Distinguished thinkers and illuminated minds of the ERA High Council of Halloween:
With the recent addition of Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest to Nintendo Switch Online, and in such close proximity to October, it occurred to me that this game is, in fact, a Halloween title, and should be celebrated as such during this spookiest of months.
In this game, the Kremlings have decided to cosplay as pirates. Think back to all of the pirate costumes you've seen at Halloween. It's a staple item wherever you find stores selling costumes, and it always has been, long before Jack Sparrow was a thing.
Here, the Kremlings have gotten into the Halloween spirit. The fact they're also crocodilian monsters makes this extra Halloween-y.
Now check out Crocodile Isle. What a foul place, with its gnarled dead trees and monster Mount Rushmore, rising from oily black water under a ghastly green sky!
Your adventure begins offshore, on a pirate galleon that is hardly airtight. The deck is crawling with rats, the hold is flooded with flesh-eating fish, and you ride a rattlesnake up rain-lashed riggings during a storm. Atop the highest mast you find a wicked vulture who, upon being slain, will later return as a vengeful spirit. But more on that in a moment!
Once you reach the island proper, you explore a hellish volcano that ends with a battle against a giant cutlass, possessed by an evil spirit, with a literal skull 'n crossbones at the hilt. Along the way you meet a googly-eyed spider that would blend in with the lawn decor of any Halloween-happy household:
Then you proceed to a swampland shipwreck cemetery, followed by a dilapidated amusement park at night — the sort of place you would call home if you were a a killer clown or a curse-happy fortune teller.
The rollercoaster carts even look like this!
Oh, and there are monstrous bees here! BEES!
Should you survive, you climb higher up the mountain, arriving in Gloomy Gulch — a place that drops any pretense of DKC2 not being the perfect Halloween game.
Deep within Gloomy Gulch is a haunted mansion where you're pursued mercilessly by this foul specter:
And before you can leave Gloomy Gulch, you must first exorcise past demons:
You go through all of that trouble, only to reach K. Rool's Keep — a deep, dark dungeon full of crushing walls, acid traps and other implements of torture:
In the end, you confront Kaptain K. Rool aboard the Flying Kroc, high in the foul green sky. He tumbles down Crocodile Isle into the ocean, where he is torn apart in a feeding frenzy of sharks.
But wipe away those crocodile tears, for he returns in spectral form in the Lost World. Here, you lay his spirit to rest for good, like the best Halloween flicks.
(Well, until he returns as Baron K. Roolenstein in DKC3, presumably resurrected by mad science. And don't tell me they're different dudes!)
The punctuation mark on your epic adventure is the sinking of Crocodile Isle, a place so irredeemably evil it now rots at the bottom of the sea.
So, what say you? Shall we recognize this as a fine Halloween title to play alongside our Amnesias and Luigi's Mansion 3s?
I shall close out with some sPoOkY music:
With the recent addition of Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest to Nintendo Switch Online, and in such close proximity to October, it occurred to me that this game is, in fact, a Halloween title, and should be celebrated as such during this spookiest of months.
In this game, the Kremlings have decided to cosplay as pirates. Think back to all of the pirate costumes you've seen at Halloween. It's a staple item wherever you find stores selling costumes, and it always has been, long before Jack Sparrow was a thing.
Here, the Kremlings have gotten into the Halloween spirit. The fact they're also crocodilian monsters makes this extra Halloween-y.
Now check out Crocodile Isle. What a foul place, with its gnarled dead trees and monster Mount Rushmore, rising from oily black water under a ghastly green sky!
Your adventure begins offshore, on a pirate galleon that is hardly airtight. The deck is crawling with rats, the hold is flooded with flesh-eating fish, and you ride a rattlesnake up rain-lashed riggings during a storm. Atop the highest mast you find a wicked vulture who, upon being slain, will later return as a vengeful spirit. But more on that in a moment!
Once you reach the island proper, you explore a hellish volcano that ends with a battle against a giant cutlass, possessed by an evil spirit, with a literal skull 'n crossbones at the hilt. Along the way you meet a googly-eyed spider that would blend in with the lawn decor of any Halloween-happy household:
Then you proceed to a swampland shipwreck cemetery, followed by a dilapidated amusement park at night — the sort of place you would call home if you were a a killer clown or a curse-happy fortune teller.
The rollercoaster carts even look like this!
Oh, and there are monstrous bees here! BEES!
Should you survive, you climb higher up the mountain, arriving in Gloomy Gulch — a place that drops any pretense of DKC2 not being the perfect Halloween game.
Deep within Gloomy Gulch is a haunted mansion where you're pursued mercilessly by this foul specter:
And before you can leave Gloomy Gulch, you must first exorcise past demons:
You go through all of that trouble, only to reach K. Rool's Keep — a deep, dark dungeon full of crushing walls, acid traps and other implements of torture:
In the end, you confront Kaptain K. Rool aboard the Flying Kroc, high in the foul green sky. He tumbles down Crocodile Isle into the ocean, where he is torn apart in a feeding frenzy of sharks.
But wipe away those crocodile tears, for he returns in spectral form in the Lost World. Here, you lay his spirit to rest for good, like the best Halloween flicks.
(Well, until he returns as Baron K. Roolenstein in DKC3, presumably resurrected by mad science. And don't tell me they're different dudes!)
The punctuation mark on your epic adventure is the sinking of Crocodile Isle, a place so irredeemably evil it now rots at the bottom of the sea.
So, what say you? Shall we recognize this as a fine Halloween title to play alongside our Amnesias and Luigi's Mansion 3s?
I shall close out with some sPoOkY music:
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