Donkey Kong Land
Image: Rare

[Important: The trailer for the remake features "flashing colours and images". Please bear that in mind before playing the video.]


I have a bit of a confession to make. Growing up, I assumed for the longest time that Donkey Kong Land was a straightforward demake of the SNES classic Donkey Kong Country for the Game Boy.

There was some method behind my ignorance. By the time I actually learned about the Donkey Kong Land games, I already had a copy of Donkey Kong Country on the Game Boy Advance, which was essentially a straightforward recreation, and I just assumed the same applied to the former.

It was only later, upon seeing YouTube videos of it in action, that I realised my mistake and went back to play the missing chapters, finally experiencing the new storyline, levels, and bosses.

If you're wondering why I'm bringing this all up now, well, it has something to do with a new fan project that recently broke containment (see: gonintendo, social media, YouTube, etc.): a SNES-style remake of Donkey Kong Land for the PC, released over the weekend.

Donkey Kong Land Remake is pitched as a fan-made recreation of the original Donkey Kong Land, but with looks, sound and controls in the style of Donkey Kong Country. In other words, you get all the same unique worlds like Gangplank Galleon Ahoy!, Kremlantis and Big Ape City, but with graphics and sound more akin to its 16-bit relative.

It was announced via a video on the developer Kazquez's YouTube channel and is said to feature 30+ full-sized levels to play through, with each said to contain "lots of secrets to uncover."

Here's a video on how to set it up and get everything configured, if you want to try it out for yourself.

For comparison, here's what the game used to look like:

[source youtu.be, via gonintendo.com]