Something old, something new...

Game Info.

Genre Action (side-scroller)

Publisher/Developer Nintendo

Release 3/14/05

Let's face it, while Donkey Konga is a very fun game to have at parties, and I'm sure the expansions will be just as good, buying more than one Konga controller at $30 each for just one game is asking a bit much. Luckily, Nintendo's rarely a company that likes to screw over its customers. Jungle Beat was announced at last year's E3 as a totally new kind of game in which you would platform with a Konga controller. Screenshots made no sense. Videos really didn't help. This is such a unique experience, only those lucky (and old) enough to be on the E3 floor could tell us how much fun this concept could actually turn out to be.
10 months later and BOOM - America has Jungle Beat. I knew I'd pick it up when I got Donkey Konga last Fall - I don't like to have big pieces of plastic sitting around my house that I can only make use of when I want to play one specific game (hmm, kinda' like the DS in its first 3 months). What I didn't know was whether or not that extra little game would prove to play intuitively, look great, and keep me entertained until a Konga expansion came out, and later. All that is being revealed right here.

Gameplay
The game plays as follows. You're Donkey Kong in a jungle and you want bananas. These bananas are scattered throughout kingdoms named after different types of fruit. Each kingdom has two distinct levels that are usually quite unlike eachother and a final boss stage designed only to lower your banana score. If you make it through a kingdom, you get a bronze crest. If you beat it with 400, 800, or 1200 bananas, you get a silver, gold, or platinum crest (respectively). If another platforming experience based mainly around collecting isn't your thing (whose would it be after decades of Mario, Sonic, Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, and Super Monkey Ball?), you'll be pleasantly surprised when you get your hands on Jungle Beat's combo system. Stay jumping from one thing to another, flying through the air on spring action, animals' backs, and flying trapeeze, and each link you make, you'll earn another combo point. Landing or getting hit by an enemy will reset this number to zero. However many bananas you collect whilst performing a combo seems to increase by the factor of your combo score. For instance, if you were just awesome enough to pull off a 16-point combo, each single banana would give you 16 bananas, and a bunch would give you 48. That's what makes earning crests, which allow you to progress further in the game, so much fun. Combos are simply outrageous, and each level is designed based on that fact.
9/10

Control
What sets Jungle Beat apart from any other platformer is its wholly unorthodox controls. This game could've easily been a cheap throwback to the good ol' Donkey Kong Country games, but instead, Nintendo decided to give players something completely different and brand new. You control Donkey Kong using the Konga controller from Donkey Konga. Beating the right Konga moves DK to the right, beating the left moves him to the left, beating both makes him jump, and clapping makes him clap, activating all sorts of things in the game (clapping also kills most small enemies). Contrary to what I expected going into this, the simplicity of the control scheme isn't a burden on the game. There are still loads of interesting moves DK can perform - moreso than in Donkey Kong Country, really. No longer is Mario's patented criss-crossing wall jump Mario's alone - DK can do the same in this game, and it's actually very fun using the Kongas for this. Also like Mario, DK can now back-flip and attack in the air. And somewhat as in the Country games, there are a few animals you need to ride on to progress, and these are fun to play with. Lastly, DK can swim, but this feels a lot less intuitive than the other moves he employs and could've used some heavy tweaking before the game's release.
Like many context-sensitive features in games, clapping in DK Jungle Beat takes a while to get used to. It's used way more than you'd think going into it. But past the second or third kingdom, I found myself figuring things out almost by instinct. Nintendo's various developers always seem to be exceptionally skilled in making their games' controls fit like a glove, even if the glove can be somewhat hard to put on at first.
The 1/4 of the boss battles that are set against martial artist gorillas have their own unique control scheme. The left and right Kongas make DK punch with either his left or right fist and clapping makes him dodge an attack. Like the Nintendo classic, Punch-Out, DK needs to dodge in order to land a hit, and some enemies require you to perform a series of successful dodges and counter-hits in order to land a hit. These battles are again something very new and exciting for games, and I'm really glad Nintendo put them in.
One issue I have with the controls is that the game really doesn't offer an introduction to certain moves like the backflip. It'd be nice if you felt comfortable with everything Donkey can do before you're thrown into the thick of the jungle.
8/10

Graphics
I have an older brother. He doesn't like console games much anymore, so when he saw me play Jungle Beat, it was basically through the eyes of an SNES gamer. His positive comments made me realize that this game is actually a very nice looking platformer. I don't think most console gamers today would even notice the quality of graphics like these. Frankly, we're spoiled. As you can see in this screenshot (click to enlarge), the backgrounds are well detailed and uniquely designed, the character models are close to perfectly well-rounded, and DK's fur looks fantastic (that you can't really see there, though). The animation's mostly standard fare, but DK and some boss characers are very fun to watch. The textures can be great in some places and appalling in others, oddly enough. But the framerate quite literally never dips. Not even the almighty Wind Waker could pull that off.
8/10

Sound
The music is good, but lacks a certain polish we come to expect from Nintendo games. It all sounds a little typical, if you know what I mean. The variety of Donkey's vocalizations is perhaps a bit limited, and the enemies basically all make the same sounds.
7/10

Replay Value
As I've said about Pikmin, Luigi's Mansion, and Katamari Damacy, short games simply DO NOT bother me. Of course I'd rather a game be somewhat long, as long as it remains entertaining (Zelda games, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, et al), but a short game can be good if you feel like you wanna' keep coming back to it. Even though I thought Super Mario Sunshine was a better game for different reasons, I've probably put more hours into replaying Luigi's Mansion just because I feel like I can without committing to it. Katamari Damacy is so short you can beat the main game in an afternoon, but I've spent over 70 hours of my time going back to it and replaying old levels to get new high scores and unlock more Katamari crap. That's precisely how Jungle Beat feels. You're gonna' wanna' show it to your friends because it's oh-so-unique, so you pick a level that's interesting and take it for a spin. You can probably beat the level before they get bored, and then you can let them play, which also won't take too long. And yet, it's still a complete adventure game with as much variety as many with twice as many levels.
The main flaw in Jungle Beat's replay value is it really doesn't even try to have a story. Unlike Donkey Kong Country, Jungle Beat doesn't even play on the "uh-oh, DK's bananas were stolen!" premise. It simply lacks a story. I'm not asking for anything epic or tear-jerking. Even Katamari Damacy gave us those cracked-out cinema sequences to explain why you're rolling around a ball that everything sticks to. So while it may sound kinda' nit-picky, pick up the game for yourself - there's definitely something missing without some sort of motivation for travelling across the world in search of bananas and bad guys to beat the crap out of.
8/10

Overall
I've unlocked and played all the secret levels in Jungle Beat, and when all is said and done, I find it a wholly satisfying and alluring game experience. Reviewers, myself included, have a tendency to feel like a new game isn't quite as "full" or "together" as a classic, but while I doubt many people will refer to DKJB as a "classic" someday, I'm here to say maybe it should be. I know what you're thinking - you've already looked at the final score and I didn't give it a 9 (my highest score), so how can I be talking about how great this game is? It's because what I'm talking about is not just the quality of the game, it's the way in which it stands out and probably will always stand out - there can never really be a rip-off of Jungle Beat. The things that make it unique also make it very fun, so if only for that reason, it's a great game.
Which brings me to my next point. While the game doesn't "innovate" in the sense that future games will necessarily use electronic bongo drums because Jungle Beat introduced it, it does serve as another great example of where Nintendo's willing to innovate and others simply aren't. The Eye Toy is probably the only non-Nintendo new gameplay interface that I would consider even remotely as unique and exciting as the DS touchpad and microphone, the GBA-GCN controller link-up, and Konga beating fun. Not to suggest that these offer obviously better gameplay experiences - that all depends on how the games use them. But I think even Halo fans would agree, if they really searched deep inside themselves, that another 4 or 5 years of more of the same in our video games is gonna' suck hardcore. We need variety. It's just a fact. Thank god there's a Nintendo out there willing to commit to breaking the rules.

FINAL SCORE: 8/10
=Great=
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