up!

Candy Kong

Donkey Kong’s love interest in the game is a textbook example of ‘furry fantasy’. If you are innocent enough to have been spared the knowledge of what the furry subculture is until now, I suggest this sanitised BBC article or alternatively Google it at your own peril. Essentially she is a monkey with exaggerated human-like features shoehorned in the game to titillate players with her blond hair, pink swimsuit and massive knockers. They also added a ribbon in case all the fur made it unclear what gender she belonged to.

She is actually so embarrassing Rare wisely erased any trace of the character from the two SNES sequels and handed over her saving duties to Cranky’s wife Wrinkly. They also made up for this crime against feminism by adding a playable female character in Donkey Kong Country 2 that actually was kind of cool and not a walking stereotype (guitar-wielding Dixie Kong). A victory for womankind.

The Kremlings

The adventures of the Kong Klan (kan’t help it) would not be the same without a mention of their sworn enemies, the evil Kremlings, led by mega lizard King K. Rool.

The original DKC instruction booklet sheds some light on the reasons why this health-conscious race of antropomorphic crocodiles chose to steal Donkey’s banana hoard: “[It] was the largest on the island, and probably in the world. A treasure in potassium and vitamin A, the perfect food”.

[God I miss the days of a good instruction booklet. DKC’s not only devotes FOUR pages to this silly introduction written in a flawless fairytale style, it also has a Cranky Kong speech bubble at the bottom of the last page wisecracking “You’re only reading this because you’re bored”. I. LOVE. HIM.]

The Kremlings are not alone in their fight against the Kong Klan – for some unexplained reason, the majority of the other inhabitants of Donkey Kong island are out to get them too. As the list of enemies is long, Aldara and I have compiled a little list with some of our favourites so you can get a taste of the wonderfully weird world of Donkey Kong, where inhabitants from your namesake island are out there to murder you.

Army the Armadillo

Our #1 choice for most memorable enemy in the whole game. This guy is fucking terrifying, annoying and relentless. Just look at his completely evil face! In the words of Aldara: “he is fatally attracted to Donkey and Diddy, but Diddy (me) gets the short end of the stick here because he has to jump twice on top of him to kill him. I can’t remember the amount of lives we lost to him”. I calculate something in the region of 150.

 

Zinger

One of the most iconic enemies to come out of the Donkey Kong Country reboot, Zingers are wasp-like creatures who can kill our chimps instantly. They come in a variety of colours and the only way to get rid of them is by slamming a barrel on their ugly faces or with a little help from Donkey’s animal friends (unless they are red Zingers, in which case you are screwed as they are completely invincible). Zingers are annoying as hell, especially when they tirelessly hover around blast barrels. But their relentless buzzing is the reason I love them: like the static radio sounds in Silent Hill, when you hear Zinger’s hissing you know there is trouble ahead.

Gnawty

Yes, even beavers want Donkey Kong dead! Gnawty is DKC’s version of Super Mario’s Goomba, the standard generic baddie that does very little besides roaming the stage gormlessly (Aldara thinks he is “cute”, which I guess he is for a distant relative of the common rat).

Don’t be completely fooled by appearances though, as Gnawty becomes the epitome of vileness in world 3 stage Temple Tempest, where he hops on a gigantic wooden wheel and chases Donkey and Diddy around the course, in what Aldara describes as “the ultimate moment of tension in the whole game”. As with the Zingers, it is the incessant ‘tap, tap, tap’ noise they make while they ride the wheel that makes the whole experience extremely unnerving.

Tighten your sweet cheeks

Mini-Necky

Lovingly nicknamed ‘Nueces’ (Nuts) by Aldara after the projectiles he spits from his mouth, this little guy can be the bane of Donkey’s life, but stomping consecutively on three or four Mini-Necky’s heads without hitting the floor can be one of the most pleasant experiences in the game (they make a really gutural sound as they die). Unlike fully-grown Neckies, they do not fly around the stage, although by the time they turn up in DKC2 (draped in the cutest of all pirate bandanas) they have learnt how to skydive after Diddy and Dixie.

 

Klaptrap

A personal favourite (with that name, they were bound to win me over instantly). Klaptraps can only be described as the less-evolved version of a Kremling since they are the only ones of the breed that resemble actual crocodiles the most. Nerd historians may even trace their origins further back and suggest Rareware was likely to be inspired by the Snapjaws in the 1982 arcade Donkey Kong Jr.

In any case, they are a brilliant addition to the enemy roster, not only because of the awesome sound effect that plays when they finally get their jaws onto one of our brave monkeys (honestly, you can hear the flesh tearing), but also because they require a bit of lateral thinking to be beaten: they are immune to Donkey’s roll and Diddy’s cartwheel and can only be killed by stomping on their heads, so naturally they tend to gravitate towards the most awkward places where you can jump in every stage, ensuring primate death by a thousand fangs.

 

Manky Kong

Manky is the only monkey enemy in Donkey Kong Country. He even shares the Kong surname with the rest of the gang, so there must have been some serious beef between him and the other Kongs that resulted in his switching of sides. He is used sparsely throughout the game, but his attack pattern is conspicuously familiar (lumbering rolling barrels from far away towards Donkey and Diddy… now where have I seen that before, eh?).

In my mind, Manky is the captive member of the Kong family who spent years trapped in a basement after being born with some abominable ape deformity, but managed to escape and swore revenge on his clan by siding with the Kremlings, turning uglier and uglier as his soul became blacker and blacker. That is why I love him (and probably why he never appears in any other Donkey Kong Country game ever again).