Have you ever played Donkey Kong Country and thought ‘This mine cart level could be a bit harder, I’m having too much of an easy time here?’ No, no one has, because that level is hard as nails. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve got to the end of it and realised that I haven’t breathed for the entire level, and then I wonder why I’m always so tense. Still, if you’re the kind of person who automatically plays every game on the hardest setting to give yourself the ultimate challenge, then there are three new ROM hacks to celebrate 30 years of Donkey Kong Country that ramp up the difficulty all the way past 11.
I know that’s an odd concept, celebrating a massive milestone by making things much harder for yourself, but hey, I guess we all need to test ourselves to build character every now and again, right? The ROM hacks come from RainbowSprinkelz, a name that you might remember from our article on the DKC hack that removes DK and adds Mario in his place. Essentially, they’ve made one ROM hack ramping up the difficulty for every 10 years that we’ve had Donkey Kong Country in our lives.
So what are these three new difficulty settings?
- Challenge Edition takes away all of the DK Barrels to bring back Donkey or Diddy when they are defeated by an enemy, and it removes all of the level-skipping Warp Barrels
- Expert Edition moves the features above and gets rid of Star Barrel checkpoints
- Hero Edition does all of the above and takes away Donkey Kong as a main character, so you can only play as Diddy!
Honestly, I think the game is hard enough as it is and I would definitely not have made it to Candy Kong’s save point on the Switch the last time I played if it wasn’t for the save state option. I’m out of practice, I know, which means I would definitely fail if I only had Diddy to play with! Head to Rainbow Sprinklez YouTube channel to find out more about their work and to find links to their Discord and projects!
What do you think about these new difficulty levels? Will you be putting in some practice before you head to Donkey Kong Country at Super Nintendo World this December? Let us know in the comments!
